UNC Basketball: Jerry Palm STILL has Tar Heels among first four out

With two weeks remaining until ‘Selection Sunday,’ CBS’ Jerry Palm still thinks that the UNC basketball program will not make the NCAA Tournament.

At this point, you have to wonder if Jerry Palm has a personal vendetta against the UNC basketball program.

Even though they’ve done nothing to hurt their NCAA Tournament resume, the CBS Sports college hoops expert still believes that the Tar Heels will not make the big dance. In his latest iteration of bracketology, Palm has North Carolina listed as the first team in his “first four out” category.

Before we take a deeper look into Palm’s bracketology, let’s compare it to the most recent breakdown from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. Heading into Sunday’s action, Lunardi viewed the Tar Heels as a “last four byes” team, which is a bit of a drastic difference between where the two analysts rank them at this point.

Of course, where North Carolina stands will ultimately depend on who you ask. There’s a lot of room for discussion with these types of things, as no one will fully know where each respective team stands until we get the official bracket.

If you’re looking at it from the Tar Heels’ perspective, you’d have to be curious as to why some teams are viewed ahead of you (according to Palm’s bracketology).

Let’s use the Michigan Wolverines as an example. Not only did the UNC basketball program defeat them by 21 points early on in the season, but the Tar Heels have a much better overall record. You could make the case that the Wolverines played a tougher schedule and have a better NET rating, but at what point does record and overall team success come into play?

In reality, does a 15-12 team deserve to be a No. 11 seed, per se, in the NCAA Tournament? You could easily make the case that they should be on the outside looking in and not the Tar Heels.

We already know that North Carolina doesn’t have a single signature win to their name. It’s also well-documented that they’ve struggled against the Quad 1 teams they’ve played this season. However, at what point are they going to receive credit for the games that they did win and the success they’ve had, even against a mostly favorable schedule?

If they could pick up two wins this week to wrap up their regular season, you’d have to think that North Carolina would almost certainly punch their ticket to the tournament. A win against Duke in the final game of the regular season might just be enough to get them in.

At this rate, all we can do is speculate. Even though we all probably read into bracketology rankings far too heavily, it’s okay to wonder why Jerry Palm has (and still continues to) view the UNC basketball program as a team that isn’t worthy of an NCAA tournament bid.

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