UNC No. 1 seed in ESPN men’s projection but not top overall seed

By R.L. Bynum

The latest sign that expectations for Carolina’s men’s basketball season are going to be sky-high is ESPN’s bracket projection for next season.

Such projections in May are, of course, ridiculous, but Joe Lunardi sees the Tar Heels as the No. 1 seed in the East. Under that scenario, UNC would play in Greensboro for the first two rounds and at Madison Square Garden in New York for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.

The projection has UNC as the No. 2 overall seed, with Kentucky the top seed and playing in the South Regional.

Other ACC projections have Duke No. 3 in the South and also playing in Greensboro, Virginia No. 5 in the South, Miami No. 10 in the East, Notre Dame No. 11 in an East play-in game and Florida State No. 11 in a Midwest play-in game.

That would give the ACC six teams, behind seven for the Big Ten, SEC and Big 12.

The Tar Heels return starters Armando Bacot, RJ Davis, Caleb Love and Leaky Black from last season’s team that made a Final Four run to end Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s career with a loss before falling to Kansas in the national-championship game.

If there’s one person who doesn’t care about seeds, even when it’s the NCAA tournament committee who is announcing them, it’s Coach Hubert Davis. He has said that seeds have never been important to him and it didn’t seem to matter when he took a No. 8 seed to New Orleans for the Final Four.

It’s expected that Coach Davis will bring in a transfer since Kerwin Walton’s departure opened up an available scholarship. That should play out by early June since one potential transfer, Baylor’s Matthew Mayer, has until the end of May to pull his name out of the NBA Draft.

Photo via @UNC_Basketball

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