While Friday’s 87-71 loss to Syracuse was both staggering and humiliating for North Carolina’s basketball team, the experience should provide the Tar Heels with a valuable measuring stick.

For an inexperienced, still-uncomfortable team, which Carolina is, Syracuse amounted to the perfect early-season storm.

@ Chestnut Hill, Mass.

UNC's Melvin Williams records the Heels' fifth interception of the
game, and a Casey Barth field with 1:35 left makes the final score
31-13 Carolina.

NEW YORK -- A couple of quick notes after UNC's 87-71 loss to Syracuse in the championship game of the 2K Sports Classic:

* With about 16 minutes left, UNC senior Marcus Ginyard drove to the basket, collided with  forward Arinze Onuaku, fell to the floor, and was slow to get up. He returned to the game, and had an ice pack on his side afterwards.

“Two-sixty met 210,’’ Ginyard explained. “I just got big-boyed.”

* Ginyard made the all-tournament team, along with Syracuse’s Andy Rautins, Ohio State’s Evan Turner and California’s Jerome Radle. Syracuse’s Wesley Johnson was named the tournament MVP.
 

North Carolina will be packing its bags the week before Thanksgiving next season, too. The Tar Heels will be one of eight teams participating in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off; they will play Nov. 18, 19 and 21. They will be joined by Davidson, Hofstra, Minnesota, Nebraska,, Vanderbilt, West Virginia, and Western Kentucky. Tickets will go on sale next summer. 

In case you missed the print edition, today's column looked at home-field advantage in the ACC.

Home, sweet home? Not quite, Tommy Lee, not in this state anyway.

At UNC Chapel Hill, trustees have signed off on a tuition and fee increase package for the next academic year.

The plan, which will now be submitted to the UNC system's Board of Governors, raises tuition $200 for in-state students. Out-of-state undergrads would get a $1,127 rate hike, while out-of-state grad students would pay $732 more in 2010-11.   Fees would go up $96.01 for all students.

Under the plan, in-state undergraduate students would pay $5,921.42 in tuition and fees next year, and out-of-staters would pay $24,736.42.

Those numbers do not include room, board, books and other expenses.

There's a catch to all this. The 2009 General Assembly has already set rates for 2010-11 that will raise in-state tuition $200 or 8 percent, whichever is less. That decision trumps anything on the campus or UNC-system level.

So the tuition rates the UNC-CH campus trustees approved today include that $200 increase for in-state students.

But last UNC system President Erskine Bowles said recently that legislative leaders  are willing to listen to alternate proposals.

If the General Assembly's edict holds, all tuition revenue raised would go into the state's general fund. If it decides next year to adopt a university tuition plan instead, revenue raised would be used for campus needs, and half of it would be set aside for financial aid.

Campus officials would very much like to keep that $200 that the General Assembly has targeted for the General Fund.

The increase for nonresident students has created some discontent, but campus and UNC-system leaders have long viewed those students differently than North Carolinians. Tuition for out-of-state students has often been set with market and competitiveness data used as guidelines.

Ryan Morgan, a UNC-CH student representing 5,000 other non-resident students, told trustees prior to Thursday's vote that the cost of an out-of-state education is forcing some students to withdraw.

"I myself am graduating one year early because I can't afford to stay here an additional year," said Morgan, who is from Alabama. "Out-of-state students are imperative to the quality of the university. What good is the best university in the country if you can't afford it?"

Read more on this issue in Friday's News & Observer.

SciQuest, a Cary technology company that allows businesses and universities to order supplies and services online, has signed a major new client: the University of North Carolina.

The UNC system’s general administration will use SciQuest’s technology to help reduce costs as part of a broader effort to bolster its fiscal health.

To reduce its budget, the system also has been cutting hundreds of administrative jobs.

“From Day One of my tenure, we’ve been working on multiple fronts to operate our entire university more efficiently and effectively,” said UNC president Erskine Bowles, in a prepared statement. “SciQuest has a proven track record of enabling cost savings.”

The UNC contract, which could be worth “a couple million bucks over several years,” isn’t SciQuest’s biggest deal, but has the potential to be in the top five, said CEO Stephen Wiehe. The total value will depend on how much UNC uses SciQuest’s technology and whether all schools in the 16-campus system sign on.

But it’s an important victory for the local company to finally sign up this state’s university system, Wiehe said.

CHAPEL HILL — Defensive lineman Aleric Mullins, who needs to take only three hours next semester to graduate, has decided to forego his final season of eligibility, coach Buch Davis said.

"In a similar situation as Richard Quinn [a tight end who left after last season, and now plays in the NFL], he just felt like with the completion of his degree, he just felt like it was time to announce that he was going to finish his career here and make himself available for any potential post-collegiate football that he might be available to,'' Davis said.

Mullins has posted 14 tackles this season.

• Late Hits archive

Boston College: The Eagles' 14-10 over Virginia was their first on the road and seventh of the season, which is about three more wins than any without the last name "Flutie" would have sanely predicted before the season began.

Editor's note: J.P. Giglio is one of 60 AP voters.

• JP Top 25 archive
• AP, USA Today polls
• Pollspeak (how everyone else voted)

There are only eight major Division I teams, out of 120, with either one loss or less. There are 33 teams with either two or three losses.

Thirty-three teams for 17 spots? That helps explain the disparity between my top 25 and the AP top 25, where we have only three teams in common spots (Florida, Alabama and Georgia Tech).