After a heartbreaking loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinals earlier this week, North Carolina now finds itself in the position no bubble team wants to be in: sitting at home, watching and waiting for the selection committee to decide their NCAA Tournament fate. With no more games left on the schedule, the Heels' destiny is officially out of their hands, and they're going to need some things to break their way if they want to wind up on the right side of the bubble.
UNC's best hope as conference championship week winds down is very everything to go chalk, limiting the opportunity for teams that are otherwise out of the at-large picture to swipe automatic bids. Unfortunately, though, the exact opposite happened in the Mountain West Tournament late Saturday night, and it could wind up being the thing that costs Hubert Davis and Co. their spot in the Big Dance.
Colorado State's Mountain West Tournament win could cost UNC its spot in the Big Dance
The Mountain West occupies a very strange spot in the NCAA Tournament picture. It's not exactly a high-major conference, but it has plenty of competitive teams who have built strong resumes this season, clogging the bubble for everybody else. And the conference tournament hasn't exactly helped narrow things down: No. 1 seed New Mexico and No. 4 seed San Diego State — two teams that would appear to be safely in the tourney right now — bowed out in the semifinals and quarterfinals, respectively, opening a path for a team with a lesser at-large case to make a major statement.
The final wound up pitting the two seed, Colorado State, against fifth-seeded Boise State. While the higher seed in the conference, CSU was generally regarded as the weaker bubble team, with most projections leaving them out of the field of 68 due to a relative lack of quality wins (particularly in the non-conference, where the Rams' best victory came in overtime against TCU). Boise, on the other hand, had already beaten teams like Clemson and St. Mary's. If the Broncos clinched the MWC's autobid, Colorado State wouldn't seem to be too big a threat to other bubble teams like UNC.
But the Rams refused to play along, cruising to a 69-56 win on Saturday night that throws the bubble picture into even more chaos. And it could just cost the Heels their spot: ESPN's Joe Lunardi has Boise one spot ahead of North Carolina (though they're both in his First Four Out) while Jerry Palm at CBS has Boise as his very last team in — with UNC landing on the wrong side of the line.
Of course, we won't actually know the answer until the official bracket is revealed on Sunday evening. But the introduction of any more teams back onto the bubble is a bad thing for the Heels right now, especially when the team in question has a better record in Quad 1 games and a win over a common opponent (the Heels lost their one game against Clemson during the regular season).