2025 NCAA Tournament: Bubba Cunningham, Keith Gill address UNC making field as bubble team with AD on committee

North Carolina was a surprising berth to some as the Last Team In for the 2025 NCAA Tournament. Because of that, Bubba Cunningham, the Tar Heels’ athletic director as well as the chair of the selection committee this year, had to address the inclusion of UNC in the field.

On the Championship Selection Show on CBS, Cunningham spoke about the potential for bias for North Carolina making it into the bracket with him as chair. He left that question to Keith Gill, the Sun Belt commissioner and this season’s vice chair, as he said he had no impact on that process involving the Tar Heels.

“Obviously, I’m going to defer that to, to Keith. But all the policies and procedures were followed and Keith can address exactly how North Carolina was discussed because I was not in the room for any of that,” said Cunningham.

With that, Gill continued with his answer about North Carolina getting into the tournament. He affirmed that Cunningham had no role in anything related to the Tar Heels’ while also explaining how close it was that UNC made the field at all based on what happened this afternoon in the AAC Championship.

“I appreciate the question. As the vice chair, I managed all the conversations that we had about North Carolina. We had quite a few,” said Gill. “Our policies require the AD of any school to recuse themselves and actually leave those discussions and they’re actually not allowed to participate in any vote as well. So we followed those, had lots of discussions about North Carolina.”

“You know, Saturday night, we took our final vote and voted in four teams in the field on Saturday night and we had a contingency vote. And, the contingency vote? That was the last team in the field,” Gill explained. “It was based on Memphis and UAB. If Memphis won that game then that was going to free up a spot in the tournament and that was going to be North Carolina. If UAB had won then Memphis was going to be in the tournament, UAB would have been in the tournament, and North Carolina would have been the First Team Out. And so that process played out today. Memphis won and that put North Carolina in the field.”

North Carolina came into Selection Sunday at 22-13 overall and having gone 15-8 against the ACC. The Tar Heels had played better over the last month and a half having won nine of twelve since February 8th. Still, UNC did not post build that record off of quality wins as they won one out of thirteen opportunities in Quad 1 per the NET.

Because of that, many expected a third loss to Duke, who was without Cooper Flagg, in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament to be it for North Carolina. Instead, they’re in the field as part of the First Four and will play San Diego State in Dayton on Tuesday for the right to be the No. 11 seed that’ll play No. 6 Ole Miss in the South Region.

Many will make something of North Carolina being in the bracket at all, especially with their athletic director’s involvement with this NCAA Tournament. Gill assured their process, though, with their committee’s explanation of why the Tar Heels did in fact make it in the end.