In general, you don’t think about the winner of the ACC tournament being a bid stealer in the NCAA tournament. The ACC is usually so deep that anyone that is good enough to survive the tournament was probably already under serious consideration for an invite anyway.
But this isn’t your older brother’s ACC; the league is historically weak this season, and has been down for the past few years (until the NCAA tournament anyway). Currently, there are only three teams projected to make the bracket. This would be the fewest to make the tournament in over two decades, and the fewest to make it by percentage of the league since the tournament took its’ modern form.
Nevertheless, an ACC team can catch fire in the league tournament and grab the auto-bid to the NCAA tournament, bursting the bubble of another team (or possibly another ACC team). N.C. State is the most obvious recent example of this; the Wolfpack had no chance of making the NCAA tournament before going on an all-time March Madness run to not only win the ACC championship but also make the Final Four as an 11 seed.
This year is different; the juggernaut that is Duke basketball this year will make it hard for a plucky underdog to win it all. Nevertheless, here are some teams that could steal a bid to the NCAA tournament:
North Carolina (20-11, 13-6 ACC)
Maybe this one is a little bit of a cheat; the Heels are listed as one of the first teams out in most bracket projections. If they beat Duke on Saturday, they could theoretically snag a bid without needing to win the ACC tournament. That being said, the odds of the Heels winning that game are small, potentially leaving UNC needing to take down the ACC championship.
North Carolina has had an up and down season; they played the seventh hardest non-conference schedule in the country (according to KenPom) so they are battle tested. Unfortunately for the Heels, they lost nearly all of them; but close losses to Michigan State, Kansas and Florida showed that the Heels have the ability to hang with elite opponents.
Further bolstering UNC’s chances of stealing a bid is their red-hot play in recent games. North Carolina has made 65 of their last 136 three-point shots. The Tar Heels have won all six games, most of them by double digits. Their 47% average from three-point range is one of the best in the country over this span; and a team that can make long distance shots has a chance to go on a run.
Pittsburgh (16-12, 7-12 ACC)
Pittsburgh looked the part of an ACC contender in the early portions of the season. The Panthers picked up solid non-conference wins over LSU and West Virginia and started out 3-0 in ACC play. They were ranked as high as 27th in KenPom's ratings in mid-January; then the bottom fell out, and Pitt lost 11 of their next 16 games.
Still, elements of the Panther's ability to compete remain. Pittsburgh boasts a top-40 offense in the country, is reasonably good at taking care of the ball, and makes free throws at a 78.2% rate, which could be important in close games. Panthers guard Jaland Lowe is both a solid scorer and distributor and can take over a game. Finally, there’s a decent chance that Pittsburgh ends up as a 10 or 11 seed; while they will have to win five games in five days (as N.C. State did last year) they could avoid a potential Duke matchup until the finals. While it’s a long shot, the Blue Devils could get knocked out before then, opening the door for someone like Pittsburgh to steal a bid.
Virginia (15-15, 8-11 ACC)
First, the obvious: this is not a good basketball team. They’re one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in the country and the defense is a shell of what was in the glory days of the Tony Bennett era. Virginia could get blown out their first game in the ACC tournament and not even the most die-hard Wahoo fan would be surprised.
So why are they on this list? They have a couple characteristics that could enable them to pull some upsets in the ACC tournament. The Cavaliers still play at one of the slowest paces in the country (361st out of 364 teams). And while the defense isn’t nearly as daunting, playing at a slow pace is often beneficial to teams that are trying to upset a better or more talented team. Fewer possessions means fewer opportunities for a quality team to run away from their opponent. Also finally, Virginia is actually one of the better three-point shooting teams in the country; they shoot 38% from behind the arc, good for 19th in the country. Running hot from three is one of the best ways to pull the upsets needed to make a conference tournament run.
Virginia has also played the second toughest conference schedule in the ACC; so while their league record is bad, there’s probably some scheduling bias in there. There’s little room for error, but a Virginia team which keeps their ACC tournament games close and low scoring while hitting some timely threes could conceivably steal a bid with a championship run.