UNC Basketball: Tar Heels’ Bracketology outlook after Notre Dame win

Where does UNC basketball stand in latest Bracketology projections after a big win over Notre Dame on Wednesday night?

There’s little doubt at this point that the North Carolina Tar Heels will be in the NCAA Tournament’s field of 68. It’s now just a matter of when they’ll hear their name called on Selection Sunday a little over a week from now.

With a big win over Notre Dame in the second round of the ACC Tournament on Wednesday night, their position in the Big Dance appears to have gotten slightly more favorable. Or did it? According to multiple sources — ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, NCAA.com’s Andy Katz and Bleacher Report — North Carolina is now squarely on the 9-line.

In each individual iteration of the bracket, the Tar Heels are matched up with a different 8-seed — BYU in one, Connecticut in another and Loyola-Chicago the other. In two of those brackets, Michigan is the 1-seed that the Tar Heels would face if they made it past the 8/9 game and into the Round of 32. In the other bracket, it’s the Illinois Fighting Illini.

So, maybe favorable was the wrong word? That is, if the North Carolina team that shows up is the one that looked lost in a December defeat to NC State, or dropped a home game to a 10-12 Marquette team that wasn’t even initially on the schedule. On the other hand, if the UNC squad that shows up is the one that beat Duke twice, throttled Louisville by 45 points, squashed No. 11 Florida State or ran Notre Dame out of the gym in Greensboro, look out. That team can compete with anyone in the nation.

And it’s not like the Tar Heels are stuck on that 8/9 line, either. They’ve got a game against the Virginia Tech Hokies on Thursday night, and it’s an opportunity for a big quad 1 win. They’ve potentially got two more ACC Tournament games after that, both of which present a chance for resume-building victories that could propel them, I believe, to as high as a 6-seed by the time Selection Sunday rolls around.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s see how they perform against the Hokies, who haven’t played a basketball game since February 27. If the results are anything similar to the last game that North Carolina played against a team coming off of a long Covid-19 pause, the Tar Heels will be dancing their way into the ACC Tournament semifinals on Friday night.

Stick with Keeping It Heel for complete coverage of the ACC Tournament, and all the latest on the UNC basketball program.