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North Carolina pulls away from Louisville to seize control of ACC race

Not long after tip-off of Wednesday night’s showdown between North Carolina and Louisville, the Dean Dome crowd howled with excitement.

The final score of rival Duke’s buzzer-beating loss at Syracuse had just appeared on the video board.

The roars at the Dean Dome only grew louder as the night wore on and North Carolina began to methodically impose its will. The eighth-ranked Tar Heels pulled away from seventh-ranked Louisville in the second half, cruising to a 74-63 victory that gives them control of the ACC title race.

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With three games left in league play, North Carolina has finally gained the separation that no other ACC team has managed to achieve this season. The first-place Tar Heels (24-5, 12-3) hold a two-game advantage in the standings over second-place Louisville, Duke, Florida State and Notre Dame.

Maintaining that advantage would give North Carolina the upper hand in the race for the fourth No. 1 seed alongside Villanova, Kansas and Gonzaga. Baylor has a slew of quality wins and a Pac-12 team may yet have a case, however, it’s hard to see the committee relegating an outright champion in college basketball’s toughest league to the No. 2 line.

If North Carolina keeps playing at its current level, it’s difficult to imagine the Tar Heels coughing up their ACC lead. They’ve beaten Notre Dame, Virginia and Louisville this month alone, with their lone February loss coming in a close game at Duke.

In some ways, Wednesday’s victory followed the script North Carolina envisioned: Justin Jackson was the best player on the floor for long stretches, Kennedy Meeks and Joel Berry provided secondary scoring and the Tar Heels dominated the offensive glass.

In other ways, Wednesday’s victory absolutely deviated from North Carolina’s typical blueprint: The Tar Heels struggled to score against Louisville’s length in the paint, played without Isaiah Hicks for much of the game due to foul trouble and received a spark from Theo Pinson’s 3-point shooting of all things.

All in all, enough good things happened for North Carolina to turn a three-point halftime advantage into a 17-point second-half lead, more than enough cushion to cruise the rest of the way. The Cardinals never cut the deficit to fewer than eight points in the final minutes.

North Carolina’s final three games of the season are at Pittsburgh, at Virginia and home against Duke. Two wins will deliver an outright ACC title for sure and perhaps a No. 1 seed as well.

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!