Four weeks.

That’s how long it took for North Carolina, the preseason No. 1, to fall out of the Top 25. The Tar Heels lost their ACC opener Sunday at Virginia Tech, capping a 1-month fall from grace that saw North Carolina lose 4 of their first 9 games.

College basketball is a marathon, not a sprint, and it is too early to panic about North Carolina basketball.  But the Tar Heels are struggling, and it won’t get much better until Armando Bacot is healthy and RJ Davis and the guards start hitting on more than 29.2% of their jump shots from distance. Yikes.

The Tar Heels’ slow start isn’t the only scary story in the ACC. Louisville still hasn’t won, FSU’s walking MASH unit expanded by 1 this past weekend with the devastating loss of Cam’Ron Fletcher for the season with a knee injury, and for all the talk of a vastly improved ACC in 2022-23, the league has just 2 ranked teams after a month: No. 3 Virginia and No. 15 Duke.

As for the Power rankings, we have a host of changes this week. Last week’s list is here, and also noted in each team’s weekly snippet.

15. Louisville (0-8, 0-1)

Last Week (LW): 15

The Cardinals aren’t quite threatening to pull a 2021-22 Oregon State and go 3-28, but Kenny Payne’s first Louisville team remains winless a week into December. Worse, the Cardinals, after losing their first 3 games by a point each, haven’t been competitive since. A 27-point home loss to Miami to open ACC play added insult to injury.

14. Florida State (1-9, 0-1)

LW: 14

The Seminoles were competitive in 2 games against top-10 foes last week but lost both. The 1st, a narrow home loss to a Purdue team coming off a PK 85 event win in the Phil Knight Legacy, showed the Seminoles are improving. Then a 5-point road loss to Virginia to open league play showed that as bad as things have been for Leonard Hamilton’s team, this group still has that program grit that has helped FSU win more league games than anyone but Virginia and North Carolina over the past decade. At some point, losing gritty needs to become winning ugly, though, or a season that held so much hope over the summer will turn into an extended nightmare.

13. Boston College (5-4, 0-1)

LW: 9

The Eagles had a tough week on the road. They were pounded by Nebraska in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and opened league play with a dud in a 16-point loss at Duke. Worse, Makai Ashton-Langford, the team’s best player, left the Duke game with a pulled hamstring and could miss significant time. A tough break for Earl Grant’s 2nd team at Boston College.

12. Georgia Tech (5-3)

LW: 12

The Yellow Jackets lost by 16 at Iowa in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, squandering another opportunity for a quality win. They did handle Northeastern on the back end of the week, but Josh Pastner’s team really struggles to score (169th in KenPom Adjusted Offensive Efficiency), and that problem doesn’t look like it will be solved by the time the Ramblin’ Wreck open league play Saturday at ailing North Carolina.

11. Notre Dame (6-2, 0-1)

LW: 10

Just when we thought maybe we were too hard on Notre Dame for losing its only difficult game during November, the Fighting Irish manage to drop their ACC opener against Syracuse in South Bend, Ind. How does a team with a 6-man rotation full of grizzled veterans manage to lose to Syracuse just days after clobbering a ranked Michigan State team in the same building? Mostly because Syracuse managed to hit a bunch of bad shots and forced 10 turnovers in a low-tempo game.

The Fighting Irish are better than this ranking, we think. They just haven’t showed it yet.

10. Syracuse (4-4, 1-0)

LW: 13

Syracuse doesn’t move beyond 10 because this still is a group who lost to Colgate and Bryant at the JMA Wireless Dome this season. It’s nice that the Orange collected a huge road win, but even that game came in an inconsistent week that saw it absolutely obliterated at Illinois 73-44 in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. Computers like this Orange team more than they liked last season’s group, which couldn’t defend. But for now, we’re in “wait-and-see” mode and need more positive returns like Saturday’s shocker in South Bend.

9. NC State (7-2, 0-1)

LW: 4

A freefall for the Wolfpack after an ugly home loss to Pittsburgh to open conference play. NC State shot just 22% from deep and 35% from the field in the loss, both season-lows. NC State will try to correct course Tuesday night with Coppin State before a weekend trip to Coral Gables, Fla., and a big resume game against the Miami Hurricanes.

8. Pittsburgh (6-3, 1-0)

LW: 11

We see you, Jeff Capel. The Panthers are 6-1 in games when John Hugley IV takes the floor, and they even can win on the road when he’s in foul trouble, apparently, which they did Friday night at NC State. Hugley played just 14 minutes, saddled by fouls all night. It’s a little too early to know if Pitt is going to be improved enough to save Capel’s job and compete for an NCAA Tournament bid this March, but the Panthers have played a difficult schedule to date and lived to tell a good story about it.

