Thursday at the ACC Tournament will have Big Four feel

If the final weekend ends without any surprises, North Carolina will be the No. 10 seed and N.C. State will be the No. 11 seed in the ACC Tournament.

Three of the Big Four are guaranteed to play on Thursday in Greensboro and either State or UNC could end up facing Wake Forest.

If as expected Duke beat UNC and Florida State beats Miami on Saturday, the Tar Heels would be the No. 10 seed and the Wolfpack would be No. 11, regardless of what happens on Sunday between State and Boston College.

Both UNC (5-10) and N.C. State (4-11) would play in the night session on Thursday at the Greensboro Coliseum. The 7-10 game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m., which will have the Tar Heels facing either Georgia Tech or Wake.

The 6-11 game is schedule for 9 p.m. (but has no chance of actually starting then) and will have State against either Clemson, Georgia Tech or Wake.

Patrick Stevens, at D1scourse, worked out every tournament-seed scenario here.

Wake Forest (8-7) has the biggest variation of the in-state teams. The Deacs host Clemson (9-6) on Sunday. Wake can still earn the No. 5 seed or could drop to the No. 7 seed with the wrong combination of results.

If you just go by the favorites winning — Wake at home over Clemson, Georgia Tech at home over Virginia Tech, FSU over an awful Miami team, Duke at home over UNC — that would result in the No. 5 seed for Wake and a first-round matchup with Miami.

If Wake loses (with FSU and VT wins), the Deacs go to No. 6 and would face N.C. State in the first round.

If Wake loses (with an FSU win and VT loss), the Deacs fall to No. 7 and would face UNC.

As for the No. 1 seed, even after Duke's loss to Maryland on Wednesday, the Blue Devils would have to lose on Saturday to UNC to finish as the No. 2 seed because they hold the tiebreaker over Maryland (their "best" win — Clemson — is better than Maryland's.)

Even with only one game, it's still fairly confusing. Boston College (6-9) is the only seed that is locked in. Either way, Thursday promises to be interesting in the ACC's hub for the first time since expansion.

Thursday's schedule
No. 8 Boston College (in pen) vs. No. 9 (UVa in pencil), noon
No. 5 vs. No. 12 (Miami in pencil), 2 p.m.
No. 7 vs. No. 10 (UNC in pencil), 7 p.m.
No. 6 vs. No. 11 (State in pencil), 9 p.m.