Maybe Louisville and Virginia will beat each other up.

There are two ways to look at Carolina’s first ACC Tournament game Thursday night at 9:30 p.m.

One way is that it’s just too darn late to play basketball, which obviously the TV people don’t care about because the dreaded No. 3 seed has always been buried at the end of the day leading up to the title game.

Second, the Tar Heels will be plenty rested to play since their special victory at Duke last Saturday. And whoever their opponent, that team will have been in a physical fight the night before.

UNC plays the winner of Virginia-Louisville, a game between two opponents the Heels have beaten three times this season.

Their 74-58 win over the Cavaliers was in January, when UVa was trying to figure out its revamped lineup after heavy losses from the year before. It was Carolina’s first conference home game after a COVID-interrupted start to the regular season.

A 6-3 month defined UNC as an inconsistent team before February began a run with only two losses, both shocking in their own way. The Heels survived the trip to Louisville in overtime and defeated the Cardinals in another close game in Chapel Hill. In between was the blowout at home to Duke and the stunning stinker against Pitt.

The March 5 upset at Duke gave Carolina a 15-5 regular-season record and sent it to Brooklyn with renewed confidence and momentum. However, the first game at the Barclays Center will not be easy.

The Wahoos are much better than they were in Chapel Hill, having also won in Durham on the way to a 12-8 ACC record. Reece Beekman, who hit the winning shot at Cameron, joins Leaky Black on the conference all-defensive team and point guard Kihei Clark can get hot from the outside, as he did in the narrow defeat to Duke in the Charlottesville rematch.

Louisville (6-14) is obviously smarting over the two close losses to Carolina, and handled Georgia Tech in Tuesday night’s first round game.

Shooting guard El Ellis is from Durham and would like nothing better than to beat his home-state team. Seven-footer Malik Williams gives the Cardinals the size to combat Armando Bacot and Brady Manek inside.

Whoever the opponent, it will not be your typical quarterfinals game.

 

Photo via AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley.

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