It should be some show at the Smith Center Saturday night.

Sure, some Carolina fans are disappointed that Gonzaga lost to Tennessee and will not be the No. 1-ranked team in the country when the Zags step onto Roy Williams Court. Nevertheless, the Tar Heels still have a great chance to spring a significant upset in the first sold-out home game of the season.

Gonzaga coach Mark Few is like a 55-year-old kid brother to Williams, whose system Few adopted almost in its entirety when he became the Bulldogs’ head coach in 1999. He has led Gonzaga to the NCAA tournament every season in Spokane, including the dramatic loss to UNC in the 2017 national championship game in Phoenix.

The Zags, who ascended to No. 1 in the polls after holding off Duke in the Maui Classic finals, will be without two of their top players in the Smith Center. Six-ten Parisian Killian Tillie has not played this season while recovering from an ankle injury, and graduate transfer guard Geno Crandall is out with a fractured hand. But they still have plenty of firepower, especially 6-8 leading scorer Rui Hachimura, who is averaging 22 points, and 6-8 Brandon Clarke who averages 18 a game and already has 33 blocks. This will be Carolina’s toughest test inside this season and will present match-up challenges for Ol’ Roy.

Despite playing only once in the last two-plus weeks, the Tar Heels have not practiced that much because of exams. But they should have fresh legs in the first of two nationally televised games that will define their pre-ACC schedule. They meet currently 19th-ranked Kentucky next Saturday in Chicago.

Besides the overflow crowd expected, Mack Brown will also be re-introduced to students and fans at halftime as Carolina’s newest football coach. A lot has changed at UNC since Brown’s first stint here from 1988-98, some of it good and some of it not so good. He will inherit better players than he did 20 years ago, and he will have a huge group of recruits here for the game ahead of the early signing period on December 20.

Brown has already pointed to basketball as a big selling point for football, so the louder the better against the Zags.

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