UNC, ACC Need NCAA Tournament Success - IC Daily | College Basketball

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It is March the 16th.

It's March Madness Week.

It officially begins.

Well, it officially begins to meet on Thursday night.

But I guess officially officially begins on Tuesday night.

I'm with the team in West Riley in one of the playing games in Dayton.

But Greg.

State being in one of those games.

SMU being in one of those games.

I mean, it highlights the ACC and eight teams in big difference from last year.

We can break it down a little bit.

But just getting eight sounds somewhat similar to the normal ACC of old.

At least numbers wise.

It does.

And before we get too far along.

Let me just say this about any NC State fans listening to this.

If you have the opportunity to go to Dayton to watch a game.

I highly recommend it.

My son and I made the trip to Dayton last spring.

And they do it upright.

It's a challenging drive up the West Virginia.

But it's a good road trip.

And just the whole set up there.

At that arena is just just first class.

And the whole community supports it.

So it's a fun scene.

And we have to consider it now as part of the tournament.

Tommy and me and Carolina broke the seal on that last year.

I mean, that's for going to count that as a Carolina NCAA tournament win.

It's got to count as the real deal, right?

So I mean, I was muted.

But whatever you say, it's just.

It's another discussion for a different time.

But they want it.

I will say this about the play in games.

And we can just go off the rails right out of the gate on Monday morning.

I think that if you win your conference tournament,

you should not have to play in Dayton.

I agree.

And I think what four of the teams are screwed into having to do that.

And that is that is not fair to me.

Dayton should be for teams like NC State and Texas and Carolina and San Diego State last year.

Those type teams, your power four teams that are boarded line in or out,

not conference champions, but I'll jump off my soap box and let you jump up.

No, I think you're exactly right.

And it is different because it's the first four.

It's completely different than if you go to a tournament site on the Thursday for that first round game.

It just feels different.

It's a bigger set up, all those things.

So I absolutely agree with you.

I think if you if you won your conference championship to claim that auto bid,

then you should be a part of the real deal.

So that it's not fair to some of those teams.

We agree on that time. That's good.

All right.

So ACC last year, ACC only got four teams in.

And it was the first year since the tournament expanded back in 85.

That the ACC only got one team outside the first weekend.

That was not a good situation for the ACC.

And so what we talked about earlier in the year is how the ACC is really kind of come along.

And they made some good hires.

In the last couple of years and we're seeing that kind of play out.

So the ACC did get eight teams in.

Now the next step for the ACC is to continue to build quality teams.

If you go back to 2019, of course, the ACC had three number one seats with Carolina Duke in Virginia.

And if you go further back, you know, 20 years, ACC always had one seeds and two seeds and three seeds.

Not quite there yet.

You've got Duke obviously is a is an over on number one.

Virginia, I think it's probably a little overseeded, but they got credit for their ACC tournament performance.

And there are three seed.

But then beyond that, you know, the six seed is the best that you see in the ACC with Louisville and North Carolina booking a six seed.

Miami has seven seed clips in an eight and then state and SMU.

Both has 11 seeds playing in Dayton.

So progress on that front.

But I think more work needs to be done.

But eight teams is good.

When you look at the other conferences, I think big 12 at seven, big 10, nine and SEC, not.

So ACC is right there where they need to be.

Yeah.

I mean, it's an interesting thing.

And I thought I can go off the rails complete.

I didn't think Miami and Ohio deserved to get in, but at 31 and one.

We can talk about it.

You don't talk about it.

Well, I mean, they're net.

What was their net?

64 or something like that.

It was way beyond, you know, the first four out or whatever.

But we can save that one for right now.

I do want to talk about getting dinged or potentially getting dinged for injury because I thought Texas Tech did.

They dropped them to a six.

But Carolina, I don't think dead because I think Carolina and Rob Harrington talked about it.

Before your segment on the coast of coast with a Joey and Shrell and Sean about it.

Is that Carolina probably earned a six seed.

