{"id":128236,"date":"2025-03-12T12:14:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T16:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=128236"},"modified":"2025-03-12T12:14:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T16:14:59","slug":"acc-bubble-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/12\/acc-bubble-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"ACC Bubble Teams Must Win on ACC Tournament Day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first day of the ACC tournament did not disappoint. Notre Dame edged out Pitt 55-54 in heartbreaking fashion following a bad foul call with 0.5 seconds left in the second half. California played two more overtime periods (they played four on Saturday) to beat Virginia Tech. Then Syracuse almost blew a 16-point second-half lead before holding on to knock out Florida State, ending Leonard Hamilton’s career<\/a>. Two Cinderella picks from day one<\/a> lost, but that doesn’t mean Cinderella didn’t show up to the ball. ACC bubble teams North Carolina and SMU will need to defend their NCAA Tournament lives on day two of the ACC Tournament. Losses likely mean one thing: elimination from the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

ACC Bubble Teams Must Win on ACC Tournament Day 2<\/h2>\n

North Carolina<\/h3>\n

North Carolina sits in a mysterious position going into the ACC Tournament. Most bracketology outlets<\/a> have them right on the bubble, with most having them out of the tournament. While North Carolina certainly has a chance to push themselves up into the field later in the tournament, this game is not that. Notre Dame comes in as a Quad Two (Q2)<\/a> opponent in the NET<\/a>. North Carolina sits at 40 in the NET, a position that normally would put them into the field. However, they sit at 1-11 in Q1 games. They’re only on the bubble because of their impressive 7-0 record against Q2. They haven’t been able to win many big games, but they’ve mostly avoided the bad losses.<\/p>\n

That all leads to the game against Notre Dame. Like most games for ACC bubble teams, this game has no chance of helping the Tar Heels. A loss would likely eliminate them, while a win would likely keep them locked out of the tournament. They will need to string together wins to earn their bid. The Selection Committee has shocked the world before with selections, so don’t count out a surprising bid for North Carolina. However, their resume doesn’t quite add up if you add another loss outside of Q1. Notre Dame will come out fighting, so watch for how North Carolina responds.<\/p>\n

SMU<\/h3>\n

SMU is probably the least likely ACC bubble team to make the tournament. Like North Carolina, playing on day two of the ACC tournament has no upside for them. They face off against Syracuse, a team that has majorly underperformed<\/a>. The win counts for almost nothing. A loss simply ends their season. Like North Carolina, Q1 struggles have doomed them. They are 0-4 in Q1 games<\/a>, a number that won’t get them into the tournament. They sit at 6-5 in Q2, which is a respectable record, and undefeated in Q3\/Q4 games, a great sign. A NET of 50 is a coin flip for tournament selection, but they don’t have the quality wins that normally would get a team into the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

SMU’s chances of making the tournament rely on picking up key wins in Charlotte. With the underwhelming ACC<\/a>, SMU can only pick those wins up against Clemson, Louisville, and Duke. Fortunately, they are on the side of the bracket that allows them to play two of those games before facing the Blue Devils. However, they have to pick up a win on Wednesday against Syracuse for any hope of making the tournament. They may not make the NCAA Tournament without the ACC crown, but they certainly need to string together a few wins to have any chance.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

North Carolina and SMU have put themselves in this situation by not winning key matchups throughout the season. The bubble teams that have the best argument for reaching the tournament rack up key wins. The ACC doesn’t have many of those matchups this season, but they didn’t win them when they had the chance. North Carolina and SMU will be playing for their season on Wednesday. Simply put, anything but a win ends their season. Let’s see how they respond to pressure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Bob Donnan-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first day of the ACC tournament did not disappoint. Notre Dame edged out Pitt 55-54 in heartbreaking fashion following a bad foul call with 0.5 seconds left in the second half. California played two more overtime periods (they played four on Saturday) to beat Virginia Tech. Then Syracuse almost blew a 16-point second-half lead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5370,"featured_media":128260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,773],"tags":[3120,3039,914,3249],"class_list":["post-128236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","tag-acc-basketball","tag-acc-tournament","tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","tag-smu-mustangs"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128236"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128261,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128236\/revisions\/128261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}