No. 8 UNC, No. 9 NC State, No. 16 Duke vying to give state’s ‘Triangle’ region 3 NCAA host sites

[ad_1]

Kara Lawson is focused on the immediate challenge, the task of preparing her 16th-ranked Duke team to host eighth-ranked North Carolina. Yet a win would reach beyond merely taking a backyard scrap with the Blue Devils’ nearby rival.

These days, that’s true of every Atlantic Coast Conference game in the 919 area code, for that matter.

The Blue Devils, Tar Heels and No. 9 N.C. State — all located within a 30-minute drive of one another in North Carolina’s “Triangle” region — have made their home state the only one in the country with three different programs cracking the top 10 of the AP Top 25 this season. That has them all within reach of being seeded highly enough in the NCAA Tournament to host opening-weekend games together for the first time in more than a quarter-century.

Advertisement

“I think that’s just what makes this area unlike any place in the country,” Lawson said. “You think about Power Four schools within a 30-minute radius of one another and how much this area loves basketball — the environments in each of those venues on the men’s and women’s sides are great. College basketball is not like this anywhere else. It’s just not.”

They all made the cut when the committee that selects the NCAA field released its preliminary top-16 seeds on Feb. 16. The committee updates that list again Thursday night, shortly before the Blue Devils and Tar Heels tip off in Durham.

The three schools have hosted in the same year only once since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1994. That came in 1998, when the Wolfpack made the Final Four under late Hall of Famer Kay Yow, while the Tar Heels and Blue Devils each reached a regional final.

Advertisement

It could happen again depending on how things fall in the final week of the regular season and next week at the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament in Greensboro. In the committee’s previous reveal, N.C. State was a regional 2-seed, while Duke and UNC were both 3-seeds.

As of Wednesday, the Tar Heels are the…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/no-8-unc-no-9-183550329.html

Author : Associated Press

Publish date : 2025-02-26 18:35:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.