Home ACC Basketball Notebook: UNC on the bubble, with game at Duke on the horizon
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ACC Basketball Notebook: UNC on the bubble, with game at Duke on the horizon

Scott German

acc basketball UNC let a chance for a Quad 1 win slip away on the road at Pitt on Tuesday, losing 73-65 to the Panthers.

The Tar Heels crumbled down the stretch, allowing Pitt to close the game on a 14-2 run.

Carolina is now 6-4 in ACC play and 13-9 overall.

The loss was equally painful to the conference, as UNC’s margin of error for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid is nonexistent.

North Carolina has two remaining games with Duke and a visit to Clemson on the horizon.

Wake Forest certainly didn’t enhance its postseason resume Tuesday. The Demon Deacons were destroyed at Louisville, 72-59.

The final 13-point deficit is deceiving. Wake was never in the game.

Oh, by the way, there was officially one other ACC contest Tuesday night.

Notre Dame rallied past Georgia Tech, 71-68, in South Bend.

There were probably 1,500 at the game.

This begs the question: if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it fall, oh, forget it.

So, how many ACC teams go dancing in March?


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Deservingly, three.

Likely four.

Duke, Louisville and Clemson are locked.

A fourth team squeaks in, perhaps as the selection committee feels sorry for the once mighty conference.

Pitt and Wake Forest will contest that fourth bid, which will amount to nothing more than a charity invite.

Now, back to Carolina


north carolinaAccording to the folks on Tobacco Road, there is a better chance that Tar Heels coach Hubert Davis won’t survive the season without UNC making a March Madness appearance.

Unless Michael Jordan, James Worthy and Charley Scott (for you older folks) suit up for UNC this season, then both Davis and the Heels are done.

Former UNC standout Tyler Hansbrough, now the Tar Heel Radio Network analyst, didn’t sugarcoat his feelings about how the season has unfolded for his former team after the late collapse against Pitt.

Hopefully, the radio gig isn’t his full-time job.

What do the ACC Wednesday matchups offer?


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For starters, two of the four games on the slate are in the Sunshine State.

Virginia Tech is at Florida State, and Virginia is down in Coral Gables to play Miami.

The other two are spread from Texas to California, as Cal travels to SMU and Syracuse is at Stanford.

Four games and eight teams won’t sniff the Big Dance.

It is not a must-see TV night.

So, how does ESPN hype Saturday’s UNC-Duke game?


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It appears unlikely that legendary announcer Dick Vitale will be on the call for the game Saturday in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Vitale was expected to make his first appearance on TV since 2023 at the Duke-Wake game last Saturday, but a fall at his home in Florida caused him short-term limitations.

Vitale has been sidelined since 2023 for throat cancer treatments.

That’s a tough loss for the viewers, because if anyone could make this version of Duke-Carolina interesting, it’s Dickie V.

But, as they say, the show must go on.

The “College Gameday” crew will travel to Durham for the first game in the UNC-Duke rivalry in the current season.

But this had to be a tough choice for the ESPN suits.

I glanced at the rest of the college slate for Saturday and found some interesting alternatives, such as a battle between two Top 10 teams in Florida and Tennessee.

Another intriguing storyline: John Calipari’s return to Kentucky when Arkansas visits Rupp Arena.

The talking heads will probably ramble on about the great history between the two teams; they will remind us that they are separated by about 12 miles and that you can forget each team’s record for this game.

Or, they could say the Duke-Carolina game was “a tradition unlike any other.”

But CBS probably wouldn’t like that idea.

Scott German

Scott German

Scott German covers UVA Athletics for AFP, and is the co-host of “Street Knowledge” podcasts focusing on UVA Athletics with AFP editor Chris Graham. Scott has been around the ‘Hoos his whole life. As a reporter, he was on site for UVA basketball’s Final Fours, in 1981 and 1984, and has covered UVA football in bowl games dating back to its first, the 1984 Peach Bowl.