Hail, the Heels.

I've got North Carolina winning it all.

Even though the Tar Heels were the selection committee’s final and almost begrudging choice Sunday as a No. 1 seed and didn’t win the ACC Tournament, they have all the ingredients necessary to navigate a very tough West Regional and topple the giant that is UConn is. Hey, Carolina, U can.

Here’s what they have:

Rich pedigree. A lock-down defense. Toughness. Great rebounding. Athleticism. Oh, and the weakest regional

Pretty much all Carolina needs to reach the Final Four and claim the school’s seventh national championship and first since 2017. Yeah, the Heels have lost to Georgia Tech and Syracuse as well as UConn and Kentucky, but also has beaten Tennessee and swept Duke and are 9-3 against Quad 1 foes. Can’t get much more battle-tested than that although the Huskies are 16-4 in that category.

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Listen, it’d be easy to follow my compadre’s lead and tab UConn to repeat. But winning back-to-back titles is difficult and, for bracket purposes, boring. No team has repeated since 2007, for Pete’s sake, when Florida won consecutive championships under Billy Donovan. Do folks even remember he coached in college?

So my Final Four has Carolina blue, those Huskies, a rising No. 3 seed in Kentucky and a dark horse in No. 3 Creighton. I’ve got even a darker horse in Saint Mary’s, which has the size and veteran experience to knock off Alabama in the second game and could go further.

North Carolina is on a roll

That does have a pretty chalky feel to it, especially after a season when a 9, two 5s and a 4 reached the final weekend in 2023. Incidentally, three of those Final Foursome are in the same East Regional, pitting the Huskies potentially against Florida Atlantic and San Diego State.

But I have Carolina toppling UConn in the semifinals and then beating Kentucky in the final.

Save for last season, a No. 1 seed has made it to the Final Four every year since 2011, when none other than UConn got past Butler to cut down the nets. And as many as three No. 1 seeds convened in 2015 before Duke beat Wisconsin in a field with Kentucky and 7 seed Michigan State.

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UConn’s won 21 of its last 22 games and is clearly the best and most complete team. Dan Hurley may have the best big man in the tournament in Donovan Clingan and a super guard in Tristen Newton. Creighton popped the Huskies in the regular season for UConn’s only loss this calendar year but had to drain 14 3-pointers to do it. That doesn’t happen every day.

North Carolina could have to get past former Tar Heels guard Caleb Love if his new team, Arizona, can get by Nevada and Baylor. Hint: the Wildcats won’t. It’d be captivating to see Love, the Pac-12 player of the year, go up against former backcourtmate RJ Davis, the ACC’s player of the year.

But Hubert Davis’s team is flat out loaded. He’s got center Armando Bacot on the glass and shooting 55%, skilled 6-foot-7 forward Harrison Ingram and Davis as scorers, talented freshman Elliot Cadeau and Cormac Ryan, who may go off at any time. This is a rare defense-first Tar Heels team that ranks sixth in defensive efficiency but also 24th in offense.

What about those Longhorns?

It’d be great to see Texas maximize its potential and get to the second weekend. Rick Barnes created outsized expectations for the program, and his long-time assistant, Rodney Terry, fed into that last March when only an injury to a peaking Dylan Disu kept Texas out of its first Final Four in 20 years.

The Longhorns could get hot and ride Disu and Max Abmas into the Sweet 16, but Disu has to avoid foul trouble and Tyrese Hunter or Dillon Mitchell or Ithiel Horton have to provide another scoring option for Terry. We’ve all seen Hunter score 30 points in one game and literally none the next. If he or another teammate doesn’t come through, it could be a fairly quick exit.

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How about the Big 12?

I like the Big 12 up to a point. My bracket has three of the league’s teams on the brink of the Final Four. And has Kansas, with no depth, no perimeter shooting and possibly no Hunter Dickinson or Kevin McCullar Jr., bowing out against Samford in the opening round.

I’ve loved Houston all year long, but some late-season injuries and its tendency to have some offensive lulls despite the Cougars’ stout offensive rebounding concern me. They should reach the Sweet 16 in Dallas, but I've got Kelvin Sampson’s team getting knocked off by Kentucky one step shy of the Final Four.

Iowa State struggles to score but defends with passion and urgency on the same level as Houston and is coming off a beatdown of the Cougars to win the Big 12 Tournament. Now the Cyclones rank just 55th in offensive efficiency and aren’t as powerful away from home, but they are still formidable and my pick to challenge UConn in the Elite Eight.

Baylor isn’t its customary defensive power, but makes up for it with a slew of offensive weapons. The Bears have slipped under the radar most of this season, but Scott Drew knows how to win in March and, with a couple of likely NBA draftees in Ja’Kobe Walter and Yves Missi and a rampaging Jalen Bridges, should advance to the Elite Eight before succumbing to my Tar Heels.

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Sizing up the rest of the field

Several teams have some demons to exorcise, Purdue, chief among them. Credit Matt Painter for owning his Boilermakers’ frustrations after becoming the second No. 1 team to get upset by a 16 in Fairleigh Dickinson. Zach Edey has more help this go-around, but I have Purdue winning three games before stubbing its toe against Creighton in the Elite Eight.

No one has more critics than Barnes, who's built Tennessee into a formidable presence if not a powerhouse in college basketball and has one of his most balanced teams ever with a stingy defense and offensive machine in Dalton Knecht, whom Texas tried to recruit.

Barnes won 402 games during his 17-year stay in Austin, and he’ll probably have to get past the familiar Longhorns in the second round after losing his last two games against Kentucky and Mississippi State. I’ve got Barnes’ Volunteers advancing past the Longhorns to the Sweet 16 before they get eliminated by the BlueJays.

So, too, does Shaka Smart have to stare down some NCAA failures since failing to even win a single NCAA Tournament game in six years at Texas. He desperately needs a healthy Tyler Kolek to have any shot at all.

I don’t have a single No. 12 seed beating a No. 5, and you know that always happens.

Health can mean everything this time of year. Right, Texas? That could cripple Houston’s chances as well as Marquette’s and Florida’s.

That said, I imagine my bracket could be in sick bay very soon.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: North Carolina has the pedigree, experience and defense to win it all