UNC needed an easy win over Notre Dame, and wanted a rematch with Wake Forest. It got both
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Sometimes, you get what you want, and you get what you need.
North Carolina wanted an easy win over Notre Dame and needed a resume-boosting ACC quarterfinal meeting with Wake Forest — probably the latter more than the former — and it’s not a stretch to say the Tar Heels’ entire season may come down to Thursday.
Even while basking in the good feelings of the win over the Irish, the bad feelings of January’s loss in Winston-Salem were rising to the surface — not that the Tar Heels needed the motivation, because they know exactly what a win or loss would mean.
“We know to an extent it’s do-or-die for us at this point,” North Carolina guard Seth Trimble said. “We just have to keep going and each and every game try to raise our intensity. We know they’re on the bubble. We know we’re on the bubble. We know both teams need it, so it’s going to be a fight.”
A win over Wake Forest would not only be another Quadrant 2 win but open the door to a third shot at Duke, should the Blue Devils cooperate against Georgia Tech earlier Thursday. And if Duke doesn’t, a path to the ACC title would suddenly open for North Carolina instead, a chance to take the machinations of the NCAA selection committee out of the equation entirely.
There are a lot of good things that can happen to North Carolina now, but it all had to start against Notre Dame on Wednesday, and that couldn’t have gone any better. North Carolina was up by 12 in the first five minutes and was never seriously threatened en route to a 76-56 win.
“Huge confidence boost, individually and as a team,” North Carolina guard R.J. Davis said. “We needed to get out good and build some momentum for tomorrow. Hopefully this will lead to tomorrow, simple as that.”
With Jae’Lyn Withers setting the North Carolina record for 3-pointers in an ACC tournament game with seven — surpassing an incredible trio: Jason Capel, Harrison Barnes and P.J. Hairston — on his way to 21 points, the Tar Heels feeding Ven-Allen Lubin in the post for 17 points and his seventh straight game in double figures and several players combining to hold Notre Dame’s Markus Burton to 11 after he torched them in South Bend, the only drama came when the two coaching staffs were barking at each other late in the first half.
Notre Dame’s Matt Allocco told the UNC bench to “shut up” after hitting a 3-pointer in front of them, the UNC staff jumped up to point at Allocco and Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry objected to that, especially after Elliot Cadeau had taunted his bench earlier. (Later, Cadeau and Shrewsberry laughed about it in the handshake line.)
There was a lot of glaring back and forth during the ensuing timeout, but it all blew over quickly, much like the game.
It would have been easy to look past the Irish given the stakes Thursday, a game that will go a long way toward determining the arc of the Tar Heels’ season, perhaps permanently, not to mention the potential to settle an old score from January.
“One thing about us,” Davis said, “we keep receipts and we don’t let that go.”
But Thursday is also a game where the bad blood can’t compete with what’s at stake. It’s entirely possible, given the relative weakness of the teams elsewhere that North Carolina is competing against for one of the last spots in the NCAA field, that a win over Wake Forest will be enough to get the Tar Heels in the field.
As a tribute to how screwed-up quadrants are, a Wake Forest win would be a Q1 win for the Deacons, and a North Carolina win would be a Q2 win for the Tar Heels, whose biggest negative from a selection perspective is their 1-11 Q1 record.
But all you can do at this point is play who’s in front of you. Having easily dispatched the Irish, that’s Wake Forest now.
Beating Notre Dame kept doors open. Beating Wake Forest would open new ones.
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This story was originally published March 12, 2025 at 5:51 PM with the headline "UNC needed an easy win over Notre Dame, and wanted a rematch with Wake Forest. It got both."
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