Heel Tough Blog: Heels Earn At-Large Bid Into NCAA Tournament, Will Face SDSU in Dayton

@UNC_Basketball

Despite a record of just 1-12 in Quad 1 games, North Carolina received an at-large bid to the 2025 NCAA Tournament, making it to the Big Dance for the third time under Hubert Davis. Carolina was awarded an #11 seed, but will have to face San Diego State in Dayton, in the First Four, the first time that UNC has ever had to play a play-in game in the NCAA Tournament. Per the NCAA Tournament selection committee, the Tar Heels were the last team selected to make the field, just like in 2000, when they made the Final Four, as an #8 seed. 

Entering today, many bracketologists had UNC projected outside of the field of 68, sighting that 1-12 record in Quad 1 games, and rightfully so. Since the NCAA adopted the current NET system, no team, with one Quad 1 win, had been awarded an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament, but that changed with Carolina’s tournament selection. UNC surged over the last month of the season, putting together a record of 8-2, to go from being 14-11, to 20-12 entering the ACC Tournament. This past week in Charlotte, Carolina won two games, before ultimately falling to Duke, but that ran their record to 22-13, and gave them 15 wins in ACC play, between regular season, and conference tournament action. 

The NCAA Tournament bubble always softens the closer we get to Selection Sunday, and it looked like Carolina was competing against Texas, Xavier, San Diego State, Boise State, and Indiana for a spot in the tournament. While UNC only had one Quad 1 victory, they rated better in both the NET and KenPom metrics. Now Xavier and Texas will also meet in a play-in game in Dayton. Boise State, Indiana, West Virginia, and Ohio State, again, teams that UNC had better metrics than. 

After the disappointing loss to Duke on Friday night in the ACC Tournament semifinals, both RJ Davis and Seth Trimble made it known they felt like the team belonged in the NCAA Tournament. RJ Davis was quoted as saying, “We're an NCAA tournament team. We've shown and proved it. I think the way we've battled and stayed gritty when things didn't go our way. And we kept our momentum. We battled through adversity. I mean, that's what March is all about. That's what winning basketball is all about. We've consistently shown improvement throughout this whole (ACC) tournament, this whole weekend. So we are an NCAA Tournament team, and when we get in it, we're going to make some noise."

As for Trimble, he said the following, “I think we've proved that we belong in the NCAA Tournament. he team that we've been the last 10 games, I know we've dropped two games to Duke. But the team that we've been, how we've been playing, how we've dominated the rest of the ACC, a lot of other teams in the ACC haven't done that. I mean, we all think we're a tournament team. So that's fully what we're expecting."

Now they’ll have a chance to prove they belong, starting on Tuesday night, against San Diego State. The tip time has not been made official just yet.