UNC Basketball: Tar Heels’ NCAA Tournament hopes take a hit

The UNC basketball program inexplicably lost to Marquette at home, and its NCAA Tournament hopes have taken a hit in the process.

After a game that made many UNC fans question whether or not North Carolina even deserves to be in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, the Tar Heels saw their postseason hopes take a noticeable hit in ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s latest projections.

This follows a somewhat impressive stretch of games beginning in the month of January that saw the Tar Heels win 9-of-12, and improve their projected tournament placement to a 9-seed. The embarrassing 13-point home loss to Marquette drops them back to the 10-line, and gets them closer to the bubble that they’d worked so hard to get off of.

They currently share the 10-line with Louisville, BYU and Boise State, and are just ahead of 11-seeds St. Bonaventure, Drake, Seton Hall, Indiana and Connecticut — the Hoosiers and Huskies are currently slated for the 11-seed play-in game. Michigan State and Duke are quickly approaching in the season’s closing weeks, too, as the Spartans have improved to the “first four out” grouping, and the Blue Devils are leading three other teams in the “next four out” quartette.

There’s no doubt that the Tar Heels control their own destiny at this point, at least according to Lunardi’s projections. But with upcoming games against No. 11 Florida State, Syracuse and Duke, they’ll have to win some games that they haven’t shown capable of doing for most of the season prior to now.

It seems reasonable to think that if they win two of their final three games, they’ll be in pretty good position to make the tournament. If they lose two, however, or manage to not win a single game, they’ll be sitting on the outside looking in when Selection Sunday comes just over two weeks from today.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for all the latest on the UNC basketball program, and their projected position in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.