Although the UNC basketball team bounced back from a loss to the now-No. 6 Florida Gators with a win over the then-No. 18 UCLA Bruins last week, the still-unranked Tar Heels (7-5, 1-0 ACC) dropped to a No. 10 seed in ESPN’s latest NCAA Tournament bracket prediction on Tuesday. The previous update from chief bracketologist Joe Lunardi came out a week prior, hours before the squad fell to the Gators.
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UNC, appearing in the East Region with a Round of 64 matchup in Raleigh against a former ACC member in the projected No. 7 seed Maryland Terrapins, has the fourth-highest forecasted seed among ACC teams.
The No. 4-ranked Duke Blue Devils (10-2, 2-0 ACC), winners of six straight and currently the only squad from the conference in the AP Top 25 Poll, climbed to the top line in the West Region this week. The others are the No. 6 seed Pitt Panthers (10-2, 1-0 ACC), No. 8 seed Clemson Tigers (10-3, 2-0 ACC), and No. 11 seed SMU Mustangs (10-2, 2-0 ACC).
Fourth-year head coach Hubert Davis and his Tar Heels, who have won three of their past four outings but need to rack up a bunch of ACC victories to ensure an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, are now gearing up to host their last non-conference opponent, the Campbell Fighting Camels (5-7, 0-0 CAA), in the Dean E. Smith Center at 8 p.m. ET Sunday (ACC Network).
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