(Todd Melet)
Carolina has perhaps its best-ever basketball schedule.
UNC released its non-conference games for 2018-19, a week or so after the ACC announced the home-and-away matchups for the coming season. In both cases, Roy Williams’ 16th Tar Heel team looks to have hit the jackpot.
Let’s start with the non-conference lineup. The headliner has to be the fifth annual CBS Sports Classic; on December 22, 2018, where perennial powerhouses Carolina and Kentucky meet in the main event at the United Center in Chicago.
The Tar Heels versus the Wildcats of coach John Calipari is always a blue blood blockbuster. When they played in Las Vegas in 2016, the 103-100 thriller won by Kentucky drew 2.4+ million viewers and was the highest-rated regular season game of the year by 50 percent over the second-place game. Of course, they had a rematch in the NCAA South Regional final at FedEx Forum in Memphis, won by the Heels on Luuuuke Maye’s left wing jumper.
Carolina returns to Las Vegas for the Continental Tire Invitational with Michigan State, UCLA and Texas. The pairings for that two-game tournament over Thanksgiving will be released this summer, but any matchup in round one will be must-see TV.
Williams demonstrates again why he is such a respected member of the basketball community. He has agreed to play at Wofford and to open Elon’s new gym, which are games those schools will never forget. He keeps repaying years of service to former assistants by hosting Jerod Haase and Stanford and C.B. McGrath and UNC-W in Chapel Hill.
Among seven non-ACC home games, the biggest by far is against Gonzaga, on December 15th. The Heels defeated the Zags for the 2017 national championship in Phoenix. Williams and Gonzaga coach Mark Few are good friends and also own the two highest winning percentages among all active college coaches.
In ACC play, Carolina will have traditional home-and-home series with Duke and N.C. State, plus play here and there against Louisville and Miami. Without unduly praising or indicting any league opponents, the Tar Heels’ six single road games will be against five of the projected worst ACC teams next season and their six home games against several of the strongest.
That, in sum, is something-for-everybody good scheduling!
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