21. North Carolina (24-7)
The Tar Heels have held strong this season but they aren’t exactly in that upper echelon of national contenders. They really earned themselves a lot of good favor with their win over Duke last month, but North Carolina just keeps dropping these road games in ACC play. Most of those troubles came earlier in the league and they’ve been a better team lately, though the loss of star freshman Caleb Wilson is clearly going to negatively impact the rest of this season.
The final game of the season in Chapel Hill went according to plan as the Tar Heels prevailed 67-63 while facing Clemson. Luka Bogavac starred with 20 points while Henri Veesaar added 13 points and 6 rebounds. Saturday’s grudge match against Duke went about as many expected, with North Carolina falling 76-61 in Durham. Derek Dixon played well with 17 points but the Blue Devils just pushed this team too much in the end.
Losing at Duke is far from a disaster, but Hubert Davis wishes his team had played much better in previous losses against teams like Cal and Stanford. Regardless, the Tar Heels sans Wilson can only look forward. That win over the Tigers earlier this week guaranteed this team a triple-bye in the ACC Tournament and it’ll be interesting to see just what comes of their work there next week and if it impacts where they land in the NCAA Tournament bracket.