And I agree with that.

And I think six is where you want to be.

You don't want to be two.

I mean, excuse me, don't want to be seven and then have to play one of those tough twos.

Though they did get a brutal three.

If that matchup happens, but your thoughts there.

The NCAA tournament committee did not show any.

I guess any get back revenge motivation from last year to sort of dinged Carolina.

I thought being in Greenville and being a six.

Pretty solid.

Given where Carolina is really after the cable Wilson injury and after the last couple of games.

Yeah, for sure.

And the fact that Carolina got Greenville.

Is really kind of a blessing in disguise.

Let's see.

Where is Virginia?

Where's Virginia playing?

Do you know that?

I'm trying to pull up the.

Yes.

Virginia's.

Philadelphia.

Right.

Yeah.

Trying to add live on the on the fly here.

They're in Philadelphia.

And so, of course, they.

They didn't get the Greenville.

But I guess Philly maybe is as close as.

To Charlotte.

Is Greenville.

But regardless, Carolina got a big break.

A nice break.

Being able to play in Greenville.

Very close to Charlotte, which is a.

A die hard.

UNC.

Town.

In area.

So that's beneficial.

And you're right.

I mean, if you look at what Texas tech did to kind of end the season.

They lost her life.

And then you get some concerns with Christian Anderson and how

healthy he is.

And maybe that played a role in digging Texas tech.

But Carol.

One thing that we've talked about a lot in recent months, Tommy,

is how a lot of this data is baked in.

What you get, you know, two, maybe three months in.

And I think for the most part.

maybe three months in. And I think for the most part that's been accurate with North Carolina.

And kind of a good example of that is if you if you look at what the metrics were when Caleb

Wilson's injury was announced, and it was announced on February 12th. But since that time,

North Carolina's net ranking has improved by one. Their wins above bubble dropped one spot.

Kim Palm went from 28th to 29th. Straight to the record went from 23rd to 21st.

And T-Rank stayed the same. So that may make you think, well, they were pretty much the exact same team.

And actually, that's not the case. Actually, what transpires that there was a lot of games

prior to those last 10 games that really kind of factored in. And so it was going to take a massive

shift for North Carolina to really change those numbers over the last month of the season.

And it didn't happen. So that's a testament in North Carolina. And what I mean by that is you

can break down Bart Torvick by whatever time period you want. So if you set the parameters from

February 12th, which is when you and see announced, Caleb Wilson's go be out to selection Sunday.

What you find is, is that North Carolina is the 39th best team in that stretch in the country.

VCU, by the way, is 29th in that same time period. So Carolina has played at a lower level than

what they were doing prior to Caleb's injury. And that's not surprising, anybody. They haven't been

as good offensively, maybe marginally better defensively at times. But they played well enough that

they mitigated that differential. So it didn't really hurt them with the metrics. And so because of

that, along with their ability to kind of close strong, you know, losing at Duke is not a problem for

anybody. Yeah, the way the Clemson game transpired, if you're looking closely, that wasn't a good one.

But then the result was a one point game. And that looks good in the metrics.

And so I think all those things kind of played in North Carolina's favor, even though as we kind of

dive into the nitty gritty of it, Carolina is maybe a French top 40 team over the last month of

the season, but because they played so well early in the year, that's why they kind of locked

into that number six seed. And I'll say this, last Thursday, and then again, Sunday morning,

bracket matrix, which is the crowd sourcing, bracketology site, kind of aggregation of

the hundred plus sites that that draw up, you know, brackets. They had North Carolina pegged as the

second number six seed. And when the tournament bracket came out and we saw the seed list,

Carolina was in fact the number two six seed. So just interesting reference point.

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Who knows? Maybe they had that information in the selection committee room and that's what they

went off of. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's possible to have my Greg Barnes here on inside.

Carolina Daily Monday, March 16th. March madness week has begun. Shout out to Johnny T.

