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UNC Basketball: ESPN re-seeds men’s basketball Sweet 16 teams

By Nick Delahanty

Mar 19, 2022; Fort Worth, TX, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels guard Leaky Black (1) reaches for the ball against Baylor Bears forward Jeremy Sochan (1) during the second round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament at Dickies Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 19, 2022; Fort Worth, TX, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels guard Leaky Black (1) reaches for the ball against Baylor Bears forward Jeremy Sochan (1) during the second round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament at Dickies Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports /
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Prior to the Sweet 16 beginning on Thursday, where does ESPN place the UNC basketball program in their re-seeding of the remaining teams?

We’re officially down to 16 teams left in this year’s NCAA Tournament.

Fortunately, the UNC basketball program is among the teams still standing, as they, along with the women’s basketball team, will be competing this weekend for a chance to advance even further.

Prior to the action getting underway, ESPN’s Myron Medcalf re-seeded the teams that are still left in the tournament field.

light. Must Read. NCAA does NOTHING about UNC/Baylor referees

Similar to other recent rankings (such as KenPom, which apparently thinks the Tar Heels suck), North Carolina is considered one of the lowest-rated teams remaining.

Medcalf views the UNC basketball program as the tenth-best team left, and sees them as a No. 3 seed in his re-adjusted Sweet 16 seeds (which ends with the No. 4 seeds). Even though he doesn’t rate the Tar Heels as high as we’d like to see, does Medcalf think that this team still has a good chance to keep moving forward?

Here’s what Medcalf had to say in his re-seedings article about North Carolina:

"You can look at Saturday’s outcome a couple of ways: either a North Carolina team with a 25-point lead in the second half had to outplay Baylor in overtime to earn a trip to the Sweet 16 (and that should be concerning); or fending off the defending national champions with a miraculous comeback and one of your best players in the locker room demanded a lot of determination and validated this team’s 8-1 rally in its past nine games.Hubert Davis will choose the latter. With 10:08 left to play on Saturday, UNC had a 67-42 lead when Brady Manek (26 points, 4-for-6 from 3) was ejected for a flagrant foul 2 on Jeremy Sochan — and still found a way to beat a top seed. Since Feb. 16, North Carolina has defeated both Duke and Baylor. The Tar Heels are also in a region (East) that has lost its top two seeds (Kentucky, Baylor) and features a 15-seed (Saint Peter’s). A run to New Orleans for UNC would not be shocking anymore."

Over the last few weeks, Hubert Davis and the UNC basketball program have shown us that they can compete with anyone. Sure, they aren’t rated very highly among the teams that are still in contention, but hey, this group loves to prove people wrong (as they’ve shown time and time again over the final stretch of the regular season as well as the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament).

Hopefully, we’ll be talking about where Medcalf re-seeds the Tar Heels in his next rankings, which will feature the final eight teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Next. Game time and TV channel for UNC vs. UCLA. dark

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