Unless you are NC State and Boston College.
Boston College gave a big boost to North Carolina today by knocking off NC State 74-72 in double overtime at the RBC Center in Raleigh. The most intriguing aspect of the game is that it seemed like neither team wanted to win it or was able to execute their offense in clutch situations. NC State had the ball with the game tied and 15 seconds left in regulation. They came out of a timeout and waited 10 seconds before starting any kind of offense towards the basket. They failed to score. Both sessions of overtime saw both teams run the offense in this manner. It should be noted that both teams were playing excellent defense which contributed somewhat to the ineptitude of the respective offenses. However, when it came down to the clutch possessions NC State seemed very lost in executing the necessary plays to win the game. BC did not really win the game as much as NC State lost it.
The implication of the loss favors the Tar Heels. Both NC State and BC have five losses, the Tar Heels have only four. Here is the likely scenario as I see it:
North Carolina: Should win at home against Maryland(Sunday) and Virginia(3/1) and will probably lose at Duke(3/4) putting them at 11-5 in the conference.
NC State: Should win at Wake Forest(3/4) and finish 11-5 in the conference.
Boston College: Plays at home against Wake Forest(2/28) and Virginia Tech(3/4) and they should sweep both those games to finish at 11-5.
So with UNC, NCSU, and BC in a three way tie for second a tiebreaker would be used to decide seeding. My understanding of the tiebreaker procedure is that in the event of three way tie the winning percentage in the matchups between the tied teams is used. In this case BC and UNC are both 2-1 within this group and NC State is 1-3. To break the tie between BC and UNC the head to head result is used in which BC beat UNC in their only meeting. Therefore BC will be the #2 seed, UNC #3, and NC State #4. This is all theoretical based on the results of six games that have yet to be played. I will revisit the issue following the UNC-Virginia game later this week.