It must be a glorious day to be a North Carolina fan. The Tar Heels ruined Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement party in front of almost 100 of his former players and picked up an enormous win for their tournament resume.
UNC’s win over Duke is their first over a team that is certain to make the NCAA Tournament. That is no small thing. No team had made the tournament without such a win since 1998. One win over a fellow tournament team does not guarantee anything, but zero wins seemed to.
This will also be the best win on North Carolina’s tournament resume on selection Sunday because it is a road win over the best team by far in the ACC.
In another big rivalry game, Indiana saw a poorly timed half-court shot go wide and the Hoosiers fell to Purdue 69-67. IU now sits at 11-12 against the top three quadrants and being below. 500 against that group does not usually get teams in the NCAA tournament. The Hoosiers are also 4-8 away from home, with their best of those wins coming over Notre Dame in Indianapolis.
Check out all the teams on Palm’s Bubble Watch, the field of the 68 and the entire bracket on the Bracketology hub
Here are the “last four in” and “first four out” followed by the bubble teams in action Sunday. All times Eastern
Bubble teams in action Sunday
Note – all references to NCAA Tournament selection records and trends refer only to pre-pandemic tournaments. Due to shortened schedules and a relatively small number of non-conference games in 2021, those rankings were not reliable enough to be considered.
