The North Carolina Tar Heels enter the final five games of the regular season in a tie for first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Both UNC and Duke are 12-3 in conference going into the weekend and both have tough road games.
North Carolina heads to Charlottesville, a place they haven’t won in over 10 years, to face Virginia. Meanwhile, Duke goes down the road to face against Wake Forest, a team on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament.
But as for the rest of the way, what do the projections think will happen?
ESPN’s Basketball Power Index has been updated going into he weekend, and the Blue Devils have surpassed the Tar Heels to win the conference but barely.
Duke is up to No. 10 in the rankings and has a 70.6% chance to win the conference. Meanwhile, UNC is No. 12 and has a 55.4$% chance to win the conference.
The projections have Duke 24.9-6.1 in terms of record and UNC at 23.7-7.3. So it’s razor-thin in terms of the finish.
But it’s simple for UNC. If it wins out, it will win the conference outright. It also risks the chance of splitting the regular-season title or losing it outright to Duke if they lose any of their remaining games.
The best thing for UNC to do is just to win out and take care of business.
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