This weekend, the calendar will flip to March, and we will officially be in the month of “madness.” In just a couple weeks, we’ll be watching North Carolina play in the ACC Tournaments and then watch as the bracket is unveiled on Selection Sunday. As we’re about to enter the home stretch, let’s take a look at where the two Tar Heels basketball teams currently stand in regards to NCAA Tournament seeding.
This year, we’re not likely to have to be on bubble watch for either team, as both appear solidly
in. After the Caleb Wilson injury, there was a chance if the men lost out, they might’ve gotten dragged into that discussion. However, their 3-1 record and recent win over Louisville should take that possibility out of the equation. The Bart Torvik Teamcast feature projects that even if UNC did lose out, they would only end up as a #6ish seed, a #8ish seed if you then add in a bad loss in their first ACC Tournament game. Meanwhile, the women are safely in and are mainly trying to get back into range where they can host the first weekend at home in Chapel Hill.
For the men, I generally like to use the Bracket Matrix composite projection to get a sense where things stands. They average out all of the Bracketology projections around the internet — 127 of them at time of writing — which can be helpful for filtering out if one or two people are too high or too low on certain teams.
At the moment, UNC sits as the top #6 seed according to the composite. There’s not much deviation, though, as every bracketologist has them as either a #5 or #6 seed currently. Usually, there’s a greater variation, but UNC seem pretty locked in place at that general range right now, unless the last couple weeks get crazy.
According to the Torvik feature that I linked to earlier, winning out in the regular season, which would be difficult to do considering the competition would get the Heels to a clear #5 seed. If you add in an ACC Tournament championship, featuring wins over Duke and a couple of the other conference heavyweights, the Teamcast thinks they could get up to a #3 seed. That being said, going 6-0 when the Tar Heels aren’t 100% and are already a bit inconsistent seems unlikely.
As mentioned, the women are pretty clearly in at this stage of the game. ESPN currently lists them as a #5 seed, as does CBS Sports. The #5 seed line is just one short of being able to host the first and second round at home. They also weren’t in the any of the top four seed lines according to the Selection Committee’s early preview, meaning they for sure have some work to do. Between their schedule coming up and the ACC Tournament, they’ll have chance to play their way up.
At least according to ESPN projection, they would have a potential Sweet 16 matchup against #1 seed South Carolina, which is something they’ve run into a bunch in recent years without success.
There are still a couple weeks for both UNC teams to improve on their current NCAA Tournament projections, but both have tough roads ahead. Thankfully, we probably won’t have to be sweating things out on Selection Sunday, though.
