The ACC baseball tourney is like basketball, but with consolation games.

When the ACC baseball coaches agreed to change the format of the conference tournament a few years ago, they knew what they were getting into. One early loss and done, except you get to play what turns out to be a practice game.

After his Coastal Division champion and top-seeded Tar Heels lost to No. 12-seed Pittsburgh, Mike Fox’s team can’t win the ACC title and he must be concerned with another abrupt NCAA ouster in the regional next weekend. Two losses at home to Davidson last year is not a very distant memory.

Carolina plays No. 8 seed Georgia Tech Friday and needs to win to get its mojo back. The game should not affect seeding for the Big Diamond Dance. It will be a shock if the Heels don’t open NCAA play at The Bosh, but the loss to a mediocre Pitt team shows how vulnerable baseball is for even the best teams.

After sweeping Virginia Tech at Blacksburg last weekend and owning the tie-breaker for sweeping N.C. State earlier, also on the road, Fox got to pick his spot. He decided not to play Thursday and open the ACC tournament Wednesday. In the same draw with Pitt and Georgia Tech, it looked perfect.

All the Diamond Heels had to do was whip basically a .500 Pitt team to advance to Saturday’s semifinals. But bad defense, too many walks and lack of timely hitting let the air out of the balloon at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, where Carolina is now one-and-done with the meaningless game against the Jackets and must get its head screwed back on for the NCAAs.

With the season Fox’s ball club has had, it wasn’t hard to look past Pitt, which played hard and had more incentive with a shot to still make the post-season by upsetting the Tar Heels.

After taking a 3-1 lead on a bases-loaded walk, Carolina nearly broke the game open in the second inning when Jackson Hesterlee’s bases-loaded bomb to centerfield was run down by Pitt’s Frank Maldonado, who slammed into the wall and held onto the ball. It saved the game for Pitt, and UNC squandered other chances before giving up the winning run on a suicide squeeze bunt that Fox said he saw coming but didn’t call for a pitch out.

Now, the Heels have a week to think about a loss that hurts more mentally than on their record. Fox said “that’s baseball.” Baseball is also momentum, which Carolina has lost.

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