Top-ranked UNC looks forward to challenge at PK Invitational

No. 1 North Carolina spent the better part of its four games to open the season playing to the level of its competition.

Senior forward Armando Bacot wonders just how the Heels will stack up nationally. Bacot and the Tar Heels (4-0) are about to find the answers to those questions starting Thursday at the Phil Knight Invitational in Portland. The three-day event honors the Nike legend.

“I want to just see how we stack up and ... what we need to work on,” Bacot said. “Obviously we want to go in there and win ... but we also want to just see some of our weaknesses and what we need to work on going into ACC play. I think we’ll get a good shot at that.”

North Carolina faces Portland on Thursday and will either play Iowa State or Villanova on Friday. The Heels also could face No. 12 Michigan State, No. 18 Alabama or No. 20 Connecticut during the event.

UNC has yet to face a ranked team this season. And the Heels haven’t left the comfy confines of the Dean E. Smith Center either.

“We’ve been playing in this arena since, I don’t know July, and I think just a change of scenery will be great for us,” Bacot said. “We got a good stretch coming up against some tough teams so I guess we get to really just see what we need to work on ... and how we match up.”

Carolina was outrebounded in its first two games against UNC Wilmington and College of Charleston. After it edged Gardner-Webb 40-38 on the boards, its win against James Madison on Sunday — and the plus-16 rebounding advantage it enjoyed — was the first time UNC seemed like normal.

The Heels’ 3-point shooting also seems like a concern. As a team they’ve shot just 28.8 percent from behind the arc.

More than specific areas that need to improve, junior guard Caleb Love said he just hopes to see the team show some toughness, “knowing that we’re gonna go through some adversity and things might not go our way.”

“As we go into Portland and battle through everybody who steps in front of us, we just got to go out and throw the first punch,” Love said.

The Heels’ first half against JMU and their second half against Charleston have really been the only prolonged stretches where they played to the dominant potential their ranking suggests.

Their 72-66 win against Gardner-Webb was so uninspiring that coach Hubert Davis cranked up the level of intensity during practice last week. Bacot said the team responded to being challenged.

“That Thursday, it was a rough practice, we really got after it,” Bacot said. “I thought it was good for us. Last year, we had a lot of gut-checking practices like that where it’s a couple of bloody noses, aggressiveness, us barking at each other. That’s good for a team, I think it’s healthy.”

Despite four returning starters from last year’s Final Four team, North Carolina is still figuring out the right chemistry for this team. And Bacot believes Portland will be a step toward figuring it all out.

“We still got a lot of work to do, but we won’t quit,” Bacot said. “I think this team (has) a lot of fighters. I think we just need to just keep getting better every game ... just coming together even more as a team, and once we put it all together, we got a chance.”