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CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina’s record would be dramatically different if a few plays at the end of close losses had gone differently. The Tar Heels repeatedly shot down any chance that Thursday’s game against No. 6 N.C. State would come down to one or two possessions like the other defeats. UNC came through with its best perimeter shooting game of the season, never trailing after the opening quarter, on its way to an 80–70 win at Carmichael Arena.
Just because No. 10 Carolina isn’t playing a mid-week game doesn’t mean there aren’t fluctuations in the Tar Heels’ NCAA resume. A pair of Tuesday night blowouts both helped and hurt the league-leading Tar Heels (20–6, 12–3 ACC), who fell one spot to 10th in the NET rankings.
With some of the players UNC expected to create good guard depth watching from the sidelines, Coach Courtney Banghart has had to adjust. Redshirt sophomore Kayla McPherson is out for the season with a knee injury. Lower-body injuries have kept sophomore Paulina Paris out for the last eight games and freshman Reniya Kelly sidelined for the last two.
North Carolina fell three spots to No. 10 in the AP Top 25 men’s poll Monday as the Tar Heels were one of four top-10 teams in last week’s poll to lose.
WINSTON-SALEM — With expected wins this week over the two teams at the bottom of the ACC, Carolina will try to keep the momentum against two teams at the top of the league. That will be a challenge if the Tar Heels don’t play better than they did in Sunday night’s 58–50 victory at Joel Coliseum over a struggling Wake Forest program.
Tyler Nickel’s trip back to the Smith Center didn’t produce a victory for his Virginia Tech team, but he reminded the Tar Heels of his perimeter shooting prowess.
A month from Selection Sunday, No. 7 Carolina appears to be solidly on the No. 2 seed line. The league-leading Tar Heels (20–6, 12–3 ACC) moved up two spots to ninth in the NET rankings after Saturday’s home Quad 2 victory over Virginia Tech despite losing a Quad 1 win.
CHAPEL HILL — The beast mode from Harrison Ingram early and Armando Bacot late drove No. 7 North Carolina to a huge bounce-back victory it badly needed. Bacot scored 19 of his 25 points in the second half, and Ingram had a double-double by halftime as the Tar Heels eased to a 96–81 win Saturday over Virginia Tech at the Smith Center for the 64th 20-win season in program history and third in a row.
Carolina is a No. 2 seed and the fifth overall seed in the bracket that the NCAA men’s basketball committee revealed Saturday. During a bracket preview show on CBS and TNT, the committee revealed the top 16 seeds as they stood entering Saturday’s games. The actual field will be announced at 6 p.m. on Selection Sunday, March 17.
Dawson Garcia, Destiny Adams, Justin McKoy and Kennedy Todd-Williams all had big mid-week games, while Tyler Nickel scored 15 ahead of his return to the Smith Center.
CHAPEL HILL — After four consecutive losses, North Carolina’s women were happy to finally end a skid, regardless of who they beat. UNC put the game away with a 10–0 fourth-quarter run to take a harder-than-expected 75–62 victory Thursday at Carmichael Arena.
If Carolina makes a deep run in March, it will be with lockdown defense. The No. 7 Tar Heels (19–6, 11–3 ACC) haven’t reached the level they’ll need to do that since their 10-game win streak ended with the loss at Georgia Tech on Jan. 30.
No. 7 North Carolina’s second non-Quad 1 loss of the season dropped the Tar Heels one spot in the NET rankings to 11, probably pushing them further away from the No. 1 seed NCAA tournament seed line.
Carolina’s defense, a cornerstone of a 10-game win streak earlier this season, continues to regress in recent games, and the No. 7 Tar Heels paid for it at Syracuse. The Orange cashed in with red-hot shooting.
With Selection Sunday five Sundays away, the No. 7 North Carolina men are projected as a No. 2 seed, and the UNC women are predicted to have a tough road as a No. 6 seed.
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