UNC’s NCAA Tournament seed has been announced. Where are the Tar Heels playing?

North Carolina men’s basketball is headed back to the NCAA Tournament and learned their draw for The Big Dance on Sunday night.

UNC will be a No. 6 seed in the South Region, opening play at in Greenville, South Carolina, against VCU on Thursday at 6:50 p.m. in the first round. The game will be televised on TNT.

Second round games at Greenville will be Saturday.

If UNC advances to the second weekend, Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games in its region will be played in Houston.

North Carolina entered Selection Sunday widely projected as a No. 5 to No. 7 seed. This marks North Carolina’s 55th appearance in the NCAA Tournament, and third consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance under head coach Hubert Davis.

The Tar Heels will be playing, of course, without freshman forward and All-ACC standout Caleb Wilson. He’s out for the rest of the season with a broken right thumb.

Speaking with the Charlotte Observer’s Scott Fowler earlier this week, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips spoke about the potential impact of Wilson’s absence on North Carolina’s seeding.

“Now make no mistake, Caleb Wilson is a phenomenal player,” Phillips said Tuesday. “But Hubert Davis has done a terrific job of adjusting, and his team has done a terrific job of adjusting.”

“And so I would hope that there wouldn’t be a huge ding to them as it relates to postseason and the NCAA tournament. Again, this isn’t a new injury. They’ve played seven games, and they’ll play another 1-3 games coming up (in Charlotte), so they’ll have played 8-10 games without him, and they’ll have had a really good record against very good competition.”

North Carolina returned to Chapel Hill early after an 80-79 ACC Tournament quarterfinals loss to Clemson on Thursday night — despite a 21-7 rally toward the end of the game and a career-high 28 points and 17 rebounds from junior forward Henri Veesaar.

UNC is of the most decorated tournament histories in college basketball. In its previous 54 appearances, the Tar Heels have reached 38 Sweet Sixteens, 29 Elite Eights, 21 Final Fours and 12 national championship games, winning six national titles — its last coming in 2017.

The Tar Heels’ 21 Final Four appearances are the most by any program in the NCAA’s history. North Carolina also ranks among the all-time leaders in tournament wins with 132 victories and owns one of the highest winning percentages in the history of the Big Dance — much of that success coming under Hall of Fame coaches Dean Smith and Roy Williams.

Historically, North Carolina has produced several notable tournament streaks. The program reached the NCAA Tournament 27 consecutive seasons from 1975 to 2001 — one of the longest streaks in the sport’s history.

UNC has frequently earned high seeds in the tournament as well. The Tar Heels have been a No. 1 seed 18 times — the most in NCAA history. Most of the program’s championship success has come from that position, with five of North Carolina’s six national titles won as a No. 1 seed.

The Tar Heels enter the NCAA Tournament on a two-game losing streak after dropping the regular-season finale to Duke on March 7 and exiting the ACC Tournament after a loss to Clemson on Thursday.

Speaking to the media following UNC’s loss in the conference tournament, Hubert Davis emphasized his team’s “inability to respond to physicality.”

“I felt like it was the same thing Saturday of last week (against Duke), and for most of the game (Thursday),” Davis said. “Clemson has always been physical defensively, and one of the things I always say is you never let a defense dictate and decide how efficient you are on the offensive end. And I felt like their physicality took us out of our offense, took us off of our cuts, our screens, our moves, and (we) didn’t really respond to that until the latter part of the second half.”

Since 1980, UNC has failed to win at least one game in the conference tournament nine times. This recent quarterfinals loss ended a stretch of 12 years in which the Tar Heels had one at least one ACC Tournament game.

To prevent an early exit in the Big Dance, UNC will have to play with the same desperate mentality that allowed the Tar Heels to claw back late against Clemson.

“Obviously we dug ourselves in a big hole in the first half,” junior forward Henri Veesaar said Thursday night. “We played desperate but we play good when we’re desperate. I think we’re going to keep that mindset when we go into the next games and into March.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2026 at 6:41 PM.