By R.L. Bynum

CHARLOTTE — ESPN’s Zoom press conference Wednesday afternoon with its NCAA tournament bracket experts provided good and bad news for North Carolina.

While Joe Lunardi had a grim assessment of the Tar Heels’ chances of making the men’s tournament, Charlie Creme suggested that Carolina is comfortably a top-four seed in the women’s tournament, meaning Coach Courtney Banghart’s team would host the first two rounds.

Lunardi lamented that the ACC tournament bracket did UNC no favors by giving them two Quad 2 opponents — Notre Dame in the Tar Heels’ 76–56 second-round win Wednesday and Wake Forest in the quarterfinals — before possibly facing No. 1-ranked Duke in a Quad 1 game in Friday’s semifinals. The Irish’s NET ranking could also fall overnight to make that a Quad 3 game.

Here is Lunardi’s full response when asked about the Tar Heels’ chances.

“I was kind of hoping for their sake, that they’d be on the other side of the bracket, because Clemson and Louisville as a possible path would have been two more gettable Quad 1 games for them. Neutral site, top 50 Quad 1s, whereas now Wake might not be enough and Duke might be too much of a mountain for them to overcome. They gave them their best shot for 30 minutes on Saturday night. and still got convincingly defeated.

“You look at Carolina, and you can say, in some ways, they passed the talent test and the eye test. But we’re all getting tired of saying 1 and 11 Quad 1. Pick any other school in America —  if Colorado State was 1 and 11 Quad 1, we wouldn’t even be having the conversation.

“So, the answer is, short of every bubble team ahead of them losing early and there being no bid-stealers, Carolina probably has to beat Duke to go to the tournament, although there’s an outside chance that beating Wake would be enough.”

As for the UNC women, Creme didn’t think the regular-season-ending losses to Duke and Virginia (the latter a Quad 3 loss) will keep the Tar Heels from hosting because of their ACC tournament victories over Boston College and Florida State.

Creme said that the injuries to Alyssa Ustby and Reniya Kelly aren’t likely to be factored in.

Here is Creme’s full response assessing UNC’s situation:

“The committee officially does not anymore [consider injuries]. Player availability is not one of the 11 criteria. So officially, no. I would imagine those conversations are happening, though, in that room about who was playing in certain games. Now, the interesting thing with North Carolina, as far as that goes to me, is Ustby was also out when they beat N.C. State, or for most of that, so to say that the losses were because she was out, or make that a factor when they were able to beat good teams without her probably doesn’t add up exactly. So I’m not sure in this particular case how much the injury part is really going to play into it.

“That said, I don’t think they’re going to have any issues being in the top 16 and hosting. I think their getting the wins in the ACC tournament was enough, given the fact that a lot of the teams they were competing against lost earlier or more convincingly. So, I don’t think those losses at the end, that loss to Virginia, for instance, I don’t think ultimately that’s going to cost them and that they will be hosting games.”

It should be noted that Creme projected UNC to host two seasons ago, and the selection committee sent the Tar Heels to Columbus, Ohio.

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ACC tournament

Spectrum Center | Charlotte
Tuesday’s first round
No. 12 Notre Dame 55, No. 13 Pittsburgh 54
No. 15 California 82, No. 10 Virginia Tech 73, 2 OTs
No. 14 Syracuse 66, No. 11 Florida State 62
Wednesday’s second round
No. 8 Georgia Tech 66, No. 9 Virginia 60
No. 5 North Carolina 76, Notre Dame 56
No. 7 Stanford 78, California 73
No. 6 SMU 73, Syracuse 53
Thursday’s quarterfinals
No. 1 (and No. 1-ranked) Duke 78, Georgia Tech 70
North Carolina 68, No. 4 Wake Forest 59
No. 2 (and No. 13-ranked) Louisville 75, Stanford 73
No. 3 (and No. 10-ranked) Clemson 57, SMU 54
Friday’s semifinals
Duke 72, North Carolina 71
Louisville 76, Clemson 73
Saturday’s championship
Duke 73, Louisville 62

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Date	Month/day	Time	Opponent/event (current ranks)	TV/ record
	October
24	Friday	L, 78–76	vs. No. 10 BYU in SLC	Exhib.
29	Wednesday	W, 95–53	vs. Winston-Salem St.	Exhib.
	November
3	Monday	W, 94–54	vs. Central Arkansas	1–0
7	Friday	W, 87–74	vs. No. 17 Kansas	2–0
11	Tuesday	W, 89–74	vs. Radford	3–0
14	Friday	W, 97–53	vs. N.C. Central	4–0
18	Tuesday	W, 73–61	vs. Navy	5–0
			Fort Myers Tip-Off
25	Tuesday	W, 85–70	vs. St. Bonaventure	6–0
27	Thursday	L, 74–58	vs. No. 9 Michigan State	6–1
	December		ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge
2	Tuesday	W, 67–64	at Kentucky	7–1
			—————————
7	Sunday	W, 81–61	vs. Georgetown	8–1
13	Saturday	W, 80–62	vs. USC Upstate	9–1
16	Tuesday	W, 77–58	vs. East Tennessee State	10–1
			CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta
20	Saturday	3 p.m.	vs. Ohio State	CBS
			—————————
22	Monday	8 p.m.	vs. East Carolina	ACCN
30	Tuesday	7 p.m.	vs. Florida State	ESPN2
	January
3	Saturday	2:15	at SMU	The CW
10	Saturday	6 p.m.	vs. Wake Forest	ACCN
14	Wednesday	9 p.m.	at Stanford	ACCN
17	Saturday	4 p.m.	at California	ACCN
21	Wednesday	7 p.m.	vs. Notre Dame	ESPN2
24	Saturday	2 or 2:30	at No. 23 Virginia	ESPN or ESPNU
31	Saturday	2 p.m.	at Georgia Tech	ACCN
	February
2	Monday	7 p.m.	vs. Syracuse	ESPN
7	Saturday	6:30	vs. No. 3 Duke	ESPN
10	Tuesday	7 p.m.	at Miami	ESPN or ESPN2
14	Saturday	2 p.m.	vs. Pittsburgh	ESPN
17	Tuesday	7 p.m.	at N.C. State	ESPN or ESPN2
21	Saturday	1 p.m.	at Syracuse	ABC
23	Monday	7 p.m.	vs. No. 11 Louisville	ESPN
28	Saturday	6:30 or 8:30	vs. Virginia Tech	ESPN or ESPN2
	March
3	Tuesday	7 p.m.	vs. Clemson	ESPN or ESPN2
7	Saturday	6:30	at No. 3 Duke	ESPN
10–14	Tues.-Sat.	ACC tournament	Spectrum Center, Charlotte

Photo courtesy of the ACC