NEW YORK -- There are lots of reasons why North Carolina lost five of its first 11 games, the most obvious of which is a strength of schedule that ranks fifth nationally. But nobody cares much about the details when you're a blue-blood program that entered the season ranked ninth in the AP Top 25 poll, but entered the weekend before Christmas with a 6-5 record featuring a 0-5 mark against schools in the top 45 of the NET. When that happens, any context sounds like an excuse.
When that happens, fans typically skip the nuance and just get angry and confused and, eventually, desperate to watch their team turn things around. Here inside Madison Square Garden on Saturday, you could sense that from the North Carolina supporters who showed up in big numbers to help fill the world's most famous arena and lifted their Tar Heels to a 76-74 come-from-behind victory over No. 18 UCLA in the opening game of the 11th annual CBS Sports Classic.
"The energy here was electric," said UNC's Ian Jackson , a five-star freshman who had a team-high 24 points off the bench. "It felt like a home game, definitely." And not just because Jackson was playing only 13 miles away from his home in The Bronx, where he graduated earlier this year from Our Saviour Lutheran High.
No, it was more than that, specifically a crowd that leaned heavily toward the Tar Heels and remained engaged throughout, even when North Carolina trailed by 16 points with 12:35 remaining and seemed headed toward its sixth loss of the s.