The ACC Tournament is North Carolina’s to win.
Now all the top-seeded Tar Heels have to do is go out and win it.
History suggests that it won’t be as easy as Hubert Davis’ team has made it look in beating Duke twice, including Saturday at Cameron, and finishing the regular season 2 games clear of the rest of the ACC.
The regular season champion hasn’t won the ACC Tournament since Virginia did it in 2018. And it’s been even longer since UNC has cut down the nets at the league’s signature event.
It hasn’t happened since 2016.
To put that into perspective, that was even before Armando Bacot arrived in Chapel Hill.
This year’s tournament in Washington DC essentially is 3 tournaments in 1.
The first, on Tuesday, is the participation bracket that could determine which and how many current coaches will lose their jobs. The 2nd, on Wednesday, is the bubble bracket that will go a long way toward deciding the postseason fates of several participants.
Then there’s the actual tournament, the 1 that begins when the top 4 seeds arrive on Thursday.
The top 2 teams in the regular season, UNC and Duke, are heavy favorites to meet for the championship Saturday night. FanDuel Sportsbook has both the Tar Heels and defending champion Blue Devils listed as co-favorites at +180.
Surprisingly, Wake Forest is the 3rd choice at +750, ahead of top-4 seeds Clemson (+950) and Pittsburgh (+1500).
Considering the parity in the ACC this season and the unpredictable nature of this tournament, anything is possible. So let’s look into the future and take a stab at predicting how each of the 3 tournaments inside the tournament might play out.
Participation bracket
The best of the 3 opening round games is the opener. It matches rebuilding teams that despite sub-.500 conference records are playing their best basketball of the season under 1st-year coaches.
Micah Shrewsberry at Notre Dame and Damon Stoudamire at Georgia Tech have both done a solid job of setting foundations for their respective programs and have a core of talented young players. The difference between them is that the 13th-seeded Yellow Jackets have the better inside game and a proven veteran scorer in Miles Kelly.
Game 2 will likely be Kenny Payne’s last as Louisville’s coach. The former Cardinals star is just 12-51 in 2 seasons at his alma mater (5-34 ACC) and will likely be fired no matter what the outcome. The book is still out on NC State’s Kevin Keatts. Even after a collapse that saw the Wolfpack fall from a 5-1 start in the ACC to a 9-11 finish and No. 10 seed, Keatts is likely safe because of a prohibitive buyout. But a loss to the league’s worst team to close out the year on a 4-game losing streak might make a change unavoidable.
As much of a disappointment as NC State has been, Miami’s fall from last year’s Final 4 to the 1st day of this year’s ACC Tournament has been even more dramatic. Injuries have played a major role in the Hurricanes’ demise. And their chances against Boston College on Tuesday could depend on the availability of star guard Nijel Pack.
Prediction: Georgia Tech, NC State and Miami advance.
Bubble bracket
You can’t guarantee an NCAA Tournament bid by winning on Wednesday. But 5th-seeded Wake Forest can certainly play its way out of a bid by losing to a double-digit seed in DC. The Deacons know this from experience. A similar loss to 13th-seeded BC cost them a bid 2 years ago. No matter who Steve Forbes’ team plays, it will be a chance for redemption against 1 of the 2 bottom feeders that helped put Wake into bubble trouble in the 1st place.
No. 6 seed Clemson is in a better situation. Tigers figure to be safely into the NCAA field and have beaten both of their potential opponents by double figures this season. The further they go in this tournament, the better their seed will be in the next one. The other higher seeds – No. 7 Syracuse, No. 8 Virginia Tech and No. 9 Florida State – all have a lot of work to do to have any realistic hope on Selection Sunday.
But it can be done.
The Hokies pulled it off by sweeping 4 games in as many days to win the championship in 2022. And 2 of their best players, guards Hunter Cattoor and Sean Pedulla, were key contributors to that success. Cattoor was the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. A repeat performance will be tougher this time with an opener against Florida State, followed by a potential quarterfinal date with No. 1 UNC.
A more likely candidate to make a deep run is the Orange, who went 4-0 against NC State and Louisville, and come into the tournament as 1 of the ACC’s hottest teams. They’ve won 5 of their past 6, a surge fueled by a talented sophomore class, led by All-ACC guard Judah Mintz.
Prediction: Clemson, Wake Forest, Syracuse and Virginia Tech advance.
Quarterfinals
The Tar Heels would much prefer to see Virginia Tech than Florida State. Although they swept the season series against the Seminoles, it wasn’t easy. They had to overcome a 22-0 run and a 14-point 2nd-half deficit to win in Chapel Hill in December. A month later in Tallahassee, it took a 24-point performance by RJ Davis and some late defensive heroics to hold on for another close win. In its only meeting with the Hokies, UNC breezed to a 96-81 victory.
Duke has a favorable draw in Syracuse. Both teams are perimeter-oriented, but the Orange had no answer inside for the Blue Devils’ duo of Kyle Filipowski and Mark Mitchell during their regular season meeting at Cameron. Duke’s bigs combined for 33 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocked shots in a convincing 86-66 win.
While the 2 top seeds are heavy favorites to win, the other 2 quarterfinal matchups figure to be much more competitive. Their outcomes depend on which Virginia and Wake Forest teams show up at Capital One Arena.
When the 3rd-seeded Cavaliers make shots, they’re tough to beat. The problem is you never know when they’re going to make shots. They’ve been held to 49 points or fewer in 4 of their last 7 regular season games. The opposite is the case with the Deacons. When they defend, they’re as good as anyone in the league. When they don’t, as was the case in their 3 straight losses following their upset of Duke, they can be beaten by anyone.
Adding to the stakes of Wake’s matchup against No. 4 Pittsburgh is that it could turn out to be a virtual play-in game for the NCAA Tournament.
Prediction: UNC, Duke, Clemson and Pittsburgh advance.
Semifinals
I know, it’s easy to pick the top 2 seeds to advance to the championship game. But in this case, the Tar Heels and Blue Devils are a full notch above the rest of the teams in the league.
Duke figures to have the tougher time against a Clemson team whose low-post presence created problems for it during their regular season meeting at Cameron. The Tigers will also be highly motivated after a controversial last-second foul that cost them a victory in that late-January game.
But this is the ACC Tournament and both teams have a history here. Duke for the better, Clemson for the worse.
As for the other semifinal, UNC is simply the better team. As long as the Tar Heels maintain the defensive intensity they’ve shown over the past few weeks and don’t let the Panthers’ Blake Hinson go off the way he did in an upset of Duke, they should move 1 step closer to their 1st tournament title since 2016.
Prediction: UNC and Duke advance.
Final
Forget that nonsense about how it’s tough to beat a good team 3 times. If you’re good enough to win the first 2 games, there’s no reason for things to be any different the 3rd time around.
And the Tar Heels have been the better team in both their regular-season meetings.
UNC and star big man Armando Bacot bludgeoned the Blue Devils with a powerful inside game in Chapel Hill, then used the hot 3-point shooting of Cormac Ryan to take Duke down in Durham last Saturday.
The 1 constant in both games was the Tar Heels’ effort, which their rival has yet to be able to match.
Hubert Davis’ team is playing as if it’s on a mission. Winning the ACC Tournament title is just one more step along the way.
Prediction: UNC cuts down the nets.
RELATED: North Carolina online sports betting has gone live, allowing legal sports gamblers in the Tar Heel State the chance to place online wagers on the ACC Tournament, NCAA Tournament and more.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
