Mike Miller College basketball editor • E-mail

Roy Williams doesn't believe a basketball team “peaks.” Good thing. That means North Carolina should be able to rebound from Saturday’s thumping at the hands of Wake Forest.

In theory, at least.

Until Saturday, the Tar Heels looked better than nearly every other team in the country, No. 1 Illinois and No. 2 Kansas included. But against Wake Forest, the nation’s top-scoring squad didn’t resemble the team that tore through every opponent since a season-opening loss to Santa Clara. Which makes one wonder what happened.

Well, the Deacons are pretty good, for starters (despite the upset loss at Florida State on Tuesday). Two, it would’ve been nearly impossible to cruise through the ACC the way the Heels did in their non-conference schedule. Before the Maryland game on Jan. 8, Williams talked about how much tougher the Heels’ schedule would get with the ACC stretch and a trip to UConn, which would make playing at the same level a feat for the ages.

Some people wonder if a loss can help a team regain focus or gain perspective about what it takes to win games, which could help them peak later in the season.

Williams has shot that theory down before.

“That just goes against everything I believe,” he said while still coach at Kansas. “I want to win every game we play. I don't think losing now will make us a better team later.”

No. 1 Illinois, off to the best start in school history, has had to deal with the same questions. I’m not sure the Illini could have played any better than when they crushed Wake Forest in December. They cruised along, racking up easy wins, but haven't been as dominant lately, which is nitpicking a team that hasn't even lost yet.

Still, when they travel to Wisconsin on Jan. 25 and — gasp! — lose their first game of the season, people will ask if the Illini have peaked.

Have they and the Tar Heels peaked? Can a team do so before March?

Tricky question. For now, let’s call it the end of a fabulous run of basketball. But early peaking has happened in the past.

Take Louisville and Arizona last season. The Cardinals were 15-1 in late January last year and ranked No. 4. But a month later — after a few losses and an injury to guard Taquan Dean, from which he never fully recovered — they were 17-6, out of the top 20 and on their way to a first-round exit from the NCAA Tournament.

Arizona, 13-3 and ranked ninth on Jan. 24, was 20-9 and 22nd a month later. They also lost in the first round.

During the 2002-03 season, Alabama went from a 9-0 start and a No. 1 ranking to a 17-12 record and a first-round exit. The previous season, Florida and Oklahoma State went from top 10 rankings on Jan. 15 to struggling at season's end and first-round exits.

Clearly, all those teams played better early in the season rather than later, implying a peak in playing. But the more important question is why did they peak early?

Again, competition plays a huge factor. A team’s record is a direct result of who they’ve played and where. Facing weak opponents at home — the typical non-conference schedule — doesn’t pay off once January hits and conference play begins. If a few losses pile up, that rise in competition can play into a team’s confidence.

But peaking is harder to pin down that that. When a team plays its best basketball is not something you articulate because sometimes it just happens. It’s a combination of so many things — and, at times, luck — that it’s just something a team becomes.

There’s two types of peaking.

There’s the “where-did-this-come-from peak” like Xavier had last season. They finished the season on a 16-2 run, gave St. Joe’s its first loss of the season and reached the Atlanta Regional Semifinals? Guards Lionel Chalmers and Romain Sato were good, yeah, but somehow Thad Matta's squad just had it.

They’re "American Pie." It looked like everything was going to be a mess, but it somehow came together in the end that was surprisingly good.

Then there’s “Spider-Man” peaking.

That’s UConn from last year. They looked like a blockbuster going into the season and by the end, they lived up to that billing.

Late last January and early February, when they had a 5-4 stretch and people were jumping off the bandwagon. It wasn’t long after coach Jim Calhoun erupted after a Jan. 24 loss to Providence in which a reporter questioned why he didn’t convince Emeka Okafor, Caron Butler and Ryan Gomes to attend UConn. For a little while, everyone forgot that they were the blockbuster.

They promptly closed the season on a 14-1 stretch and won the national title.

“We became a terrific basketball team,” Calhoun said about that run. “We have had some times when the expectations weighed heavily upon us. As the season wore down, we saw our window of opportunity start to become more limited. The greatest thing we did was we kicked the window out and we made the opportunity for ourselves.”

The thing that bugs coaches like Williams is that fans expect teams to peak in March. Well, sure they do. But so do the players and coaches. It’s just that no one knows how to simply turn it on and off.

“I mean, think about this for a minute,” Williams said. “If there was really a way to get your team to peak in March, wouldn’t everybody do it? I may not be the smartest bulb, but if there was a way to do that, don’t you think I would be doing it? It’s malarkey. That's all.”

So let’s answer the tough question: have Illinois and UNC peaked?

Last year’s UNC team would’ve faded after a loss like Saturday. They didn’t have that staying power. This year’s version is the rare superior sequel that has the extra elements for a big box office run, to overuse the movie metaphor. There’s just too many stars on Williams’ team.

Come March, they’ll be ready for that peak, whether Williams believes in the notion or not.

Illinois, on the other hand, seems like a candidate for early peaking. Like St. Joe’s and Stanford found out last year, maintaining that perfect record is akin to walking on water. It’d take a miracle for a team — let alone a team from a power conference with road games at Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan State, plus the Big Ten Tournament — to make an undefeated run.

And that’s what peaking is, right? Any loss from this point means Illinois isn’t still at its peak. How far they fall from that peak is the big question.

Don’t look down.

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