“One of the guys that has played the least amount of minutes in his career, played the hardest,” head coach Tom Izzo said. “He played as hard as anybody on our team, and I give him the most credit.”

Izzo said at first he thought Costello had the flu, but it might be a mild case of mononucleosis, or mono.

MSU still is waiting for a big man to emerge as the leader under the basket.

Junior forward Alex Gauna got the start in place of the sick Costello, but was benched after one minute with a rebound, a block, a turnover and two fouls. He wouldn’t return to the floor.

The Tar Heels dominated MSU on the boards, out rebounding them 49-38.

Costello scored six points and grabbed four rebounds, and if his sickness keeps him out of the lineup, he has faith the other big men can pick up the slack.

“We’ve got (freshman forward Gavin Schilling) and (Gauna) who will pick it up and do just fine,” Costello said. “Coach has been asking me for a while as far as consistency what’s going on. I think some of it has to do with the sickness, but I wasn’t mentally engaged at the beginning of the season.”

He said he’s been feeling sick since the Spartans went to Brooklyn, N.Y. for the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic on Nov. 22 and 23.

Schilling has had a hard time adjusting to the physical play at MSU, and Izzo said he got knocked around in the paint Wednesday night.

For Schilling, he’s familiar with what the Spartans are known for, but he also understands they haven’t lived up to those high standards all season.

He said they need to get it together in practice, and playing against Costello and the tough athlete he’s become is a motivator.

“He played with a lot of heart out there, and he brought it all out there and I’m proud for him,” Schilling said.

Near the end of the first half, Costello got a nice pass from sophomore guard Gary Harris and slammed it home to narrow UNC’s lead to three. He then ran to to the other end of the floor and blocked a shot.

He said that was one of the best feelings he’s had in the Breslin Center, but it was all overshadowed by the loss.

I’m just ticked that we lost,” Costello said. “We should have won. We are a better team, we just played like crap, we were just walking up and down the court.”

Izzo is he’s still unclear about what Costello has, but said if it is mono, he could be out for a long time.

“I said he didn’t need to play, and he said I wanna play. I was really impressed by him,” Izzo said. “It could be weeks. We’ll have to run some tests. If you wanna praise one guy, that’d be the guy to praise.”