UNC basketball teams aren’t ranked in the top 25, and I couldn’t care less

Neither the men’s nor the women’s UNC basketball teams are ranked in their respective top 25 polls this week, and I couldn’t care less.

Another week came and another week passed, and the North Carolina women’s basketball program remained undefeated on the season. Similarly, the men’s program won both of its games last week, including blowout victories over No. 24 Michigan and Georgia Tech. But despite the perfect start for Courtney Banghart’s crew or the recent hot streak we’ve witnessed from Hubert Davis’ squad, neither the men’s nor the women’s teams are ranked in their respective top 25 polls this week.

And I honestly couldn’t care less.

What I do care about is that the UNC women are just one victory away from their best start since the 2014-15 season, and that they’re beating teams by an average of 33.1 points per game and have beaten seven of their eight opponents by at least 13 points. I care about the five games away from home that they’ve walked away from victorious, including a hard-fought win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers in Minneapolis last week. And I care about this season’s first edition of NET rankings published on Monday morning that places the Tar Heels at No. 2 in the nation, evidencing their strength of schedule and margin of victory among other things.

Despite that, there’s an argument to be made that they haven’t played and beaten anyone worthy of earning them a top 25 ranking. To those who feel that way, I wouldn’t necessarily argue, but I would note that they’ve beaten the teams on their schedule, and most of them soundly. How much more can we ask of them than that? They’ve got six upcoming conference games against teams currently ranked inside the Associated Press Top 25, and it’s then that they’ll be able to prove their mettle.

As far as the men’s team is concerned, sure, they didn’t look great over the first few weeks of the season. But over their past three games, they’ve shown a propensity for playing tenacious defense that we hadn’t previously seen. They’re beating opponents by an average of 19 points per game during that stretch, and their offense, which is finally looking like what we thought it might at the start of the season, is averaging nearly 75.

And while the women haven’t yet played an opponent ranked in the top 25, the men have played three. Of those three games, two were losses, but the one against the Purdue Boilermakers, now the No. 1-ranked team in the nation, can’t be counted against them. They played Matt Painter’s team tough throughout, and the outcome wasn’t decided until the game’s closing minutes. Their blowout loss to Tennessee was atrocious; there’s no denying that. However, I think the Tar Heels are more the team that we’ve seen against their past three opponents than the unit we saw embarrassed by the Volunteers. It’s the progress that they appear to have made on both ends of the court over the past couple of weeks that matters to me more than the number next to the name — or lack thereof.

So, yeah, neither of the North Carolina basketball teams are currently ranked. And that’s okay. Right or wrong, it really doesn’t matter at this point, and it certainly has no impact on the season at hand. The only poll that matters is the one that’s released at the conclusion of the season, and we’re several months and a lot of games away from that. If either of these UNC teams are truly top 25 caliber programs, you can be sure they’ll be in that one.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for all the latest on the men’s and women’s UNC basketball programs.