bgorman@heraldsun.com; 419-6668
CHAPEL HILL -- For the first time in the past five seasons, North Carolina enters the ACC Tournament as neither a No. 1 or No. 2 seed.
In fact, when the 10th-seeded Tar Heels take on No. 7 seed Georgia Tech today (7 p.m., ESPN2) at the Greensboro Coliseum, it will be their lowest seed in program history.
That also means the Tar Heels will be trying to become the first team to win four games in four days, which would earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
"I'm in unchartered waters here," UNC coach Roy Williams said. "I don't know, but I know if we give in, we have no chance. And the other thing is that, so what if it hasn't been done before? That doesn't mean it can't be done now."
Although Williams seemed confident about his team's chances to make ACC Tournament history, the Tar Heels (16-15, 5-11) face an uphill climb. They are coming off an 82-50 loss to top-seeded Duke on Saturday and have struggled on both sides of the ball during a season in which nine scholarship players have missed a combined 35 games.
Not to mention UNC lost both regular-season games to Georgia Tech.
"It's going to be very difficult, whether you've been getting your butt kicked all year or whether you've been playing great," fifth-year senior Marcus Ginyard said. "This a huge challenge for us, but again, we've got to take it one game at a time, one practice at a time."
Georgia Tech beat UNC 73-71 in Chapel Hill on Jan. 16 and 68-51 in Atlanta on Feb. 16.
But the Yellow Jackets have lost three of their past four games, putting their NCAA Tournament hopes in danger and perhaps the job of Coach Paul Hewitt.
"There are teams in our league that are good basketball teams that might feel they need to win a game [to get an NCAA Tournament invitation]," said Maryland coach Gary Williams, whose Terps play the winner of the UNC-Georgia Tech game on Friday at 7 p.m. "Anytime you get in that situation, you have to be ready to play."
Both games against the Yellow Jackets were vastly different for the Tar Heels, though they found themselves down by at least 20 points in each meeting.
In the first game, UNC rallied in the second half and had a chance to win it, but Will Graves missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer. The Tar Heels did not put up much of a fight in the second matchup, scoring 51 points for what then was the lowest output of the Williams era -- a mark eclipsed by the 50 scored against Duke five days ago.
"I think at this point it doesn't really matter who we're going to play," UNC senior Deon Thompson said. "It honestly depends on how we come out and play. We're our biggest enemy right now, and definitely we have to come out and play Carolina basketball."
Williams said the biggest difference between being a top seed and a lower seed is confidence.
"There's no question, when you're the No. 1 seed you've already beaten everybody for six weeks or seven weeks or eight weeks or however long the conference season -- you're a very confident team," Williams said. "If you're a 10 seed, you're not very confident but you still get a chance to play."
Ginyard said the Tar Heels don't have any momentum, but nobody is ready for the season to be over just yet. Thompson said the team is trying to remain positive.
"It's our last hope, our last chance ... to give ourselves a chance to get into the NCAA Tournament," Thompson said. "We're definitely going out there with our back against the wall, and we're going to go out swinging."
