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CHAPEL HILL — The banners hang from the rafters likes pelts, the spoils of victories dating back to the 1920s, a timeline of success that suggests there was never a down time for the Tar Heels.

There was, and Kentucky came to town Tuesday night as an example. North Carolina is not only the top-ranked college basketball team in America but the mythical top-ranked basketball program in America. No one seriously questions it, well, no one other than defending champion Kansas. And well, all-time mythical champ ion Indiana. And, of course, the private school eight miles away. And, oh yeah, Kentucky.

The sheepish Wildcats crept into the Dean E. Smith Center on a cold weeknight in November and lost 77-58 in game that showed just how far the mighty can fall, as if the top-ranked program in America needed any reminding. Kentucky was coming off a 111-103 loss to VMI, which came one year almost to the day after its loss last year to Gardner-Webb.

Those losses sent shock waves through the Kentucky basketball nation and has been the object of jeering from the rest of college basketball. Everywhere but Carolina. The losses by Kentucky hit too close to home, bringing back the Heels' painful reminders of the 8-20 season, the specter that will always be there in the shadows of the Carolina psyche.

Mere minutes into the one-sided game the UNC students began to chant "VMI! VMI!"

Roy Williams, the Carolina coach, jumped off the bench waving his arms at the students.

"Y'all stop that stuff!" Williams said.

And they did.

Kentucky is not the number one program in the nation anymore, an example of how messy transfers of power can be sometimes, an example to the elite programs that they, too, can lose it all overnight.

Williams said his team got the lead early Tuesday then meandered about for 30 minutes while the students tried to think up things they would be allowed to say while they stood in the end zone with Kentucky fan and sometimes screen star Ashley Judd.

The stars of Carolina and Kentucky exist in parallel orbits, two of the Mount Rushmore programs of college basketball along with UCLA and the defending-champion Jayhawks. No one seriously questions that either, well except Indiana and that private school eight miles away.

Kentucky has won more basketball games than any school in college basketball history with 1,966 wins. North Carolina is second with 1,952. Kansas is at 1,944. For reference, Duke is fourth with 1,849 and N.C. State is 25th with 1,519, and Wake Forest isn't ranked.

The two programs have won 11 national titles between them, Kansas and Duke three each. The teams have played 31 times with UNC winning 21. They are one-two in all-time NCAA tournament appearances, all-time NCAA tournament games and all-time NCAA tournament wins. Yet other than region-final meetings in 1977 and 1995, they've never met in the tournament or ever played an otherwise meaningful game.

This one joined those. Carolina took a 15-2 lead, which was about the time the students started tempting the fates and Williams told them to hush, and UNC had no trouble with Billy Gillispie's team the rest of the way.

That's not true back home where Gillispie's teams and coaching habits and his recruiting classes and recruiting habits are being watched closely for signs of trouble. This year's roster includes four former junior-college players, and next year's will include the four jucos.

They used to compete for the same players, and probably will again someday. And they used to compete on the floor a lot more than lately. Carolina has beaten Kentucky five straight times.

And while there are all these parallels between one and two in a sporting environment that feeds on one vs. two, UNC and Kentucky remain shadow rivals. UNC and Kansas now hate each other, thanks to Williams. Duke and Kentucky have long hated each other. Duke and Kansas? Well, yeah, they hate each other. And they all hate Indiana.

The big programs clash over and over in history, often in big-stage games that form the very history of the sport. But there's nothing there between Carolina and Big Blue. Never been much of a quarrel.

The quarrels are many among most of the top programs in America, and Williams doesn't need another one right now, not the sleeping giant Kentucky anyway. That's why Judd didn't seem completely out of place standing in the sea of Carolina blue and wearing a Kentucky shirt, and why Williams had no problem telling the kids, and her too, to just enjoy the moment Tuesday.

And hush.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin @news-record.com