The UNC men’s basketball team will be heading to Cleveland this weekend to play in the CBS Sports Classic. But their opponent will be different than the Ohio State Buckeyes as initially planed.

The CBS Sports Classic announced in a release Wednesday the matchups for the game would be changed, leaving the Tar Heels now facing the Kentucky Wildcats at 2 p.m. on Saturday, December 19. The four-team event traditionally pits UNC, Kentucky, Ohio State and UCLA against each other at a neutral site. Wednesday’s release said the new matchups would now “more closely align COVID-19 testing protocols between the competing programs and their respective conferences.”

UNC and Ohio State were initially set to tip off at 2 p.m. before CBS changed it to the second featured matchup with a 4:30 p.m. tip.

“This a little unusual to say the least,” UNC head coach Roy Williams said in a release following the change, “but these are unusual times and that goes for college basketball, as well. Our team wants to play in the CBS Sports Classic. Instead of Ohio State, we’ll play Kentucky. Perhaps it would have been better to make a change like this earlier, but the bottom line is we want to play. Kentucky, Ohio State and UCLA all have fantastic programs and we are excited about having the opportunity to play.”

The Tar Heels lead the Wildcats in their head-to-head series 24-16, with Kentucky winning the last matchup in 2018. UNC’s record in the CBS Sports Classic is 4-2.

Saturday’s game will be the first for the UNC men’s basketball program (4-2) in a week, when they beat North Carolina Central 73-67 in Chapel Hill on December 12.

Photo via the Maui Invitational.

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