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Carolina is fortunate to play Wake Forest just one time – at home.

In the whack-a-doodle ACC basketball schedule, every team faces eight opponents only once, four at home and four away. Who knows what the format will be next season, when Cal, Stanford and SMU join the conference.

The Tar Heels’ four stand-alone home games are against Louisville (a win), Wake Forest tonight, Virginia Tech on February 17 and Notre Dame on March 5. Their single road games are at Pitt and Boston College (both wins), at Georgia Tech on January 30 and at Virginia on February 24.

Don’t try to figure out the Quad system because a Quad 1 opponent today may turn out to be a Quad 2 team on Selection Sunday and vice versa. So let’s just keep winning and stay in front in the ACC race.

You want to play single games on the road against weaker competition and the single games at home against tougher opponents. And Carolina has that tonight against Wake Forest, which is 42 in the latest NET Rankings as a Quad 2 team right now. So it is a good thing that there is no return game at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem.

The Deacons look to be the third best team in the ACC right now with a 5-2 conference record and 13-5 overall. They could show up as the best offensive team the Heels have faced in the ACC so far, the only team with two players among the top 10 scorers in the league, Hunter Sallis and Kevin “Boopie” Miller, both averaging more than 17 points per game. Sallis is also the tenth best in field goal accuracy, while Miller is No. 7 in assists.

Of course, Carolina has the top scorer in the league in R.J. Davis and the best rebounder in Armando Bacot.

Wake is also No. 1 in free throw percentage, while UNC is only fifth despite having the best foul shooter in the ACC in Davis at just under 95 percent. The Deacs are tied with Miami as the best 3-point shooters at 39 percent, while the Heels defend at the arc the best, holding foes to only 29 percent.

The wild cards for Wake are two players coming back from absences – 3-point shooter Damari Monsanto (due to injury) and 7-footer Efton Reid III (due to an eligibility battle with the NCAA). Monsanto shot 41 percent from the arc last season, second best in the ACC, and Reid transferred from Gonzaga, where he shot 62 percent around the paint as a sophomore and will provide Coach Steve Forbes with much needed rebounding help.

So this is a game the Tar Heels need to go 8-0 in the ACC and hold onto their two-game lead in the conference race. And, hopefully, they will be glad they don’t have to go back to Wake, thanks to the ACC’s confusing scheduling model.

 

Featured image via Wake Forest Athletics

Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.

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