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The game is still unformed, and the students are just thinking about getting back to classes and even the fans aren't yet back from the holiday distractions. Basketball in January is better than basketball in December, but that's about it.

Even in the best conference in the country, where title banners hang from rafters and ghosts dwell in the attics, this is hardly the time of year to be making judgment calls. The best games have yet to be played, the best players yet to emerge. This is the time just to sit back and wait for it all to happen.

But that's no fun at all. This is the time when ACC fans all over start making noise, not about beating Presbyterian, but about winning the national title. That's a lot easier to talk about in January than March, when you have to back it up. Also, that's about the time we're reminded that there are actually two national titles, the one Duke and Carolina seem to play for every year and the one Dave Odom used to win every year.

Suffice it to say, as we sit here in January, there are a lot more teams in the ACC capable of winning the latter -- the NIT. From this distant vantage point, it appears that only Duke and Carolina will make a run at the big one this season, and a lot of Duke fans are already conceding that their Blue Devils might be a year away.

Carolina, on the other hand, looks to be about three months away from playing for the NCAA championship. The deep and talented Tar Heels are without weakness, though Roy Williams would never admit it.

Oh, sure, they would love to get more consistency out of the sophomore tandem inside and would love to get more from their shooting guards, but the Heels are so fast it might not even matter. Wayne Ellington is becoming the guy we had been hearing about the past couple of years, and if he continues to improve he could carry Carolina to an undefeated season.

Yes, they're that good. Duke has already lost, which is a good thing because the Blue Devils were never going to go undefeated and didn't need the burden of being undefeated on Feb. 6, when the blood rivalry is resumed with North Carolina.

Duke is a beautiful team to watch, fluid and confident at both ends of the floor and without the bruising quality of most great teams. Duke has no bruisers, and that might ultimately be its downfall. Still, no one doubts that if Carolina is going to lose this season, Duke is the likely opponent.

With the emergence of DeMarcus Nelson as a go-to slasher, the Blue Devils are playing as well as any team in the country. And with 7-foot-1 Brian Zoubek coming off the bench, Duke has the ability to transform itself. Almost no other team in America can do that.

Around the conference, there are surprises and out- and-out shocking developments. Miami has been a nice surprise with Jack McClinton firing at will and bringing his team along with him. N.C. State has been an out-and-out flop with no one bringing the Wolfpack along. Dissension and uninspired play, something Sidney Lowe simply must rectify in the coming weeks, have thwarted the team's early development. Look for State to get back its swagger and emerge as the conference's third-best team, but the Pack has to do it in January or it probably will be too late.

Swagger is about all the rest of the conference has right now. Though several schools can count on invitations to the NCAA tournament in March, most are flawed in ways that likely will reduce their NCAA experiences to one weekend. Virginia, Boston College, Clemson and maybe Florida State will make a run at an NCAA bid, and Wake Forest could become the surprise of the league. But as of now, the Deacs are young and coltish and in need of someone who can take over a game. In time, that will be the marvelously talented James Joseph, but he's only a freshman.

The freshman corps at Maryland apparently contains no one who can take over anytime soon. The reeling Terps are falling into a dangerous trap. They aren't playing well, and the conference schedule is upon them. Virginia Tech is in the same situation, presumably with more talent. Georgia Tech is in deep trouble.

The depth of the top teams will determine how far they go this season. Carolina already is being tested at point guard, where Bobby Frasor has been lost for the season and Quentin Thomas is hobbled. Ellington could yet play the point if need be. He's that good.

What's already clear, the first week in January, is that the conference is good, too. It might be too early to tell just how good, but if the top team is the best team in the country and the next-best team in the conference is Duke, then this will be a pretty good season for the ACC. Of course, in the first week of January, that's pretty easy to say.

December was hard to sit through. We've yet to see a good game. Sure, there were some close games, and some have described Duke's last-second loss to Pitt as a great game, but it wasn't. It was just a close game.

January is the month we see unformed teams become good and the bad teams become unformed. The season doesn't even start until Feb. 6, but it will be too late by then for some.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com