CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Roy Williams admits his defending national champion Tar Heels have “a target on our back.” But that doesn’t mean North Carolina feels any added pressure as it opens defense of the NCAA national championship it won last year by beating Gonzaga.

“I don’t feel any pressure,” senior guard Joel Berry II insisted Thursday as his team went through a final practice before Friday’s opening-round game against 15th-seed Lipscomb. “This is our last one [for seniors] and we just want to enjoy it as much as we can and just do like we did last year and take it one game at a time and make sure we’re focusing on the game that’s coming up. We don’t want to look ahead.”

Having fun, staying in the moment and respecting the opponent are all the themes the second-seeded Tar Heels (25-10) have embraced as they try to win the school’s seventh national title. With Berry and senior forward Theo Pinson the only real contributors from last year’s championship team, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year in Chapel Hill. Despite finishing second to No. 1-ranked and top-seeded Virginia in the ACC Tournament last week at Barclays Center, the Tar Heels feel they’re finding a rhythm at just the right time.

“To make it as far as we have and to be at this point where we are now as a team, I wouldn’t have thought we would have been this good,” Berry said, adding, “It’s been an up-and-down year. But towards the end for some reason we always end up clicking and that’s when you want to be playing your best basketball. I think that when we went up to the ACC Tournament, even though we wanted to win, we made some strides and showed ourselves that we can be as good as any team in the country. We just have to put our mind to it.”

Lipscomb (23-9) is making its first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament after defeating Florida Gulf Coast, 108-96, in the finals of the Atlantic Sun Tournament. The Bisons are a run-and-gun group that feeds off momentum. They don’t sound intimidated at the thought of playing the powerful Tar Heels in North Carolina.

“They have five guys on the court and we have five guys on the court,” said Michael Buckland, a sophomore guard from High Point, N.C. “If we out-execute them and play our game better than they play their game, we’ll have a shot to win at the end of the game.”

Rob Marberry, a junior forward from Nashville, added: “We can compete with any team. Having them as a powerhouse and having us as the underdog really doesn’t matter to us. We’re going to play the 40 minutes like they play the 40 minutes. All that talk before the game doesn’t matter.”

The Tar Heels insist they won’t be looking past Lipscomb.

“We know it’s going to be a fast-paced game, which we like,” Berry said. “We’ve got to make sure that they’re not playing it better than us.”