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. 15 Pittsburgh 64, No. 10 Stanford 63
No. 11 SMU 86, No. 14 Syracuse 69
No. 13 Wake Forest 95, No. 12 Virginia Tech 89, OT
Wednesday’s second round
No. 7 N.C. State 98, Pittsburgh 88
No. 6 (No. 24 ranked) Louisville 62, SMU 58
No. 8 Florida State 95, No. 9 California 89
No. 5 Clemson 71, Wake Forest 62
Thursday’s quarterfinals
No. 2 (No. 10 ranked) Virginia 81, N.C. State 74
No. 3 Miami 78, Louisville 73
No. 1 (No. 1 ranked) Duke 80, Florida State 79
Clemson 80, No. 4 (No. 19 ranked) North Carolina 79
Friday’s semifinals
Virginia 84, Miami 62
Duke 73, Clemson 61
Saturday’s championship
Duke 74, Virginia 70

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Date	Month/day	Scores	Opponent/event (current ranks)	Record
	October
24	Friday	L, 78–76	vs. 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. 11 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. ETSU	10–1
			CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta
20	Saturday	W, 71–70	vs. Ohio State	11–1
			—————————
22	Monday	W, 99–51	vs. East Carolina	12–1
30	Tuesday	W, 79–66	vs. Florida State	13–1, 1–0 ACC
	January
3	Saturday	L, 97–83	at SMU	13–2, 1–1
10	Saturday	W, 87–84	vs. Wake Forest	14–2, 2–1
14	Wednesday	L, 95–90	at Stanford	14–3, 2–2
17	Saturday	L, 84–78	at California	14–4, 2–3
21	Wednesday	W, 91–69	vs. Notre Dame	15–4, 3–3
24	Saturday	W, 85–80	at No. 9 Virginia	16–4, 4–3
31	Saturday	W, 91–75	at Georgia Tech	17–4, 5–3
	February
2	Monday	W, 87–77	vs. Syracuse	18–4, 6–3
7	Saturday	W, 71–68	vs. No. 1 Duke	19–4, 7–3
10	Tuesday	L, 75–66	at No. 25 Miami	19–5, 7–4
14	Saturday	W, 79–65	vs. Pittsburgh	20–5, 8–4
17	Tuesday	L, 82–58	at N.C. State	20–6, 8–5
21	Saturday	W, 77–64	at Syracuse	21–6, 9–5
23	Monday	W, 77–74	vs. Louisville	22–6, 10–5
28	Saturday	W, 89–82	vs. Virginia Tech	23–6, 11–5
	March
3	Tuesday	W, 67–63	vs. Clemson	24–6, 12–5
7	Saturday	L, 76–61	at No. 1 Duke	24–7, 12–6
10–14	Tues.-Sat.	ACC tournament	Spectrum Center, Charlotte
12	Thursday	L, 80–79	Quarterfinals: vs. Clemson	24–8
		NCAA tournament
19	Thursday	L, 82–78, OT	First round: vs. VCU in Greenville, S.C.	24–9

Photo courtesy of the ACC