The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee unveiled its 2025 bracket on Sunday, and there was one shocking moment that stood out above all the rest: North Carolina’s name was called as one of the last four teams in the 68-team field
Usually, the last several teams in and out of the bracket are of similar quality but in different ways. Take Xavier, Texas, West Virginia and Indiana, for example. All had some strengths and all had some notable deficits. North Carolina, however, was almost all deficits.
As it has been noted ad nauseam in the moments since the reveal, I’m sure, North Carolina was 1-12 in Quad 1 games this season — the win being a neutral-court victory over UCLA, a 7 seed in this bracket. Seven of the Tar Heels’ Quad 1 losses were to teams seeded 1 or 2. Three of those, of course, came to arch-rival Duke.
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But they also had two losses to non-tournament teams along with a Quad 3 loss to Stanford.
As for their other 21 wins — the only other one over an NCAA Tournament team was over Patriot League champion American.
I’ve been doing NCAA Tournament bracket projections for a very…