Head coach Courtney Banghart and the Tar Heels are reportedly heading out west early in the 2025-26 season.

According to women’s college basketball insider Mitchell Northam of SB Nation, UNC will compete in a four-team, two-day event in Las Vegas this coming November. Joining Carolina in the event will be South Florida, Fairfield and UCLA. The event is reportedly sponsored by the Women’s College Basketball Coaches Association and will be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks.

Northam reports the event will not technically be a “tournament,” as each team will only play two of the three other sides in the field. UNC will take on UCLA and Fairfield across the two gamedays, according to Northam.

UCLA is coming off a run to the Final Four this past season after spending multiple weeks ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll and earning the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed. The Tar Heels and Bruins have not faced off in head coach Courtney Banghart’s tenure in Chapel Hill. The last meeting occurred November 22, 2018, when UNC defeated UCLA 83-49 in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Carolina also swept a home-and-home series with the Bruins in 2013 and 2014, winning 78-68 in Los Angeles and 84-68 in Chapel Hill. The meeting this upcoming season will be a reunion for Carolina guard Elina Aarnisalo, who spent her freshman year with the Bruins before transferring to UNC in April.

Fairfield has quickly established itself as one of the best mid-major programs in basketball, winning at least 25 games and qualifying for the NCAA Tournament in three of the past four seasons. The 2023-24 season was the best in school history, as the Stags finished 31-2 overall, 20-0 in league play and appeared in the AP Poll for the first time ever. The Stags followed that up with a 28-5 campaign in the 2024-25 season. This season’s meeting will be the first ever between UNC and Fairfield in women’s basketball.

Though the dates of the event are not yet finalized, Northam reports the games will likely be played between Thursday, November 13 and Sunday, November 16 at Michelob Ultra Arena, which hosts the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces.

 

Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jerome M. Ibrahim

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