North Carolina in Danger of Missing the NCAA Tournament After Home Loss Against Duke
Bob Donnan / USA TODAY Sports
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina (PSF) - A season ago, the North Carolina Tar Heels led Kansas 40-25 in the first half of the National Championship. The Tar Heels were 20 minutes away from glory, but it didn’t happen. Kansas played terrific in the second half, and North Carolina came up just short. Flash forward to today and the 2022 runner-up could miss the 2023 NCAA Tournament altogether.
Nobody expected the season to go the way it has for North Carolina. They returned five of their top six players from the previous season and were rightfully ranked as the preseason number one team in the nation. Now they sit with a record of 19-12 with an overall resume that has them on the outside of the tournament looking in.
The simple way for North Carolina to make March Madness would be to win the ACC Tournament and receive an automatic qualifier. They have been mediocre in ACC play with a record of 11-9, and the conference as a whole has been weaker this season. It won’t be easy as North Carolina would have to win four games in four days, but it’s certainly possible as we’ve seen it done before. As recently as last year, Virginia Tech did it as the seven seed, the same seed the Tar Heels have this year.
As for their regular season finale at home versus the Duke Blue Devils, North Carolina fell short in a game encompassing their entire season. They just can’t seem to put it all together when they need to. You would think they’d have it figured out by now, but North Carolina still hasn’t found a way to win meaningful games, and it just might cost them a chance to play in March Madness.
Duke came into the game having already beaten North Carolina earlier in the season, 63-57. Saturday’s game was quite similar to the first outing this season of college basketball’s biggest rivalry. Both games were close throughout with Duke ultimately pulling it out at the end, and this final score was just a one-point difference at 62-57.
Freshman Kyle Filipowski, the likely ACC Rookie of the Year, came up big for the Blue Devils with 22 points and 13 rebounds. Fellow freshman Tyrese Proctor added 13 points and three assists. For North Carolina, Armando Bacot and Caleb Love scored 17 apiece. Bacot had 11 rebounds and Love contributed six rebounds and three assists.
While Duke will end up receiving an at-large bid regardless of what happens in the ACC Tournament, the stakes are much higher for North Carolina. Since the tournament expanded in 1985, no team ranked number one overall in the preseason has ever missed the NCAA Tournament that same season. Will the Tar Heels become the first?
