If must-win games exist, Hubert Davis has one with UNC on the road at Syracuse

The failures of Hubert Davis and, by proxy, the North Carolina Tar Heels in the 2024-25 college basketball season have left this team with quite literally no margin for error at this point. At 14-11 on the season, Jerry Palm of CBS Sports currently has UNC basketball well on the wrong side of the bubble and not even in the First Four Out in his latest Bracketology update.

That's not to say that UNC is completely dead in the water, though. While there isn't a bevy of high-end matchups remaining on the Tar Heels schedule, they do have one Quad 1 game remaining on the schedule, the regular-season finale against rival Duke. Beyond that, though, they have the ability to continue boosting the best thing going for their resumé — but that also means inherent risk.

With only Quad 2 and 3 matchups remaining for North Carolina, it gives Davis and his team the opportunity to strengthen the fact that, despite having only one Quad 1 in 11 tries to their credit, they only have one loss outside of that first Quadrant. However, that makes Saturday's matchup on the road against Syracuse all the more sweaty and tricky for the Heels.

And that doesn't just apply to UNC's hopes of being in the field of 68 for March Madness.

Hot-seated Hubert Davis facing must-win matchup for UNC in more than one way

Again, the best thing going for North Carolina's NCAA Tournament resumé right now is the simple fact that the Tar Heels have only one bad loss going against them, a Jan. 18 loss at home to middling Stanford. To keep that intact and to have any hopes of hearing their name called on Selection Sunday (barring winning the ACC Tournament for an automatic bid), they can't afford another Quad 2-4 loss.

That's exactly what falling on the road at Syracuse would be, though (Quad 2 to be exact). And what makes that worrisome is that the Orange, despite a pretty disappointing season overall, historically have given the Tar Heels trouble and could do so even more direly in this matchup. UNC has struggled with their outside shooting throughout the season and the patented zone defense could exacerbate that further — not to mention heightening the stagnant offensive sets that have plagued the Tar Heels as well.

Beyond just needing to win to keep even an inkling of NCAA Tournament hopes alive, though, it's completely fair to say at this point that Hubert Davis is coaching for his job. If UNC basketball missed the tourney for the second time in his tenure already, that could be the death knell for his job to begin with. But if it comes so assuredly at the expense of losing games that they shouldn't, that's even worse for Davis and would surely jumpstart a North Carolina coaching search.

I'm personally not the biggest believer in must-win games. Teams at every level in any sport should enter the stadium or arena with the intent to win no matter the situation. But if we're talking about must-win games, they don't get much more so in that category than North Carolina's task as they travel north to Syracuse on Saturday.