UNC Basketball: Tar Heels earn NCAA Tournament record 16th No. 1 seed

North Carolina earns its NCAA Tournament record 16th No. 1 seed

Despite losing in their ACC semifinal matchup against eventual tournament champion Duke, the North Carolina Tar Heels earned a No. 1 seed in the 2017 NCAA Tournament.

The Tar Heels represent the top seed in the tournament’s South Region that boasts some of the greatest programs in the history of the sport.

The announcement was made Sunday afternoon during the event commonly known as “Selection Sunday”, in which CBS releases the names of the 68 schools picked by the NCAA Selection Committee to participate in the largest and most popular sporting event of its kind.

North Carolina was awarded the third overall seed in the tournament, despite the clamoring of Duke fans and their media counterparts (looking at you Seth Davis). As it turns out, Duke wasn’t as close to the one-line as some seemed to believe. The Blue Devils wound up with the No. 2 seed in the East Region.

The committee, if nothing else, showed support of their own metric that puts more emphasis in two months of conference play than a four-day tournament.

For North Carolina, the 1-seed marks the 16th its had in program history, more than any other school.

Speaking of historic programs, the NCAA Tournament’s South Region is home to some of the game’s most prolific teams. Along with North Carolina, Kentucky and UCLA are the region’s No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, respectively.

Kentucky holds the record for tournament victories (121), UCLA holds the record for tournament titles (11) and North Carolina has more Final Fours than any other program in history (19).

Throw in a perennially dangerous mid-major like Butler, an upstart Seton Hall squad, and grossly under-seeded Wichita State, and that’s quite an elite region.

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North Carolina opens up play on Friday afternoon against 16th-seeded Texas Southern in Greenville, South Carolina.