Another key non-conference date for UNC’s 2026-27 season has been set. The Tar Heels will face West Virginia in the second annual Dick Vitale Invitational, which will be played Friday, Nov. 27 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte. A tip-off time will be announced later.

November’s matchup will be the first between the Tar Heels and Mountaineers in men’s basketball in more than 60 years. The two teams last met on New Year’s Eve 1965, when West Virginia defeated UNC 102-97 in Raleigh’s Reynolds Coliseum. Carolina is winless in five all-time meetings with the Mountaineers, including a loss in December 1957 which snapped a 37-game winning streak for the Tar Heels.

West Virginia finished 21-14 overall and 9-9 in Big 12 play last season, which was the first of head coach Ross Hodge’s tenure with the program. The Mountaineers earned ranked wins against No. 22 Kansas and No. 19 BYU, but then fell to the Cougars in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament and missed the NCAA Tournament field.

The matchup with the Mountaineers adds another marquee game to UNC’s non-conference schedule for the 2026-27 season. That schedule already includes a home date with Georgia (Nov. 13) in the first game of a home-and-home series with the Bulldogs, a home matchup with Arkansas (Dec. 1) as part of the ACC-SEC Challenge, a home game against Butler (Dec. 6), a visit to Georgetown (Dec. 12) and neutral-site games against Kentucky (Dec. 19 in New York) and Illinois (Jan. 30 in Nashville). UNC is also set to face Indiana in a preseason exhibition in Indianapolis Oct. 18.

2026 will be the second iteration of the Dick Vitale Invitational, which honors the longtime ESPN college basketball commentator who has been battling cancer for the past several years. The first iteration of the game saw Duke defeat Texas in Charlotte in November of 2025.

 

Featured image via Todd Melet

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