CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina begins its men’s basketball journey through the new expanded ACC in early December at home, and finishes league play there three months later in March.
In between, the Tar Heels’ 20-game conference schedule for the approaching 2024-25 season, released in full on Tuesday night, doesn’t take coach Hubert Davis‘ team to Texas or the West Coast on road trips to the new farthest reaches of the enlarged 18-team league.
UNC plays host to ACC newcomers SMU, California and Stanford this season at the Smith Center, across the course of 12 days in January. Georgia Tech’s visit on Dec. 7, a Saturday afternoon, tips off the conference slate for the Tar Heels, who are the ACC’s reigning regular-season champions.
Carolina’s path for the upcoming season includes home-and-away matchups against just three ACC teams, rivals Duke and NC State, and Pittsburgh. That’s another symptom of conference realignment and the bloating of the league. Last season, for example, the Tar Heels faced six ACC opponents as home-and-away partners (Duke, NC State, Clemson, Florida State, Miami and Syracuse). The halcyon days of the ACC’s round-robin scheduling format are long gone, of course.
UNC will play conference home games against Georgia Tech (Dec. 7), SMU (Jan. 7), Cal (Jan. 15), Stanford (Jan. 18), Boston College (Jan. 25), Pitt (Feb. 8), NC State (Feb. 19), Virginia (Feb. 22), Miami (March 1) and Duke (regular-season finale March 8).
Carolina has conference road games at Louisville (Jan. 1), Notre Dame (Jan. 4), NC State (Jan. 11), Wake Forest (Jan. 21), Pitt (Jan. 28), Duke (Feb. 1), Clemson (Feb. 10), Syracuse (Feb. 15), Florida State (Feb. 24) and Virginia Tech (March 4). The Tar Heels didn’t make stops at Louisville, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech or Wake Forest for road assignments last season, on the way to compiling a 17-3 league record and claiming the outright ACC regular-season title for the first time since 2017.
UNC went 29-8 overall last season, while securing the program’s first No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament since 2019. This season, the fourth year with Davis in charge, the Tar Heels appear to be as well-equipped on the perimeter as perhaps any team in college basketball, given the collection of dynamic guards (Elliot Cadeau, RJ Davis, Seth Trimble, Ian Jackson) and capable wings (Cade Tyson, Drake Powell) that can be deployed. RJ Davis, now a fifth-year senior, earned ACC Player of the Year and consensus first-team All-American honors last season.
Carolina’s frontline, with all-time leading rebounder Armando Bacot having used up his eligibility, is an area marked by some uncertainty. Neither 6-foot-9 Jae’Lyn Withers nor 6-10 Jalen Washington logged more than 12½ minutes per game last season. After missing on several big men in the transfer portal, the Tar Heels picked up 6-8 Ven-Allen Lubin from Vanderbilt and 6-7 Ty Claude from Georgia Tech, and likely need them to supply activity in the post and an appetite around the basket.
The non-conference portion of UNC’s 2024-25 men’s basketball schedule, announced in full in July, contains a number of special events and spotlighted matchups. The Tar Heels play host to Elon on Nov. 4, a Monday night, to start the new season, before an opening-week showdown four nights later at Kansas in a blue-blooded rematch of the 2022 NCAA championship game.
It shapes up as another busy and challenging non-conference stretch that will have UNC on the move to places such as Hawaii and New York City, and squaring off against more high-profile, name-brand teams. Auburn, Iowa State, Michigan State and back-to-back NCAA champion Connecticut are part of the loaded Maui Invitational field (Nov. 25-27), along with Colorado, Memphis and Dayton (UNC’s first opponent in the tournament).
Alabama visits Carolina on Dec. 4 for the ACC-SEC Challenge. The Crimson Tide have topped the Tar Heels during the previous two seasons, including the stinging 89-87 defeat in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament that ended last season. Kansas, Alabama and UConn all figure to be in the running to enter this season as the No. 1 team atop the AP Top 25 poll.
Later in December, UNC faces Florida as part of the Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte, N.C., and UCLA four days later as part of the CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York.
UNC basketball 2024-25 schedule
Oct. 13: Blue-White scrimmage, noon (exhibition at Harrah’s Cherokee Resort)
Oct. 15: at Memphis, 7 p.m. (exhibition)
Oct. 27: Johnson C. Smith, 2 p.m. (exhibition)
Nov. 4: Elon, 9 p.m.
Nov. 8: at Kansas, TBD
Nov. 15: American, 8 p.m.
Nov. 22: at Hawaii, TBD
Nov. 25-27: Maui Invitational (Auburn, Colorado, Connecticut, Dayton, Iowa State, Memphis, Michigan State)
Dec. 4: Alabama, 7:15 p.m. (ACC-SEC Challenge)
Dec. 7: Georgia Tech, 2 p.m.
Dec. 14: La Salle, 4 p.m.
Dec. 17: vs. Florida, 7 p.m. (Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte)
Dec. 21: vs. UCLA, 3 p.m. (CBS Sports Classic in New York)
Dec. 29: Campbell, 8 p.m.
Jan. 1: at Louisville, TBD
Jan. 4: at Notre Dame, noon
Jan. 7: SMU, 9 p.m.
Jan. 11: at NC State, 4 p.m.
Jan. 15: Cal, 7 p.m.
Jan. 18: Stanford, 2:15 p.m.
Jan. 21: at Wake Forest, 9 p.m.
Jan 25: Boston College, 2:15 p.m.
Jan 28: at Pitt, 9 p.m.
Feb 1: at Duke, 6:30 p.m.
Feb. 8: Pitt, TBD
Feb 10: at Clemson, 7 p.m.
Feb 15: at Syracuse, 6 p.m.
Feb 19: NC State, 7 p.m.
Feb 22: Virginia, 4 p.m.
Feb 24: at Florida State, 7 p.m.
March 1: Miami, TBD
March 4: at Virginia Tech, 7 p.m.
March 8: Duke, 6:30 p.m.
March 11-15: ACC Tournament in Charlotte, N.C.
