Preview: Round 3 between UNC/UVa tonight in Greensboro

No. 7 seed North Carolina (20-12, 12-9 ACC) vs No. 2 seed UVa (23-6, 15-5)

7 p.m., ESPN

Virginia will open up ACC Tournament play on Thursday night when the Hoos are faced with a rubber match against UNC.

The Wahoos, winners of their final two games of the season, clinched a share of the ACC regular-season title. North Carolina, meanwhile, had to play its way into the quarters and did so by destroying 10th-seeded Boston College on Wednesday night. UNC beat BC 85-61, knocking down 10 3-pointers and leading by as many as 27 in a game that was never really competitive.

UVa is the favorite in the “bottom” half of the bracket and will be looking to advance to the semifinals for the sixth time in eight tournaments, counting their 2021 win in the quarters before the Hoos had to withdraw due to wCOVID issues (and not counting the 2020 ACC Tournament that was called off).

UVa is looking to win a league title and improve its NCAA Tournament seeding but the game is much more dire for the Tar Heels. They appear to be squarely on the bubble but probably just on the wrong side of it heading into tonight’s game. A win over UVa would be another Quad-1 win for the Heels, who have just one this season (UVa at home), and would move them one step closer to an auto-bid which would make their tournament resume moot.

UNC enters this one No. 43 in KenPom, just a few spots behind UVa. And like Virginia, Carolina is solid on both ends of the floor but not elite on either. The Heels rank 56th nationally in offensive efficiency, taking good care of the basketball but shooting just 31.4 percent from 3 as a team, 323rd nationally. On defense they are 43rd nationally in efficiency, and do a decent job protecting the rim and not allowing easy buckets inside. They don’t force many takeaways, though, ranking 342nd nationally in turnovers forced per possession.

Virginia won the first meeting, rallying from nine down for a 65-58 victory at home on January 10. UNC made 13 of its 29 two-pointers, and went 8-for-24 from beyond the arc. UNC also committed 19 fouls and 13 turnovers in the road loss, and had just nine total assists with none in the second half. The Heels did win on the glass despite being down two prominent forwards, out-rebounding UVa 36-32.

For Virginia, success against Carolina came mostly inside the arc, where the Cavaliers went 18-of-33 on twos. They were just 6-of-19 from deep but took good care of the basketball and got to the line enough to win the game.

It was a different story in the second game, however. UNC was red hot from 3 right out of the gate, breaking its season-long shooting tendencies. Carolina went 10-for-22 from long range, making nine in the first half en route to a 42-26 lead at the break. UVa played better in the second half outscoring the Heels 37-29, but the hole they dug for themselves was simply too great for the Hoos to overcome. They missed a lot of layups in the second half which didn’t help their cause. UNC also outrebounded them by six and won comfortably despite scoring no fast break points and no points off turnovers with just three offensive rebounds.

The biggest difference between the first and second meeting was the presence of two key big men for Carolina. Armando Bacot rolled his ankle early in the first meeting and basically missed the entire game but played in the rematch. He only played 24 minutes and scored 11 points but his presence certainly changes the calculus for UVa’s defense.

UNC also had Pete Nance in the second game after he missed the first matchup due to a back issue. And Nance torched Virginia in the meeting at the Dean Dome, going 4-for-4 from deep and scoring a game-high 22 points, doing most of his damage before halftime.

UNC also has a talented veteran backcourt pairing that hit some big shots in the win over Virignia.

R.J. Davis went for 16 points in Chapel Hill, hitting 5-of-10 shots from the field. He is UNC’s most dangerous outside shooter and UVa allowed him a few too many rhyhtm looks in the rematch. Caleb Love is more of a slasher, but he also got to double-digits against UVa with 10 points. Love and Davis are also coming into tonight’s game off of a good combined night on Wednesday, when they went for 40 points in the win over BC, hitting 7-of-14 from deep total in the blowout.

This is a really difficult game to pick. UNC looked like the better team the last time these two got together but the Heels were also on their home floor and UVa was playing its worst basketball of the season. The Wahoos also outscored the Heels after halftime, and if they had made a couple more layups could’ve they made things interesting down the stretch despite a big halftime deficit. And in fairness, the win over Carolina came at home when the Heels were shorthanded.

UNC looked great on Wednesday night, and the Heels need the game more than Virginia does. There are certainly plenty of reasons to pick them. On the other hand, the Hoos haven’t lost their first ACC Tournament game in a decade (quarterfinal loss to NC State), and also haven’t lost to a team that played the day before when UVa had the night off since that game (8-0 in those games since). Virginia showed in the first game that it could make a dent against Carolina in the second half, and the pack-line coupled with UVa’s complex offensive sets have a tendency to wear teams down.

So the key for the Hoos could be weathering the early storm and avoiding a disastrous first half like they had in Chapel Hill last month, and then try to make their move in the second half when fatigue could become a factor.

This game looks like a toss-up, with all of that considered. KenPom thinks so, giving UVa a 51/49 edge in the projection, and Vegas seems to feel the same way. UNC should be more motivated, but the Heels also lost a few games down the stretch that they should’ve been motivated for, too.

We’re going with the more-rested, more-consistent Cavaliers in a coin flip of a game that could produce a bunch of different results from blowouts to nail biters. But it’s certainly a low-confidence pick.