We have reached the point of the calendar year where it’s the best time for college basketball fans. Sitting here in mid-March, things are ramping up with conference tournaments which lead into Selection Sunday and then the 2024 NCAA Tournament next week.
To get ready for the big dance, ESPN is dishing out their analysis on teams that can win the national championship and it’s bad news for UNC fans who want to pay attention to that type of stuff.
ESPN insider John Gasaway released his list of eight teams that can win it all and 354 teams that won’t. The article is for ESPN subscribers, listing the eight teams that can win it all. But Gasaway has reasons for a handful of teams on why they CAN’T win it all, including North Carolina:
The head coach and his two leading scorers were once up 15 on a No. 1 seed at halftime of a national championship game. Can’t say that about too many other “near misses” on this list, can we? Possibly North Carolina’s shooting is a bit iffy for our comfort. Even so, how many other ways could this choice turn out disastrously? Let’s see: outright ACC title, swept ancient rival, brilliant defense, and on and on. The Tar Heels are outstanding. Eight is just a very small number.
Interesting to see why Gasaway doesn’t believe they can win it all, pointing to the Tar Heels’ shooting ability. He does say that this could backfire on him (we hope it does), so we will give him that.
But he also lists the eight teams that can win it all and it features a team UNC swept this regular season: Arizona, UConn, Creighton, Duke, Houston, Kentucky, Purdue or Tennessee.
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