Could UNC basketball win the ACC Tournament? Sure. How the Tar Heels could get it done

North Carolina basketball coach Hubert Davis is an unabashed lover of the ACC Tournament.

Davis grew up with it, cheering on the Tar Heels in the tournament. He played in it, cutting down the nets. He has coached in it, first as a UNC assistant coach and now as the Heels’ head guy.

The historical relevance of the tournament, he says, remains important to him and it’s something he wants to win.

Especially this season.

To earn a spot in the NCAA tournament, the Tar Heels might have to win the ACC Tournament. That’s the position they’re in going into postseason, with the NCAA selection committee ready to start evaluating, meshing metrics and setting the field.

For UNC, it starts Wednesday in Charlotte. The Heels, seeded No. 5, will face Notre Dame in their opening game at the Spectrum Center, having beaten the Irish this season in a road game not decided until the final possession.

“We need to flip the page and be ready for four games in four days,” UNC guard R.J. Davis said Saturday after the 82-69 loss to No. 2 Duke., looking to Charlotte.

Should the Heels play four in four, it would mean they reached Saturday’s tournament championship game. That might be enough — emphasis on might — to receive an at-large NCAA bid even if they fall short in the title game.

Then again …

One metric used by the committee is the NET rankings, and it’s not favorable to UNC. As of Tuesday, the Heels (20-12) are No. 40 and have that one glaring, unavoidable stat: 1-11 in games against Quad-1 opponents.

But all the Heels can do now is try to win games and hope for the best.

Freshman wing Ian Jackson was asked after the Duke game if the Heels can pull it off in Charlotte.

“Hundred percent, I feel like we can win it all,” Jackson said. “We’ve got a chip on our shoulder to go win it. We’re hungry, we’re fired up and we’re looking forward to going there and winning in the end.

“I think we’ll be fine, and hopefully the basketball God is in our favor.”

With that said, here are four ways UNC can win four games in the tournament:

Being Michael O’Connell

The N.C. State guard became a permanent part of tournament lore last year with his last-gasp, kiss-the-glass 3-pointer against Virginia in the semifinals.

It brought on overtime and led to a win by the Wolfpack, which then smacked UNC in the championship game. It also came from a player who would be the Pack’s unsung star in the tournament, stringing together five solid games in Washington, D.C.

The Heels need someone to step forward this week like O’Connell last year. Someone like … Seth Trimble?

The Heels’ new starting lineup has led to Trimble coming off the bench. Against Virginia Tech last week, he was UNC’s best player, scoring 17 points and playing with a give-no-quarter, physical edge. Against Duke, he was not so good.

The junior is the Heels’ leading rebounder this season, at 6 feet 3, saying rebounding is about heart and determination. That’s what’s needed in March, when a loss can end your season.

Little things, big things

If there’s something Hubert Davis likes saying as much as “alter, tweak, pivot and change” it’s how “little things make big things happen” – both winning and losing.

Every coach harps on them: shot selection, boxing out on rebounds, taking care of the ball and minimizing turnovers, defending without fouling. Davis does it a lot, as if by rote, in something of an old-fashioned Dean Smith-ish kind of way.

After the Heels’ win over Virginia Tech, Davis made a point of mentioning a play by R.J. Davis that stuck with him, and not a fallaway 3 or dazzling fast-break score. It was Davis diving in the corner for a loose ball in the first half. A hustle play.

In the ACC Tournament, those can be winning plays. It doesn’t have to be a banked-in 3-pointer at the buzzer that brings the house down, spurs an improbable victory and keeps a season alive.

Make their 3’s

In their six-game winning streak before the Duke loss, the Heels had sharpened – at long last this season – their 3-point shooting touch. They made 15 in the win at Virginia Tech last week, the third straight game that UNC had 10 made 3’s.

Consider that in their first 25 games, the Heels shot 32.3% from the 3-point line, then 47.8% in the six wins before Duke. R.J. Davis was hitting 3’s, and Jae’Lyn Withers, and Drake Powell … everyone was feeling it, with seven players making 3’s at Virginia Tech.

Against Duke: 33.3% shooting. The Heels were 9-of-27 from the arc and Davis had four of the nine makes.

Playing Florida earlier this season in the Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte, the Heels were 5-of-28 from 3 in a 90-84 loss. But Davis did score 29 points in that December game, meaning he has good memories of being on the Spectrum Center floor.

Dodge Duke

There’s no way around this one, is there? Duke is the best team in the ACC and the Blue Devils have proven — twice — the smaller Heels do not match up well with them.

Hubert Davis said the Devils gradually wore down the Heels physically in Saturday’s game at the Smith Center, and Duke won by 13 despite Cooper Flagg’s first-half foul trouble.

But the ACC tournament can be an unpredictable, sometimes wacky event, providing some early madness in March. See last year and N.C. State’s remarkable ride to the championship — five wins in five days.

Who saw that coming? Short answer: no one.

With a double-bye as the top seed, Duke does not play until Thursday’s quarterfinals and will meet up with the winner of the Virginia-Georgia Tech game. Either the Cavaliers or Yellow Jackets will have a win under their belts, tournament jitters out of the way, a feel for the Spectrum Center court and will be in the underdog role.

This story was originally published March 11, 2025 at 11:26 AM with the headline "Could UNC basketball win the ACC Tournament? Sure. How the Tar Heels could get it done."

Chip Alexander

The News & Observer

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In more than 40 years at The N&O, Chip Alexander has covered the N.C. State, UNC, Duke and East Carolina beats, and now is in his 15th season on the Carolina Hurricanes beat. Alexander, who has won numerous writing awards at the state and national level, covered the Hurricanes’ move to North Carolina in 1997 and was a part of The N&O’s coverage of the Canes’ 2006 Stanley Cup run.