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So you’re saying there’s a chance? For North Carolina’s NCAA hopes, there is. Now just go out and beat Duke
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Here’s a newsflash for all those pining for the NCAA Tournament to expand its current format.
You know who you are.
Whether you want to admit it or not, the Tournament is already underway. And all 364 Division I programs are invited.
Everyone, even those so far off the proverbial bubble that they’d need a GPS just to locate it, have an equal shot at playing their way into the bracket once the field gets narrowed down to its final 68 on Selection Sunday.
Just ask NC State, which rode a magical wave of momentum to 9 straight elimination victories – including 5 in as many days to win the ACC championship – all the way to last year’s Final Four. Or St. Francis, which will be part of this year’s First Four despite an unsightly 16-17 record.
While running the table and cutting down the nets in a conference tournament is the best way to take the guesswork out of the NCAA equation, it’s not even a necessity for some teams.
Teams like North Carolina.
It’s not certain exactly how many wins the Tar Heels need to survive and advance into the main phase of March Madness. That’s an answer only members of the committee will be able to determine this weekend.
But Hubert Davis’s suddenly resurgent team is doing everything it can to strengthen its resume and increase its chances.
UNC has accomplished everything it set out to do so far during its first 2 games of the ACC Tournament. It made short work of 12th-seeded Notre Dame on Wednesday and took down No. 4 Wake Forest on Thursday.
Now the real work begins.
With a résumé devoid of quality wins, the pressure will get ramped up even higher when the fifth-seeded Tar Heels face top-ranked Duke in a semifinal matchup on Friday that could very well be an elimination game for more than just the conference title.
Not that RJ Davis and his teammates are looking at it that way.
“For us, it’s just going out there and hoop,” the senior guard said after scoring 23 points in UNC’s 68-59 win against the Deacons. “We’re not worried about elimination or tomorrow’s game. We’re just worried about staying composed and playing our basketball.”
The Tar Heels have redefined what their kind of basketball is over the past month. After hitting rock bottom with lopsided losses at Duke and Clemson in early February, they’ve reinvented themselves with a bigger lineup and a sense of urgency that has been on full display at Spectrum Center this week.
“I’m so proud of how they’ve stayed connected, stayed the course through ups and downs,” coach Hubert Davis said. “There’s a level of toughness here that has been developed over the last 7-8 months we’ve been together. We were in these types of situations earlier in the year and weren’t able to get stronger. We were able to do it today. To be able to see these guys perform under pressure and do it together is one of the most amazing things that you can see as a coach.”
Amazing is a good way to describe the run Davis’s team is putting together. UNC has won 8 of its last 9 to improve to 22-12.
Under most circumstances, that record, a solid NET ranking of 36 and UNC’s storied history might already be good enough. And it still might be depending on how many bids get stolen around the country over the next 2 days. But with only 1 quality win on their résumé, now is not the time to leave anything to chance.
Only 1 team, Drake in 2022, has earned an at-large NCAA bid with just a single Quad 1 victory.
That’s why Friday’s semifinal game is so pivotal.
The Tar Heels can erase the most glaring blemish on their postseason résumé – and all but assure their spot in the field of 68 – with a victory. All they have to do is figure out a way to knock off an opponent that has only lost 3 times all season and beaten them twice.
Both by double-digit margins.
The good news is that UNC’s task got exponentially less daunting on Thursday when Blue Devils star Cooper Flagg went down with an ankle injury in his team’s win against Georgia Tech. Coach Jon Scheyer said that it’s highly doubtful Flagg will play again in this tournament to be as healthy as possible for the next one.
Veteran forward Maliq Brown was also injured against the Yellow Jackets and won’t be available.
Even with the national Player of the Year frontrunner and the Blue Devils’ defensive stopper off the bench out of the equation, the Tar Heels will still have their hands full with Kon Knueppel, Khaman Maluach, Isaiah Evans and what’s left of the Duke’s 5-star rotation.
Still, there’s always a chance, just as there was in 2022 when UNC got on a similar late-season heater, beat the favored Blue Devils twice, including once at the Final Four, to earn an improbable shot at a national championship. This Tar Heels team still has a long way to go before it can start dreaming of history repeating itself.
But you have to start somewhere.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
