Ken Davis

The Perfection Watch is officially on. That’s right, we’re talking about The Holy Grail of sports, the undefeated season. And it seems North Carolina is very much in the hunt.

Tyler Hansbrough and the rest of the Tar Heels are about to become college basketball’s version of Tom Brady and the 2007 New England Patriots. There will be pressure. There will be buildup. A date with Duke in February is already circled on the calendar.

As silly as it sounds in the first week of December, we are searching the college hoops landscape for a worthy opponent who can challenge No. 1 North Carolina. Kentucky couldn’t do it. Notre Dame wasn’t up to the task last week in Maui. Now Michigan State can be crossed off the list, too.

A talented, but short-handed, group of Spartans offered very little resistance Wednesday night in Detroit. North Carolina was expected to win this hyped-up Big Ten/ACC Challenge contest at Ford Field — but certainly not by a score of 98-63. With 12 minutes remaining and North Carolina leading 71-43, analyst Dick Vitale was totally ignoring the events on the floor and having flashbacks to his coaching career in Detroit.

Not exactly an evening of suspense on ESPN.

If there was any consolation for Tom Izzo’s team it was the fact the Tar Heels fell short of 100 points. But that may have been a mercy ruling from coach Roy Williams. North Carolina had scored more than 100 points in three of its last four games, beating Chaminade 115-70, Notre Dame 102-87, and North Carolina-Asheville 116-48. And Hansbrough didn’t even play against Asheville.

Michigan State, playing without injured center Goran Suton, wasn’t awful in the first half. But the Spartans did make a few mistakes. They missed shots. They committed turnovers and you can’t do that against the Tar Heels. It plays directly into North Carolina’s scheme. The Tar Heels destroy opponents in transition. That is the style of play Williams tinkered with and perfected at Kansas. Now he has more talent, more speed and more depth than any other team he has ever put on the floor.

It’s lethal.

Michigan State wants to run this season. But at times Wednesday night, the Spartans resembled cars that had spun off the highway and were left stranded in banks of snow. The Tar Heels kept zooming past them on the freeway, with no traction problems whatsoever, and scored easy buckets on their way to a 53-39 halftime lead.

That brings us to a funny remark Williams made Tuesday. Asked about the value of getting a look at this year’s Final Four site on Dec. 3, Williams reflected on the 2006-07 season when the Carolina team bus was passing the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

“Stopped the team on the expressway … and said, 'There’s where they’re going to be playing the Final Four,'" Williams said. "We didn’t make it, so I’m never showing them a freakin’ arena again."

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Williams didn’t officially insert Hansbrough into the starting lineup at Ford Field until the defending national player of the year had gone through his pregame warm-ups and tested a tender left ankle that was injured Nov. 21 against UC Santa Barbara. Hansbrough headed to the bench with just over five minutes remaining. His night was over. He had 25 points and 11 rebounds — without even breaking a sweat.

The Tar Heels did much the same thing to a talented Notre Dame team.

"They really come at you with a lot of guys," Irish coach Mike Brey said in Maui. "[Ty] Lawson did a great job in transition and then we were digging out of a hole the whole game."