North Carolina Tar Heels desperately need high-quality wins to make a case to play in the NCAA Tournament. They weren’t close in losing by 20 points at Clemson on Monday night.

In the bottom of Littlejohn, Elliot Cadeau and Seth Trimble fielded questions as Clemson players celebrated near them.

Clemson appears at No. 30 in the NCAA NET Rankings, third among ACC teams. UNC basketball checks in at No. 46, fifth in a conference likely to receive no more than a handful of NCAA Tournament invites.

With both teams playing on short rest after emotional wins over the weekend, Clemson was too much for UNC on Monday. The Tigers kept rolling in a 85-65 win over the Tar Heels.

Sure, the Tigers men’s basketball team didn’t have to leave home. But they were playing the No. 2 team in the country and then another blue-blood program in back-to-back games. It was their only Saturday-Monday turnaround in ACC play.