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Joe Lunardi breaks down North Carolina's late-season chances at NCAA Tournament

IMG_6598by:Nick Kosko•02/25/23•

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(Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

North Carolina’s NCAA Tournament chances might hang in the balance over the last couple of regular season games, according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi.

North Carolina has No. 6 Virginia Saturday, which Jay Bilas already called a must win for the Tar Heels. Then the Tar Heels have Florida State, Duke and the ACC Tournament. 

Lunardi joined College GameDay and broke down the path for North Carolina to get into the field of 68.

“Let’s forget about quad one for a second because that’s just a proxy for teams in the field,” Lunardi said. “This Tar Heel team has beaten exactly one team in the field, NC State at home. The teams they’re competing with have at least four of those wins. That’s why Jay (Bilas) is on target with beating Duke and beating Virginia, and then I think they need one more to show that they can do it away from home, whether that’s in the quarters of the ACC tournament or the semis.

“That number of wins over teams in the field has got to get to at least four by Selection Sunday in my opinion. If not, they’ve got to win the whole (ACC Tournament).”

Bilas broke it down Saturday morning on SportsCenter and put a lot of pressure on North Carolina to pull off an ACC upset.

“Must win,” Bilas said when he described North Carolina’s game against Virginia. “You hate to say ‘must win’ in college basketball but for North Carolina, this is a must win game. North Carolina has to beat Virginia and they have to beat Duke and the last game of the regular season in order to feel like they’ve got a legitimate shot to get in the tournament without having to win the ACC championship (for) the automatic bid.”

North Carolina will hit the road at Florida State Monday before next Saturday’s home game against rival Duke. 

Fellow ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg agreed with Bilas and actually took it a step further.

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“Carolina has got to defend, look Virginia struggled to score,” Greenberg said. “If Carolina can stay in its stance and defend and get stops, they can get out in transition, maybe play ahead of that Virginia defense and I agree with Jay, flat out they have to win this game. They don’t win this game, they’re playing for seeding in the NIT.”