CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — You could feel the tide turning, and not just because N.C. State looked lost against the zone or because the fans who filled Carmichael Arena rose and sent a roar up to the girders above like it once always was. When there came a moment Sunday when one team understood what this rivalry really meant — felt the threat of losing more acutely — it was North Carolina.
N.C. State’s been the top dog — lupine — in women’s basketball around the Triangle for a long time, while both North Carolina and Duke lost touch with past glory and changed coaches, but the gap is smaller now than it’s ever been, if there even is one. It’s a three-team free-for-all now, with the 11th-ranked Wolfpack coming back to the pack and the 22nd-ranked Tar Heels and 16th-ranked Blue Devils on the rise, and there was no better representation of that than the way UNC pulled away Sunday.
On Thursday, the Tar Heels will host Duke. Sunday’s 56-47 win was their first sellout at Carmichael in just short of eight years. They may only have to wait four days for another.