Sheridan. I did not mention him off the top as much as I need to go see him on Franken Street or

order online. They've got the sweet baseball jerseys. They've got everything and the baseball team

is rolling. If you follow, if you're so inclined to follow Grace Nugent and some of my work

covering the baseball team, Johnny T. Sheridan's got your swag for that. Greg, looking down,

you know, we talk about planting Greenville, which I think we all remember was at 17 when Carolina

Duke played in Greenville. And it was pretty clear that Coach Shoshesky was not pleased that that

went down and we know what happened there. But you look at the ACC teams. We talked about SMU and

Miami of Ohio or in Dayton, Texas and state or in Dayton, Sanadu that blow out Louisville and South

Florida. That could be if he VCU Carolina. When I'm looking at Missouri and Miami in St. Louis,

Missouri, they didn't meet Miami, no favors. Then you got Wright State Virginia. We've already

mentioned and then Iowa and Clemson in Tampa. I read out all those to ask you this, what is this

successful NCAA tournament for this conference? Because as you mentioned last year right off the top,

it was not a good one. What needs to happen for this conference to be considered a one of the

power of conferences beyond just in name only? It's a really good question, Tommy. And I think

Duke is really the only powerhouse team in the ACC, even though they are dinged up right now.

But I think you need your powerhouse team to reach the final four. And that's kind of a baseline.

And then I think Virginia, while I do think they are a little bit overseated, they probably should

be a foreseed. I think they're capable of, you know, upsetting Iowa State. I think that's possible.

They're about to play really well, but they can do it. And so I really think if you can get, you

know, team to the final four and you can get a couple teams, the sweet 16, you mentioned Miami.

In Missouri, he's been banged up and then Martin Mitchell's had a really good year. They've had like

four injuries. They're key rotation guys. So our teams have been banged up all year.

Purdue is very good offensively. I know they played well this weekend and went in the big 10.

I'm just not sold on them. I'm just not the most athletic bunch. So maybe Miami can

still upset there. But you know, get two or three teams of the sweet 16. I think Carolina has a

really difficult draw. It's going to be tough for them to get to the sweet 16. But just have a

couple wins. And even if you're 11 seed or in eight seed like Clemson, even just winning that

first round game kind of adds to the total. And you know, we start talking about how

NCAA tournament payout is. And we can do the, you know, different show on that this week, Tommy.

But every game that's won factors in to payouts for all the teams. You know, the ACC shares all

their distributions from the NCAA tournament. So every, every game that's won, every game that's

played in adds to the pot. So just from that standpoint, the more wins you can get the better.

Indeed. And it all starts up with state in Texas. Who's winning that one? Who you got, Greg? Who

you got? I'm going to make you pick the early games. We're not going to pick Carolina's route.

State in Texas. Who you got here on Monday? Texas is not good defensively, but very good

offensively, which is similar to NC State. And I just think Texas is probably going to smack

them around and run the wolf pack out of Dayton. Okay. Greg's going to get the hate mail. Greg,

I didn't say Carolina. Not Tommy. SMU and Miami, Ohio. Miami, Ohio has not played a quad one game

all year. If I heard that correctly, that is incredible. And yet, and yet, see, you brought

me here and we weren't going to do this. And yet Keith Gill, the selection committee chair,

talked about when asked about the bubble teams, about quality wins. And he's talking about Texas

and NC State and Auburn, who didn't get in. And you're just going to glide past Miami, Ohio,

who's not played a quad one game all year. And then he said, well, they weren't the last team in.

And then when we started looking at the data, yeah, SMU was ahead of them. And NC State was

ahead of them. And Texas was ahead of them. So yeah, they were the last team. It's okay. You can

do a bit of it. But all that to be said, I think SMU is going to smoke them. So serious question,

why do you think they let them in? Because they did not want to, they did not want to deal with the

blowback. At least if you let them in, there's all kinds of people who think, oh, they will not

defeat it. You got to give them space. And there are some, there's, there's some value in that

when you look at it from an entertainment perspective. If you're looking at strictly as these are

the teams that deserve to be in, no. But if you want to make the case, hey, you're going on

defeated matters. And it's important to win that many games. Like if you want to make that case,

then say it. They didn't say it. They botched it the way they tried to deliver it tonight or last night.

