I didn’t get to watch the Pitt-UNC game until nearly 9pm that night. By then, I had seen the final score despite best efforts to avoid. With the knowledge of the final score, watching the game takes on a different perspective.

From that POV, Pitt went toe-to-toe with UNC for nearly 30 minutes. A team that was a preseason #1 and still thought to be one of the deepest and best teams nationally. Pitt had their usual lapse near the end of the half — which is also a credit to UNC turning up their defense. But Pitt didn’t wilt after going down by 4 at the half. They battled with UNC for the next 10 minutes before UNC started going on spurts. Still scoring and their defense disrupting Pitt completely.

Part of it is that UNC is just so deep. They could regularly send in waves of 3 players at a time completely fresh. Wearing Pitt down, as Pitt’s bench has shrunk (with good reason).

Another part is that UNC has more than one, true big man. Kennedy Meeks. Brice Johnson. Pitt couldn’t counter. Meeks isn’t nearly as good as projected, but he is still big, strong and decent footwork. Brice Johnson was just overwhelming. Sheldon Jeter or Ryan Luther had no chance against either of them.

Still a final score that had Pitt losing by 17 is still a thing. And that night (I know it started shortly after the game, but I was nearly 12 hours behind reality) you could see the tweets and articles speculating on what that did to Pitt and the NCAA Tourney. ESPN and Joe Lunardi — after having Pitt safely in the field with the Syracuse win — had suddenly moved Pitt to their “last four in” list and spoke ominously of them possibly being passed after Friday’s action. Most other outlets were not that dire, but seemed to suggest it was a little shakier.

Then UNC played Notre Dame.  [Aside: I only watched a bit of the first half and some of the second half on my phone. My daughter was preforming in her school musical at the same time. She was awesome, thanks for asking.]

Whatever the feelings about Pitt, went out the window as UNC took the Irish apart. They stayed close for 15 minutes and then saw UNC run them over. A 19-point halftime lead. A final score of 78-47. ND was shut down on offense.

Suddenly the narrative shifted again — which continued through last night as the Tar Heels won the ACC Tournament. It was now all about how UNC had finally started playing with defensive intensity to match their offense. Jay Bilas on the broadcasts went on how it started just before halftime against Pitt. (I would quibble over that, a bit. I would say sometime in the second half. That end of the half spurt was as much a Pitt thing. Plus ND didn’t exactly control the game in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Pitt was keeping it close. To say nothing of UNC shooting 59% in the game kind of makes the defense ramped up argument a bit of revisionism.  But I digress.)

And if you noticed, just as quickly as Pitt was in the bubble talk, they disappeared from it. They were no longer showing up in graphics of “last four in,” or teams that really have to sweat. The loss to UNC was no longer indicative of the weakness of Pitt, but that UNC was playing its best ball at this time.

Now we wait for the brackets to be released this evening. The projections have Pitt somewhere in the #9 or #10 spots. Realistically the range could be as high as 8 or as low as 11. I would expect closer to 10 or 11 than 8-9. I think I would prefer Pitt to be a #10 seed than #9, as the optimist in me can create an easier scenario where it would be more likely to upset a #2 seed in the second round than a #1 seed.