There’s never a good time to lose a player like Cole Anthony. But finding out the five-star freshman will be unavailable for the next four-to-six weeks the day before playing at Gonzaga has to be among the worst.

That’s North Carolina’s reality, though.

The Tar Heels enter Wednesday night’s showdown with Gonzaga having lost three straight games — and they’re already 0-1 without Anthony thanks to Sunday’s 68-64 loss to Wofford. That’s among the reasons they’re 12.5-point underdogs against Mark Few’s Zags. And, frankly, it’ll be surprising if the Tar Heels are able to keep things competitive because, as I explained during Tuesday’s episode of the CBS Sports Eye On College Basketball Podcast, there’s no reason to believe they’ll score enough to hang around.

That said, don’t ever forget, this is college basketball — a sport that’s already produced ridiculous results this season. We’ve watched Stephen F. Austin win at Duke as a 28-point underdog. We’ve watched Evansville win at Kentucky as a 25-point underdog. So, from a point-spread perspective, North Carolina winning at Gonzaga wouldn’t be that shocking, relatively speaking. But, again, literally everything that’s happened recently suggests the Tar Heels are about to extend their losing streak to four games.

Gonzaga is No. 2 in Wednesday’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. North Carolina is obviously unranked. And Kansas is No. 1 for the third straight morning. The Jayhawks’ next game is Saturday at Villanova.

Wednesday’s Top 25 And 1