One to remember

Rice (25 points) and Eagles shock top-ranked Heels

North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough is defended by Boston College's Cortney Dunn during a trip to the basket in the second half. (Ellen Ozier/Reuters)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - They were confused. They were stunned. They were disappointed.

And as Tyrese Rice spun the basketball, shooting free throws, the sight - the pure dejection of the Smith Center fans having to swallow No. 1 North Carolina's first loss of the season - was priceless.

They were the same people who booed Rice, the Boston College guard, during introductions, still haunted by memories of the 46 points he threw at them last season.

They laughed at Eagles guard Rakim Sanders when he tripped at midcourt and fell to the side of the North Carolina logo.

The Tar Heels were undefeated, unchallenged. They expected a sacrifice, not a sabotage.

To see the Heels, and their fans, leave down in the mouth was all Rice could ask for out of his last trip to Chapel Hill.

"I love it," he said after scoring 25 points in BC's 85-78 win. "That's what you want to see when you come here on a road trip. You don't want to see everybody standing around still cheering. That gives you a bad feeling leaving the gym. You want to see people with their backs turned, heads down. People stomping up the steps. That's what you love to see when you're an away team."

The Tar Heels team recently had complained about being untested. Forward Danny Green was begging for a chance to play a close game.

Rice was saying the same thing for different reasons. He could hardly sit through film sessions on North Carolina without wanting to throw something at the screen.

"You look at people playing defense against them - people's hands were back," he said. "When [they] drive, [opponents are] just standing straight up, they're not trying to contest shots. I couldn't even look at the tape because everybody's scared.

"That was the biggest thing for our team. We wanted to challenge them to see if they were going to step up and play as hard as we were going to play."

The way Sandra Bullock eyed the needle on the speedometer of the racing bus in "Speed," Rice had to control the pace, knowing that if it got too fast the Tar Heels' offense would ignite.

North Carolina sometimes would fire shots off before five ticks had run off. BC (13-2) would run the clock down as long as possible.

"It helps to have a senior point guard who understands that and kept the pace the way we wanted to," BC coach Al Skinner said. "That's why he's first-team all ACC. He comes with experience. He comes with an understanding, and he's the coach on the floor."

Rice was the quarterback on the floor, not the whole offense, but North Carolina coach Roy Williams was expecting something different. He went all-in on the notion that BC still started and ended with the guard, throwing double teams and sometimes triple teams at him.

Skinner pushed his chips in knowing he had more options than last season. Not just Sanders, who went from jacking 19 shots last year in Chapel Hill (making six) to hitting nine of his 15 shots on a 22-point night, but Joe Trapani, who gave the Eagles 8 points and seven rebounds on an off night. There were also Corey Raji, who scored 6 points mostly by just being around the glass (eight rebounds), and freshman Reggie Jackson, who was fearless in a 17-point Chapel Hill debut.

North Carolina, which got 21 points from Tyler Hansbrough, rallied late but couldn't get over the hump, shooting 29 percent in the second half and going 15 for 27 at the line in the game.

As Williams tried to explain how his unbeaten, unblemished, unchallenged top-ranked Tar Heels (13-1) could be outsmarted and outworked in the teams' first ACC test, Rice sat on a table taking in all the emotion of not just beating the best team in the country, but beating them on their own floor a year after they had been blown off of it.

"I told Corey Raji a couple days ago in practice we were going to be up big and then we were going to win close," Rice said.

"We played Sacred Heart the other night," Skinner said. "We played the same way. This is the way we want to play regardless of who the opponent is."

And as big as the win was, Skinner said, "It's just one league win."

With 1:26 to play, NESN lost its feed of the game. The feed came from Fox Sports, and Fox mistakenly switched NESN to the Duke-Virginia Tech game (commercials were shown locally). The correct feed returned with about five seconds to play. NESN public relations manager Gary Roy apologized and said the network was looking into the problem.

Globe correspondent Peter Martin contributed to this report.