How High Can Miami Hurricanes Finish in the ACC?

Miami is 9-6 in the ACC. Their one win over a team above them came at home last month against first place North Carolina. Four or their six losses came to the four teams tied for second place, Notre Dame, Duke, Florida State and Louisville.

Miami has head to head games remaining against Duke at the Watsco Center and at Florida State on March 4 with a chance to move up and catch those teams. The Hurricanes will need outside help from Notre Dame’s and Louisville’s opponents to move up.

The remaining games become crucial to give Miami a chance to improve their seed in the ACC Tournament. The problem that will arise is that the Hurricanes are currently 0-4 against the group bunched in second place. Wins against Duke and/or FSU would give them a chance to move up.

Notre Dame finishes the regular season hosting Georgia Tech and Boston College and then travels to Louisville March 4. That takes care of at least one loss for the Irish or Cardinals. Louisville finishes the season hosting Syracuse and the Fighting Irish with a trip to Wake Forest in between.

It’s going to be a tough road for the Hurricanes but anything can happen in the ACC. In addition to the games against the Hurricanes, Duke faces a brutal schedule down the stretch. After playing Miami, Duke hosts Florida State on Tuesday night and then travels to North Carolina for their regular season finale March 4.

If the Hurricanes can win out, they will guarantee themselves to finish ahead of Florida State or Duke and they would be tied with Louisville or Notre Dame. The tricky part will be the tiebreaker. In a three way tie with Duke or Florida State and Louisville or Notre Dame, the Hurricanes would have a 1-2 head to head record.

In their look at the ACC, Syracuse.com posted the seeding tiebreaker as:

"(1) When two teams are tied in the standings, regular season head-to-head results are used as the tiebreaker.(2) If the tied teams played each other twice in the regular season and split their games, then each team’s record vs. the team occupying the highest position in the final regular season standings (or in case of a tie for first place, the next highest position in the regular season standings) and then continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage."

That gives the Hurricanes a huge advantage. They beat first place North Carolina in their only meeting this season. Duke has a win against the Tar Heels this season with the one remaining game to take place March 4.

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Notre Dame, Florida State and Louisville all lost to North Carolina. Moving up to at least fourth would be a huge and important accomplishment. The top four teams in the ACC Tournament get a double bye to the quarterfinals. The bottom six teams have to play in the first round. Those teams need two wins just to get to the quarterfinals.

As the sixth seed, Miami would currently play the North Carolina State-Wake Forest winner in the second round. The Hurricanes swept NC State this season and lost their lone meeting at Wake Forest. The winner of that game would then be slated to play Notre Dame.

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The last week of the ACC Basketball season will breakup the logjam separating the four teams tied for second place. The Hurricanes have a good chance to take advantage of at least two losses from two of those teams and possibly more.

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