BY BRIANA GORMAN

bgorman@heraldsun.com; 419-6668

CHAPEL HILL -- Ninth-ranked North Carolina kicks off ACC play tonight against Virginia Tech, but the Tar Heels enter the conference portion of their schedule not looking like the team many expected them to be at this point in the season.

The Tar Heels have been beset by injuries, have lacked effort in some games, the highly touted freshmen have been slow to catch on and six days ago they were upset by the College of Charleston in overtime.

But despite all that, senior Deon Thompson still believes UNC's confidence is high.

"You win games, you lose games," said Thompson, whose team host the Hokies tonight (7:45 p.m., Fox Sports). "I don't think our confidence in our abilities as basketball players is down in any kind of means. We still know we have all the pieces to be a great team and do a lot of good things when March and April comes."

After the loss in Charleston, Williams said UNC (11-4) was "about as low as we can be." On Friday, he said the confidence level is not where he wanted it to be headed into ACC play but, like Thompson, he didn't see it as a huge problem.

"I don't think we're at a point where we have to worry [about confidence] because they're all pretty cocky, too -- which is one of the problems, too," Williams said. "We may think we're better than we really are."

For example, Williams asked freshmen Dexter Strickland and Leslie McDonald if they'd ever heard of College of Charleston guard Andrew Goudelock before Monday's game when he had 24 points, including a game tying 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds remaining.

The answer was no, and Williams told them Goudelock had just kicked their tails from one end of the court to the other.

Williams said it's a fine line between instilling confidence and being realistic with players, and sometimes young players just have to learn the hard way.

"When you have a highly recruited class, they think they're really, really good and nobody else is any good," Williams said. "Well there's really a lot of good players, and it sort of hits them right between the eyes and they have to become aware of that."

The freshmen will face another test tonight in their first conference game. The Hokies (12-1) are on a nine-game winning streak but could be without ACC leading scorer Malcolm Delaney (19.8 ppg), who sprained his ankle during a victory over Longwood on Dec. 30 and hasn't played since.

But UNC also could be down as many as three players tonight because of injuries. Senior Marcus Ginyard definitely is out with a sprained ankle, and McDonald and junior Will Graves are questionable with ankle sprains.

With Ginyard missing his fourth straight game and fifth overall, UNC's other starting senior, Thompson, has had to shoulder most of the leadership responsibilities, which he admitted has been tough. Thompson said he needs to start leading more by example to get the Tar Heels back on track.

"I've been more of a vocal leader on the floor just from the absence of Marcus," Thompson said. "But one thing with me is to just lead more by my actions, and that's something that I do need to do better -- just not talk so much and just play."