The No. 1 North Carolina Tar Heels will take on No. 16 Wagner Seahawks in the First Round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Below we’ll preview both teams, including analysis and key stats while also providing our prediction.
North Carolina fell from the heights last year, going from a Final Four run in 2022 to missing the tournament entirely in 2023. The Tar Heels earned the top seed in the ACC this season after two regular season wins over Duke, and have focused on the defensive end of the court as they limit opponents to just 40.4% from the field. RJ Davis and Armando Bacot have been the central forces of this comeback squad.
Wagner made a surprise run through the NEC Tournament to get to the Big Dance and did so despite being a sub-300 team in metrics like KenPom and NET. The Seahawks operate with the second-slowest tempo in the entire country and their bread and butter was on defense. They limited opponents to just 63 points per game and limited them to just 29.8% shooting from three.
UNC vs. Wagner pick
We’ll stick with the No. 1 seed in this West region opener. The Tar Heels lost a shocker to NC State in the ACC tournament, but the Wolfpack shocked everybody this past week. It didn’t cost UNC the No. 1 seed and they should rebound easily enough in their opening matchup of the tournament.