Miami’s Road to the ACC Championship Is Very Doable

Trinton Breeze
2 min read
Miami could have a serious chance of reaching the ACC Championship. It won’t be easy, but the path looks promising.

Miami will only need to win two games to reach the championship game. The Hurricanes will play on Thursday, March 12, and will wait for the winner of the first-round matchup between SMU (11 seed) and Syracuse (14 seed). The winner of that game will face Louisville in the second round, and whoever comes out on top there will advance to play Miami on Thursday.

Based on the odds, Miami will likely see a rematch with Louisville, a team the Hurricanes just lost to. If Miami can make a few adjustments and get past the Cardinals, they’ll need to slow Louisville down, as they’re one of the hottest teams in the conference right now. Mikel Brown Jr. is still hurt and who knows whether he will play.

If the Hurricanes can get past Louisville, and it doesn’t have to be pretty, the key to this game will have to be force the Cardinals into tough shots and the Hurricanes will have to control the pace from the start, as the Hurricanes was down by 10+ in the start when the Hurricanes played the Cards.

From there, Miami could find itself in a semifinals. Virginia has a double bye and will wait for the winner between Pittsburgh and NC State. Pittsburgh just pulled off an upset over Stanford, but NC State will likely be favored in that game, which could set up a quarterfinal between the Wolfpack and Virginia.

Either team is a team Miami has shown it can compete with. The Hurricanes beat NC State on the road earlier this season and only lost to Virginia by three points. If the Hurricanes get past either of them. Boom, the Hurricanes are in the championship.

The Hurricanes has a true path at getting to the ACC title game, especially if there is an upset, whether that's Louisville gets beat in the second round, or Virginia losing in the quarterfinals.

I don't know it's the month of March, but Miami has a real shot to get into the title game.

Mind you as I write this Pittsburgh has moved on to the second round, check out the full bracket down below:

Screenshot 2026-03-10 at 3.36.49 PM.png
 

Comments (2)

Personally, I think UM vs UVA could be the newest ACC rivalry....IMHO
 
Unpopular take - but just win the first game, and the rest of whoever we play is gravy on top. I expect us to win Thursday, no matter who we have up. We *should* win that game. UVA and Duke are tough outs, and likely who we would see in the Semis/Finals. If we lost to one of those two, I wouldn't overreact. We somehow end up facing any other team in the Semis/Finals, they're very winnable games...even UNC/Clemson/NC State (or longshots Cal/FSU).

One win in the first game and making the Semis is successful to me. BUT - I think we can do more damage.
 
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