Carolina and Louisville are both playing the waiting game.

The Tar Heels and Cardinals go into Wednesday night’s headliner as close as can be in all the metrics for the NCAA Tournament. Both are top 10 in the polls and virtually every other factor used to determine seeds – except UNC is 17th in strength of schedule, which surely will improve after this murderous February.

Carolina leads the ACC with an 11-3 record, Louisville is tied for second with Duke at 10-4. All three have only five losses. After UNC’s  win over offensively-challenged Virginia Saturday night, the Heels jumped to a No. 1 seed in Bracketololgy. Joe Lunardi of ESPN has them playing their first two games in Greenville, South Carolina, along with Duke and Maryland. What a first weekend that would be.

But there is a lot of basketball to be played before then, including games at Pitt and a rematch at UVa for Carolina, plus the Senior Night date with Duke on March 4. Then the ACC Tournament in Brooklyn, which should be an incredible five days of hoops at the Barclays Center. However, something else awaits UNC and The ‘Ville that won’t be determined until long after the season ends.

Both schools still have NCAA allegations to be settled, UNC’s from its long-standing Level 1 charges of academic fraud that the school and NCAA have been fighting over for almost three years. Louisville faces four Level Ones stemming from the sexual misconduct charges the Cardinals have already acknowledged by self-imposing a post-season ban a year ago. Rick Pitino, who has had his shares of ups and downs during a Hall of Fame career, is contesting the Lack of Control allegation by a head coach.

Google Louisville’s NCAA charges and find a heartfelt video that shows Pitino telling of a dorm on the Louisville campus he had built with donations dedicated to his brother-in-law and a friend who perished in the 9-11 bombings. It was in that dorm where the misdeeds occurred and sons of the deceased lived as team managers.

UNC, of course, continues to play ball at the highest level with its own NCAA albatross hanging over its shoulders like a weighted vest.

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