UNC Basketball: ESPN’s Jay Bilas picks against Tar Heels in Round of 64

ESPN analyst Jay Bilas picks against the UNC basketball program in Round of 64 matchup with Wisconsin.

The North Carolina Tar Heels were among the 68 teams selected for the 2021 NCAA Tournament on Sunday, earning the No. 8 seed in the South Region. Many UNC fans immediately shuddered at seeing the Tar Heels land on the 8-line, knowing they’d be matched up with a difficult opponent in the Round of 64, and slated for an almost certain date with top-seeded Baylor if they survive their first game.

That first game is against the ninth-seeded Wisconsin Badgers, who went just 17-12 this season, but were competitive in the majority of their 10 conference losses. Having said that, though, the Badgers had a pretty weak resume leading up to Selection Sunday. They began the season by winning 12 of their first 15 games, but lost nine of their last 14. Their last victory over a team with a winning record came on January 27, and seven of their 10 Big 10 wins came against teams with losing records.

How they got a 9-seed is a bit of a mystery to me, other than the fact that they did play in the nation’s top basketball conference this season. Perhaps their strength of schedule, and competitiveness in losses to good teams meant more to the committee than it does to me. Alas, we are where we are, and they’ll be playing the Tar Heels on Friday for the right to play the winner of Baylor and Hartford in the Round of 32.

What I will say about the Badgers is that they seem to be very good at some of the things that North Carolina and its young roster struggle with. They take very good care of the basketball (8.9 turnovers per game), and shoot it well from three-point range (35.9 percent), as well as at the free throw line (76.7 percent). The Tar Heels turned over the ball nearly 15 times per game this season, while shooting just 31.7 percent from beyond the arc, and 66.8 percent at the foul line.

However, the Badgers seem to be at a decided disadvantage when it comes to size, particularly in the front court. They have just two players in their regular rotation over 6-feet-9-inches tall. That’s 6-foot-10-inch Micah Potter (12.8 points, 5.9 rebounds), and 6-foot-11-inch Nate Reuvers (8.2 points, 3.2 rebounds). The Tar Heels have four such players in Garrison Brooks, Armando Bacot, Day’Ron Sharpe and Walker Kessler. It’s there that North Carolina will have to make hay as the Badgers look to play tough defense and knock down threes against a UNC squad that has a hard time defending against the long-ball.

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ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas said as much in his write-up of the game; a game in which he picked Wisconsin to win. He noted things similar to the above, while giving the Badgers the edge to win due to the youth and inconsistency in UNC’s back court, and the tough, gritty upperclassmen of Wisconsin.

But honestly, I can’t blame the former Blue Devil for his pick. The Tar Heels are young — especially in the back court — and they have been incredibly inconsistent this year. They do struggle to consistently knock down shots, and they are a walking turnover at times. They’ve laid eggs in the first half of games, and then played like world-beaters in the final 20 minutes. They’re mercurial, to say the least, and that makes them a risky pick in a tournament such as this one.

But that won’t change my pick for their matchup with the Badgers, as I’ve still got the Tar Heels to win in a low-scoring game in which they control the boards and take advantage of second chance points off of their misses. It won’t take a lights-out shooting performance to win this one, but a few timely threes from the likes of Kerwin Walton and Caleb Love will likely be needed. And above all else, they’ll have to take care of the basketball. Wisconsin isn’t likely to turn the ball over a lot in this one, but they’ll certainly look to take advantage of any miscues by the Tar Heels.

The Tar Heels will win the rebounding battle by double-digits, but win the game by single-digits.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for complete coverage of the Tar Heels’ game against the Badgers, and everything UNC basketball.