March Madness: ESPN analyst picks Tar Heels in huge upset

March Madness is here and one ESPN analyst picked the Tar Heels to pull off a huge upset in the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend.

The North Carolina Tar Heels may not have had the kind of season that they and their fans had hoped they would but with a first-year head coach, three transfer players, and playing shorthanded, they won 24 games and finished their Atlantic Coast Conference slate in a tie for second place.

After being on the NCAA Tournament bubble for the majority of the season, they pulled it together over the past couple of months with wins in 12 of their final 15 games, including the best victory of their 2021-22 campaign, a 13-point upset of Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. They in turn earned an 8-seed in the big dance and a date with ninth-seeded Marquette in the Round of 64.

Now, after evaluating the Tar Heels’ first-round opponent and their path beyond that, ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi has picked Hubert Davis’ squad to not only beat the Marquette Golden Eagles but also to knock off the East Region’s No. 1 seed, the defending national champion Baylor Bears. In addition to that, Lunardi also projects the Tar Heels to beat the Saint Mary’s Gaels the following week and advance to the Elite Eight.

That’s where Lunardi has the Tar Heels’ journey ending at the hands of John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats but I think most UNC fans would agree that an appearance in the Regional Final would be a really respectable end to their first season in nearly two decades under somebody not named Roy Williams.

We’re just hours away from the Tar Heels’ opening-round game against the Golden Eagles, who are led by Shaka Smart in his first season with the program. Smart was undefeated in three games against North Carolina when he was the head coach at the University of Texas.

This group of Tar Heels will try to end the program’s run of futility against Smart and give themselves an opportunity to play into the tournament’s second weekend — making Lunardi’s picks look more brilliant than bold.

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