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Tar Heels Again Flirting With NCAA Bubble, Which Rarely Leads To High-Level Success
By David Glenn
Given Cinderella’s long-standing popularity in college basketball circles, or even North Carolina’s unlikely 2022 run as a lowly #8 seed to the national championship game, it’s easy to forget one of the most fundamental principles of the sport.
The overwhelming majority of teams that win postseason championships are those that ranked among the best during the regular season, too. In other words, it’s extraordinarily rare for teams to struggle from November through February, then simply “find themselves” in March.
That’s bad news for the Tar Heels (15-9, 7-6 ACC after Tuesday’s loss at Wake Forest), who find themselves on or near the NCAA Tournament bubble in mid-February for the second straight year.
At this point, either March Madness extreme — another thrilling finish (perhaps even like last year?) or missing the NCAA Tournament entirely — still seems possible, partly because of the remaining schedule and partly because of Carolina’s fine line between victory and defeat.
UNC’s final seven regular-season games include five matchups against definite/probable NCAA Tournament teams: Clemson (Saturday), Miami (Monday), at NC State (Feb. 19), Virginia (Feb. 25) and Duke (March 4). That means the Heels still have time … either to improve their NCAA Tournament résumé/seed significantly or to fall from the March Madness picture entirely.
“For us, this year, consistently it’s been the discipline and the details, the little things: a boxout, a defensive assignment, execution on the offensive end,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said Saturday, after the Tar Heels’ 63-57 loss at Duke. “That has been up and down in late-game situations. Once we get better and more consistent at that, I think (long pause) it’ll be a happier locker room.”
Last year, late-season improvements at both ends of the floor and huge victories in the latter half of February (at Virginia Tech, at NC State) and early March (at Duke) enabled the Tar Heels to overcome their bubble status, earn an at-large selection to the Big Dance (albeit as one of the lowest seeds in program history), and then make a scintillating March Madness run.
In the process, Davis became one of the most successful first-year coaches in NCAA history and ultimately earned multiple national coach of the year honors.
This season, the Tar Heels’ offense has been ahead of their defense for most of the season, but those trends have been reversed so far in conference play. Against ACC competition, the Heels are second in defensive efficiency (behind only Clemson and essentially equal to UVa) but only eighth in offensive efficiency, according to the advanced statistics at KenPom.com.
In particular, UNC’s 3-point shooting has fallen to an ACC-worst 29.6 percent in league games, with junior guard Caleb Love both taking by far the most 3-pointers and shooting the lowest percentage among the team’s rotation players, the worst possible combination. The squad’s questionable depth has been a season-long concern, as well.
Meanwhile, UNC’s résumé has faded in recent weeks, both because of its own poor play and that of some of its previous victims. The Tar Heels’ mid-December victories over Ohio State and Michigan, while very impressive at the time, don’t look nearly as good now that the Buckeyes and Wolverines have dropped out of the NCAA Tournament picture. In fact, the Heels may have only a single victory (at home against NC State) over a team currently projected to earn an at-large bid to the Big Dance.
It’s easy to forget that Carolina’s amazing turnaround a year ago was a true rarity. After all, a #8 seed (1985 Villanova) was the lowest-seeded team ever to win the NCAA Tournament, and the Tar Heels came up only a few possessions short against Kansas of matching that legendary feat.
Most of UNC history, and most of NCAA basketball history, is a reminder that regular-season heavyweights typically are the teams that achieve the highest-level postseason success.
For example, all six of North Carolina’s NCAA champions also were elite in the regular season. The Tar Heels’ 1957 team, which finished 32-0, carried the #1 national ranking from Jan. 21 all the way through its March 23 victory over Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas. After NCAA Tournament officials started seeding the field, in 1979, both of coach Dean Smith’s (1982, 1993) and all three of coach Roy Williams’ (2005, 2009, 2017) national titles came with #1 seeds.
Overall, during the seeded-field era (1979-present), #1 seeds (26), #2 seeds (seven) and #3 seeds (five) have captured 38 of the 43 NCAA Tournaments, or more than 88 percent. In other words, if you don’t prove yourself as one of the 12 best teams in America during the regular season, you’re highly unlikely to be the last team standing at the end of March Madness.
Similarly, all 18 of UNC’s ACC champions were very impressive during the regular season, with 16 of those teams entering the ACC Tournament (which crowns the league’s official champion) as either the #1 or #2 seed and all 18 finishing in either first or second place, counting ties, in the regular-season conference standings.
Even UNC’s lower-seeded ACC champs were elite teams; Smith’s 1989 Tar Heels (a #4 seed) tied for second in the regular-season conference standings and carried a #9 national ranking into the ACC Tournament, and Smith’s 1997 Tar Heels (his final team; a #3 seed) tied for second in the regular-season league standings and carried a #5 national ranking into the event.
Overall, #1 seeds (32), #2 seeds (13), #3 seeds (10) and #4 seeds (six) have captured 61 of the 68 ACC Tournaments, or about 90 percent. The lowest seed ever to win the event came last year, when as a #7 seed Virginia Tech won its first ACC championship.
Such Cinderella-style victories are memorable, in part, because they are highly unusual.
If the 2023 Tar Heels really have a legitimate shot at postseason success, odds are they’ll have to win some big games and show at least a few signs of greatness between now and March.
(featured image via AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
The founding editor and long-time owner of the ACC Sports Journal and ACCSports.com, he also has contributed to the Durham Herald-Sun, ESPN Radio, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Raycom Sports, SiriusXM and most recently The Athletic. From 1999-2020, he also hosted the David Glenn Show, which became the largest sports radio program in the history of the Carolinas, syndicated in more than 300 North Carolina cities and towns, plus parts of South Carolina and Virginia.
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