7. North Carolina (5-4, 0-1)

LW: 2

The Tar Heels tumble 5 spots after a 2-loss week that saw North Carolina bullied by Indiana in Bloomington and then beaten soundly Sunday by Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Hubert Davis’ team is not shooting well (29% from 3), but worse than that, they are defending poorly, giving up more than a point per possession. They also have been oddly ineffective on the offensive glass to date, rating just 13th in the ACC in offensive rebounds per game. The schedule softens slightly this week, and the Tar Heels need to take a few deep breaths, win a couple basketball games, and hit reset. This still can be a great team. It just has to turn the page on last season and begin again.

6. Wake Forest (7-2, 0-1)

LW: 7

The Demon Deacons lost their ACC opener Friday night at Clemson, but they picked up 1 of the best wins of the season earlier in the week when they upset Wisconsin at the Kohl Center, 78-75. They won that game despite the fact that the Badgers shot 12-for-28 from deep. The main reason? Jitterbug guard Tyree Appleby, the transfer from Florida, popped off for 32 points.

Appleby was a good player under Mike White at Florida, but with Steve Forbes coaching him, the super senior is averaging 18.4 points and 5.3 assists a night and playing solid, pesky defense as well. He’s a big reason Wake Forest already has a stronger résumé in 2022 than they had last season, when a lack of quality nonconference wins kept the Demon Deacons on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble.

5. Clemson (7-2, 1-0)

LW: 8V

The Tigers routed Wake Forest at Littlejohn Coliseum to open ACC play the right way Friday night. PJ Hall had his best game back yet, swatting away this Appleby drive to add a little flair to a dominant Clemson win.

Hall had 21 points and 8 rebounds to go along with the block, and if he is going to start picking up his game after a sluggish start to the season after coming off offseason surgery, this Clemson team has a different ceiling than the NIT projections that were forecast at ACC Media Days.

4. Virginia Tech (8-1, 1-0)

LW: 6

The Hokies are starting to ball. Justyn Mutts was sensational in the victory over North Carolina, dropping 27 points and snagging 11 rebounds in the victory. Mutts now has scored in double figures in 6 consecutive games; his previous best such streak was just 3 games. Mike Young’s team still struggles to defend a bit, but the Hokies run clean offense (19th in KenPom Adjusted Offensive Efficiency) and to date, their lone loss is a functional road game against College of Charleston in the Charleston Classic. Big things might lie ahead for the reigning ACC tournament champions.

3. Miami (8-1, 1-0)

LW: 5

The Hurricanes are hooping. First, they downed a quality Rutgers team in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and they did it with defense, a rarity last season. The U forced 15 Rutgers turnovers and limited the Scarlet Knights to just 37% shooting from the field to secure a huge nonconference win. The Canes picked up where they left off Sunday, routing Louisville at the KFC Center to cap a terrific week. Doubted by computers a season ago, the Hurricanes are ranked 33rd right now in KenPom, matching their high KenPom rating from the Elite Eight run a season ago just 9 games into the 2022-23 campaign.

2. Duke (8-2, 1-0)

LW: 3

Duke’s 81-72 victory over No. 25 Ohio State in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge exacted some revenge on the Buckeyes for defeating Duke in the event a year ago, but it was the 75-59 ACC-opening rout of Boston College that had coach Jon Scheyer excited. Why? His team finally shot the ball well, connecting on 8 of 21 shots from downtown Durham in the win. Another positive sign? Dereck Lively II had his best week in college: he posted 19 points over 2 games, playing 18.5 minutes per game and blocking 5 shots. As Lively gets going, this Duke team will start to tap into its limitless potential.

1. Virginia (7-0, 1-0)

LW: 1

The Cavaliers escaped with a 5-point victory over walking-wounded Florida State in their ACC opener, finishing a week of close games that also included a 70-68 win at Michigan in the ACC-Bg Ten Challenge. Winning at the Crisler Center, where the Wolverines have 1 of the top 5 home-court advantages in the sport from a win percentage standpoint over the past 5 seasons, is no small feat. It’s even better when you do it with a huge 2nd-half comeback. That starts and ends on the defensive end, of course, and just 1 season removed from the worst defensive team in Tony Bennett’s long tenure in Charlottesville, the Hoos find themselves back among the top 25 in pure defensive performance, per Bart Torvik.