This used to be a game that the Semi­noles, along with just about every other team in the coun­try, would fear to play — against North Car­olina and on the Tar Heels’ home court.

Over the later half of this sea­son, how­ever, UNC has shown that it isn’t the same team that used to instill fear in any team vis­it­ing the Dean Smith Center.

Case in point: North Car­olina started the 2009–2010 sea­son hot, win­ning 11-of-14 and look­ing on pace to take a top seed into both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments.

Since then, how­ever, UNC has done a com­plete 180,  win­ning just  three of its last 13 games.

With just a few mea­ger games remain­ing in the reg­u­lar sea­son,  it seems then that FSU and UNC have become polar oppo­sites of each other.

And last night’s con­test between the two pro­grams went a long way in prov­ing it.

The game started off rather close, with Florida State hold­ing a mere three point lead with 12:50 left in the first half. But then the Semi­noles started rain­ing shots from under, around, and over the arc, as well as get­ting some timely defen­sive rebounds — and, in doing so, increased its lead by as much as 17 before enter­ing the locker room with a 48–33 lead.

The sec­ond half saw a lot of the same as Florida State led by as much as 23 and defen­sively played as well as its has against such a sto­ried pro­gram as North Car­olina. The Semi­noles shut down a late rally, never sur­ren­der­ing the lead, and ended up win­ning the game 77–67.

While there are a lot of pos­i­tives to take away from this win, we can­not look too much into it for sev­eral reasons:

• Florida State has lost to teams like NC State (15–13, 3–10), Clem­son (19–8, 7–6) and been swept by Mary­land (20–7, 10–3).

• The Semi­noles have been incon­sis­tent against some of the tougher teams in the coun­try (i.e., losses to Duke, Ohio State, and Florida).

Still, there are sev­eral pos­i­tives that come out of this win for FSU, and should become more appar­ent as the reg­u­lar sea­son winds down:

• Florida State swept Geor­gia Tech (18–9, 6–7) this season.

• The Semi­noles posted just one two-game los­ing streak all sea­son, and this only after a com­pil­ing a season-high seven-game win­ning streak.

• Leonard Hamilton’s squad has shown the abil­ity to eas­ily fin­ish in the top three or four in the con­fer­ence head­ing into the ACC Tournament.

Final con­clu­sions?  UNC has not played like the the Tar Heels of old this sea­son, and nei­ther has Florida State.  The Semi­noles are play­ing some of the best ball its ever played and is putting itself into posi­tion for another deep-run in the con­fer­ence and strong show­ing in the NCAA Tournament.

Its great to have March Mad­ness to look for­ward to, espe­cially since it helps get through the lull between foot­ball and base­ball seasons.

Watch the Post-Game Interview from Seminoles.com