When No. 3 North Carolina visits No. 4 Wake Forest tonight both teams will be bringing in two impressive winning streaks.
Wake Forest are one of three unbeaten teams left in the nation (Pittsburgh and Clemson are the others). They have won their 13 games this season by an average of 21.1 points per game. However, the Demon Deacons' most impressive win was their last one that came eight days ago; a seven-point win against BYU that broke the Cougars' 53-game home winning streak.
North Carolina brings in a 15-game road winning streak. The Tar Heels haven't lost a true road game since losing at Georgia Tech on March 1, 2007. In that span, their only losses away from Chapel Hill was to Georgetown in the 2007 NCAA Tournament Regional Finals and to Kansas in last year's Final Four. The senior class of Tyler Hansbrough, Danny Green, Bobby Frasor and Marcus Ginyard are 29-6 on the road during their careers -- including 2-0 at Wake Forest.
Forget the streaks. This game has its own merit without both teams coming in with impressive numbers. For Wake Forest, a win would validate their arrival back to the elite class of ACC programs. This is the biggest game for Wake since Chris Paul left after the 2004-2005 season. Since then, the Demon Deacons have seen their program hit bottom. A win here would be huge.
Interestingly, the Tar Heels feel as if this is a almost a must-win. North Carolina's loss to Boston College last week has them at 0-1 in conference play and losing their first two games would make the ACC regular season title a free-for-all. With a loss, the Deacs would own the tie-breaker with the Heels and the fact that Duke and Clemson are already 2-0 would force the Heels into having to win the rest of their games to have a shot at the ACC title. A win would also bring a lot of swagger back to Chapel Hill as they head into a tough stretch of games.
