Off the cuff: Carolina went from the Not Ready for Primetime Players to the Big Time in one game. After falling flat at Illinois before a wild crowd, the Tar Heels came back to win at home before a boisterous crowd in Chapel Hill.

"The crowd helped us tonight," UNC coach Roy Williams said. "The fans can help us, they really can, but they gotta do it all the time."

Of course a CBS national game on a weekend day against one of the best programs in college basketball history is a little more special than playing UNC-Asheville on regional TV on a weeknight. Naturally fans were fired up for this one.

Carolina needed to stay focused and fired up to offset the nine three-pointers that Kentucky drained. The Heels, on the other hand, had only one three pointer. So, the 26 points from the foul line and the eight blocked shots were big for the Tar Heels.

Still, Carolina only shot 70 percent from the line and John Henson missed the goal entirely on two consecutive attempts. But they were 14 of 16 over the final five minutes of the game.

Clark "That's a great point Gus" Kellogg does not belong as the lead color commentator of college basketball on CBS. As much as Billy Packer is considered a Carolina hater, he would be so much better even at 70 years old.

Not only does Kellogg's escalating voice grate after a while but he is so often wrong. Granted, I have the advantage of going back and pausing action but three times he claimed Zeller "slid into" a player when trying to draw a charge and he was wrong each time.

The officials (who were from the ACC) were wrong two of those times (one actually got it right but was overruled). Announcer Gus Johnson said the officiating was "excellent" and the game had a good flow to it. Huh?

First of all, the game ran two hours and 21 minutes. That's a good flowing game? Those taping the game missed 21 minutes if they didn't extend the time over the normal less than two-hour game. There were 46 fouls called.

Secondly, that was the worst officiated game I've seen this year. Again, I have the advantage of going back and pausing action but here are a few of the bad calls or non calls.

In the first half, Kentucky's Terrence Jones traveled by backing in and then tripped trying to get through a double team. UNC was called for a foul.

A minute later, UNC's John Henson was fouled hard inside but it wasn't called yet seconds later on the other end, a blocking call was made against a stationary Carolina player.

On Carolina's next trip down the court, Doron Lamb grabbed Zeller's arm inside and then Jones elbowed Zeller's head as he came over top and blocked it out off Carolina. No fouls.

Just before the half, Jones stepped out of bounds under the basket but officials missed it, and seconds later a foul was called on UNC.

The game seemed to settle down for the officials a bit in the second half. But, in addition to the questionable blocking calls on Zeller, there was an over and back not called and an obvious travel violation not called.

Despite Kellogg explaining that Carolina fans were wrong to protest the over and back non-call because players can go backcourt on inbound plays, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the Kentucky player caught the ball with his left front in the front court and then his momentum took his right foot to the backcourt. Unless the rule has changed again, that's over and back.

Later, Lamb and a teammate ran into each other on a handoff pass and Lamb took a couple of quick steps and then changed his pivot foot. That's travelling - two or three times over.