Each year the NCAA selection committee has tough decisions to make when putting together its field for the NCAA Tournament. Sometimes, a decision on one team’s fate comes down to the performances of completely different teams. Such was the case for North Carolina.
UNC — the team that fell to Duke in an ACC tournament semifinal Friday night thanks to a late-game lane violation — will make its 53rd appearance in the tournament, having been placed in the First Four as a No. 11 seed. Competing in the South region, the Tar Heels will take on San Diego State on Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio.
But, as the Tar Heels were waiting to find out if they would make the 68-team field, the committee was watching the American Athletic Conference championship between UAB and Memphis. If favored Memphis won, the Tigers would get in, and so would North Carolina. If UAB upset the Tigers, both AAC teams would make the field, at the expense of the Tar Heels.
“Saturday night we took our final vote, and we voted in four teams in the field and we had a contingency vote,” selection committee vice chair Keith Gill said in a television interview after the field was revealed. “The contingency vote, that was the last team in the field. And it was based on Memphis and UAB. If Memphis won that game, then that was going to free up a spot in the tournament, and that was going to be North Carolina. If UAB had won, then Memphis was going to be in the tournament, UAB would have been in the tournament and North Carolina would have been the first team out.”
Selection Committee Chair Bubba Cunningham and Vice Chair Keith Gill give insight into the selection process.#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/mXHDDwftaL
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After Memphis beat UAB 84-72 the Heels nabbed the final bid, with no small amount of controversy around the choice.
North Carolina holds a 1-12 record against Quad 1 teams this season — and that win came against UCLA in December. The Tar Heels also lost to Stanford, a Quad 3 team, in Chapel Hill. West Virginia and Indiana, who were among those left out, arguably had better resumes than the Tar Heels, though it should be noted that North Carolina is ranked 33rd by KenPom.
It also doesn’t help that committee chair Bubba Cunningham is North Carolina’s athletic director. Both Cunningham and Gill explained that the selection process has standards in place to prevent anyone from putting their thumb on the scale for their school — whenever the Tar Heels, or any ACC school, were discussed, Cunningham had to leave the room.
“The hardest part of bracketing or any selection is you have to make a cut somewhere,” Cunningham said. “Unfortunately, this year there were so many outstanding conference champions and either the first or second team in each of those leagues won so we had a lot of opportunities to go a little bit deeper with some of our teams that were on the bubble than last year. But it’s always a fine line that you draw at the end.”
This story will be updated.
(Photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
