1. The talking heads give great weight to Northwestern‘s #1 RPI in seeding the Wildcats #1. As far as I’m concerned, as long as we get a top 3 seed (which receive byes), I don’t much care where we are seeded.
2. Actually, if being seeded #2 puts us in Maryland’s bracket, my personal preference would be to be seeded second. That rivalry has produced numerous classic games. Also, if the UNC players perceive a #2 seed as a slight, this might provide some additional motivation.
3. The Heels definitely could still receive the #1 seed; in fact the pollsters put them at #1. Northwestern has a bad loss to Ohio State, but they are on a 10-game winning streak and have three wins against top-3 teams (UNC has zero).
4. The projected brackets that I have seen both have UNC playing Clemson, assuming the Tigers win a first-round game against a lesser opponent. If this comes to pass, it will be the fifth UNC-Clemson game in the past two seasons. The committee is muting interest in the tournament by this redundancy. This is justified by scheduling based on proximity in order to cut expenses. IMO, it would be exciting to play teams like Johns Hopkins, Army, Colorado or Maryland. But unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen.
5. My guess is that if UNC loses in the tournament, it will be to a team they have already played this season. Teams that have not faced Carolina struggle to get comfortable against the speed and aggressive ride that the Heels employ. And then there’s CH.
6. The UNC ride is not generating as many turnovers as it did earlier in the season. The reason for this is that teams have started passing around the ride rather than trying to advance by running the ball through the UNC defense.
6. UNC dominated the draw in the ACC tournament by an astounding 54-23 margin. If this continues, it bodes very well for North Carolina. Dominating the draw in the Final 4 last season was a really significant factor in winning the 2025 National Championship. [Duke’s draw taker was on the ACC 1st team; in the ACC tourney quarterfinal, UNC won the draw by a shocking 20-7 margin.]