Saturday’s showdown between Syracuse and North Carolina is officially a play-in game for the four-team Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.

On Friday night in Charlottesville, Va., Duke defeated Virginia 17-15 and clinched, at the least, a share of the ACC regular-season championship. Virginia is now out of contention, so the Orange’s matchup with the Tar Heels at 6 p.m. Saturday in the Carrier Dome is a win-and-in situation for both teams.

With a win over North Carolina, Syracuse could earn the ACC tournament’s No. 3 or 4 seed, depending on the outcome of Maryland and Notre Dame’s game next Saturday. Regardless of the Orange’s seeding, it would draw a matchup with Duke in the tournament semifinals.

But a loss to the fourth-ranked Tar Heels would mean the Orange will miss the first ACC tournament it can be a part of, and SU would square off with Virginia in the ACC Showcase – which is somewhat of a consolation matchup between the league’s No. 5 and 6 teams, on the night after the ACC semifinals and before the conference championship game.

Duke, Maryland and Notre Dame have already clinched their spots. The Cavaliers’ loss Friday night officially eliminated the small odds they’d qualify for the tournament through a complicated series of tiebreakers.

UVA would’ve needed SU to beat UNC and Notre Dame to beat Maryland next weekend – a scenario that would’ve seen the ACC’s top three teams at 3-2 in conference, and bottom three teams all at 2-3.

Instead, the Orange and Tar Heels will fight head-to-head for the tournament’s final berth Saturday.