CHAPEL HILL, N.C.– The University of North Carolina has rediscovered its identity as an ACC contender.

The 12^th-ranked ranked Tar Heels, who spent the first part of this season in search of upper-class star power, put on their best performance of the young season, blowing past fourth-ranked Gonzaga, 103-90, here last night before a wired sellout crowd of 21,750 at the Smith Center.

Versatile 6-9 guard Cam Johnson, a fifth sixth-year graduate student who transferred to Carolina two years ago after graduating with honors in just three years from ACC rival Pitt, scored 25 points for the Tar Heels, which used a 10-day layoff to build chemistry and enough offensive firepower to overwhelm a good West Coast team that had been ranked No. 1 in the AP poll for two weeks after beating seemingly invincible, but young Duke team, 89-87, to win the Maui Invitational before Thanksgiving.

Johnson shot 8 for 12 and made six of eight three pointers in a dominating 31-minute performance. Senior forward Luke Maye, a first team pre-season All American for the Tar Heels, had 20 points on 6 of 10 shooting and grabbed 16 rebounds. “I told Luke and Cam at shoot around, ‘You’re are best shooters. Now, you we you to be our best makers,’’’ Williams said.

Johnson saw this win as a statement game for this storied program. “This was a rare opportunity to prove to ourselves that we belong at the top,’’ Johnson said. “We wanted to show people we can beat anybody. We played with a different level of energy tonight.’’

Johnson has always had the potential to shine but his talent was often obscured when he played in a weak Pitt program. The 6-8 Maye, who came to Carolina as a late bloomer, has been a revelation, surpassing 1,000 points in his career. “When I was at Pitt and we played Carolina, I had no idea who Luke Maye was,’’ Johnson said. “And watching him turn into a great player has been something special.’’

Exciting freshman point guard Coby White contributed 15 points and six assists while junior backup point Seventh Woods added 14 on 6 of 9 shooting for Carolina (8-2), which shot 54.7 percent, made 13 of 25 three pointers and scored 53 points to take a commanding 14-point lead in the first 20 minutes. The Heels outrebounded the Zags, 42-21, and outscored Gonzaga 27-0 on second chance points, taking full advantage of the fact Gonzaga played without their best big man, 6-10 junior Killian Tillie, who was out with a fractured ankle.

“If we don’t play really, really well, we don’t win this game,’’ Williams said.      

This was not supposed to be a vintage team by Carolina standards. Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams struggled to sign elite prospects in the junior and senior classes in the wake of a much-publicized academic scandal that put a strain on what had been a pristine program.  Carolina was picked to finish third behind Virginia and Duke in the powerful ACC by the coaches in pre-season poll and the Tar Heels did not look like anything special during a 94-78 loss at Michigan Nov. 28.

But Williams has built a reputation for developing players as we saw in 2017 when All American forward Justin Jackson and fringe NBA players Joel Berry and Kennedy Meeks played well enough in the clutch to defeat the same Gonzaga program, 71-65, during a physical NCAA tournament championship game in Glendale, Ariz.

And if Johnson and Maye continue to play this way, athletic freshman Coby White emerges as Carolina’s next great point guard It suddenly looks like this season could be filled with pleasant surprises. “We do guys who can shoot the ball,’’ Williams said. “When the ball goes in basketball, everything looks better.’’  

North Carolina still has room for improvement.  The Tar Heels committed an uncharacteristic 23 turnovers and gave up 46 points in the paint because of miscommunication on the defensive end. “the great teams are the ones who guard people,’’ Williams said.   

This was a big night for Carolina, which introduced its new football coach Mack Brown, who was a highly successful coach here in the 90’s before leaving for Texas, where he won a national championship in 2006, to the crowd at halftime.

It was a long week for Gonzaga (9-2), which traveled to seventh-ranked Tennessee Sunday and then made a second cross country flight Friday. The Zags managed kept the game from being a wash out shooting 56.2 percentage. Guard Josh Perkins scored 20 points for the Zags and Rui Hachimura, a 6-8 junior forward from Tokyo who is an All-American candidate and only the fifth player from Japan to play American college basketball, had 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists for Gonzaga and got blanket coverage from three Japanese TV outlets and a host of Japanese reporters, who made the pilgrimage to Tobacco Road to chronicle his only appearance on the East Coast.

But Carolina was just too much for them. “The way they were tonight, they were terrific,’’ Gonzaga coach Mark Few admitted. “They were right up there with anyone we’ve played, especially on the glass. We haven’t been beat like that on the glass all year and we certainly haven’t given up 50 percent shooting in both halves.

“They come at you, come at you and keep coming at you.’’