The madness of March in the college basketball world began on Sunday before the entire NCAA Tournament bracket was released. Social media blew up as soon as it was announced that North Carolina would be playing San Diego State for the 11 seed in the South Region.
It is not often that North Carolina is a bubble team that is in danger of missing March Madness but that was certainly the case this year. The Tar Heels were the last team included in the field of 68, and many conspiracy theorists suggested their athletic director pulled some strings to get them into the big dance.
North Carolina’s athletic director not allowed in meetings about UNC
Before the selection show on Sunday, NCAA expert Joe Lunardi had predicted North Carolina’s tournament hopes would be crushed and they would find themselves on the outside looking in. The selection committee decided otherwise despite UNC’s 1-12 record against quad 1 opponents.
North Carolina’s athletic director, Bubba Cunningham, was a part of this year’s NCAA selection committee which caused frustration among many college basketball fans. Fans implied that Cunningham’s position within the committee was a conflict of interest and the sole reason that North Carolina made the tournament. This is simply not true.
Guidelines were put in place to make sure that Cunningham had no input whatsoever regarding the fate of North Carolina. In fact, Cunningham was not even allowed in the room when discussions involving the Tar Heels were happening. While teams like West Virginia, Indiana and Ohio State certainly have the right to be upset, bias did not play a factor in North Carolina getting in over any of them.
Albeit in a weak conference, North Carolina racked up a total of 22 wins and made it to the semifinals in the ACC Tournament. Hubert Davis’ squad went 8-0 against Quad 2 opponents and improved drastically towards the end of the season. The majority of their Quad 1 losses were nail-biters that took place very early in the season.
While West Virginia and Indiana, specifically, garnered more Quad 1 wins, UNC still was well ahead of the Mountaineers and Hoosiers in crucial metrics like the NET Rankings themselves, KenPom rankings and other advanced analytics. Factoring in all of that just beyond their 1-12 Quad 1 record, the truth of the matter is that the computers weighed the Tar Heels more favorably still.
That was likely the deciding factor to get them into the NCAA Tournament field — not their AD being on the committee.