And I think that's, I think they could have done a much better job in that. I don't think

Miami, Ohio deserves to be in. I think they should have had to win their conference tournament.

Because look, what's this going to do? Potentially. Miami, Ohio played, are you the worst schedule

in the country? And there's 365 teams. So what you're saying is, look, as long as you win a lot of

games, it doesn't matter if you want to play anybody. If you look good in your, in your

cute little story, then maybe we'll give you credit and let you in. But I think the

instantly tournament selection committee did not want to see all that blowback from some of

the national media types who think Miami, Ohio is a media darling. And therefore, they said, all right,

we're going to let them in. They're going to be the last team in. And they're either going to

be good or going to get blown out and be embarrassed. And either way, we're in the clear. We

don't have to deal with any kind of criticism. I feel a boopy three for 20 game coming.

And Miami, Ohio gets the win against SMU. Santa, dude, that's not going to be closed. Louisville

in South Florida. South Florida is pretty good. Louisville needs to be healthy.

Agreed. And that's the thing. Like what's the deal in the Cal Brown? When you look at the six

seeds, they're all banged up, right? I mean, you got, I can't remember the kid's name from BYU. He's

out with ACL injury for the year. He's a third guy. Louisville's banged up. Caleb Wilson obviously

is out for Carolina. And that's kind of a trend with the six seeds. But I think South Florida

is a tough opponent. And that was one of the teams I didn't want Carolina to have to play because

they've got two really good guards. So yeah, I think that's a game where Louisville's certainly in

trouble. And we know they are like when they're hitting threes, they can beat about anybody.

But they're not. They can lose bad to some decent teams. So I think that's one right for an upset.

Miami, Missouri, you mentioned them that Missouri's banged up. I'd like to see Miami win that.

I think Jay Lucas or Jay Lucas is a great coach. And I think he's going to do things there.

What do you think about that one real quick? I do. I think I think they match up well at Missouri.

I think you're more mature as I said, he's had a really good year. He's about all Missouri's got.

So I think Miami should be able to win that one. And they'll have a tough game against Purdue. But

you know, Purdue's not hitting. And that's when they can also win too. And then the other one,

of course, is Clemson, Iowa, which is it's like,

the risk of your eyes out. Yeah.

We're making a lot of friends here. That's Greg Barnes.

Remember that's Greg Barnes. We will talk a lot more about this and a lot more about other

things as to week progresses. Carolina plays at 650. They've got, you know, whatever happened to 7

and, you know, like 930 or 715 and 945. Now it's 650 for Carolina. And this, I guess the second

section session in Greenville on Thursday night, of course, the tournament starts with the first four

on Tuesday night. And inside Carolina, we'll be right in the middle of it. Greg and I will be

right in the middle of it, talking about Ellen's side, Carolina, Daly's. Shout out to Johnny T-shirt.

Go to inside Carolina, sign up for all the premium stuff. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. So

you get alerts when we do this kind of stuff. It's always fun, Greg. Appreciate it. Thanks, Sally.

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and customized solutions to help you reach your business goals. So whether you're planning your

next move, upgrading your space or scaling to meet demand, we make sure your business is ready

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Atlantic Union Bank. Anyway, you bank.

One iced coffee. 99 cents please. For real? No way.

One iced coffee. 99 cents please. For real? No way.

Hmm. What a deal. Your new morning groove. Ice coffee from McDonald's. Any size for just 99 cents

to 11 a.m. Pricing participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer.

The sun is out. The birds are chirping. And the open road is calling.

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Now is the time to check out the Honda Civic and HRV from Hunt the 2025 Kelly Blue Books KVB.com

Best Value Brand.