Apparently this was pushed back a week because of…LeBron James? ESPN and company took longer than expected to finalize their NBA television schedules since they had to wait for the free agency circus to settle down. As a result, it took about a week longer to get the college basketball schedule clarified. You can view the full schedule on Tar Heel Blue.
By way of analysis the schedule is less arduous than last season, especially on the non-conference side. UNC will play three games in Puerto Rico on Nov. 18th, 19th and 21st. The Heels open with Hofstra then get either Western Kentucky or Minnesota. After that it could be anyone from a group of Davidson, WVU, Nebraska or Vanderbilt with the good money being on WVU or Vandy should UNC advance to the title game. After Puerto Rico, the toughest stretch of the non-conference schedule comes with UNC traveling to Illinois for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge followed by a home date with Kentucky. Two weeks later UNC will also host Texas on December 18th in Greensboro with a pair of games sandwiched in between. Overall UNC will play away from Chapel Hill for half of the out of league slate though one of those is Greensboro. Four other games are neutral court affairs and two are true road games, Illinois and Evansville. The trip to Evansville is the Tyler Zeller homecoming game.
On the ACC side of things, UNC only gets Virginia Tech once and that is in Chapel Hill. VT could be picked as high as 2nd in the ACC. The Heels last ten games has two dates each with FSU, Duke and BC. Considering how depleted BC is, those two games should not be an issue, the four vs Duke/FSU are a different story. UNC also travels to Clemson and NC State in February. The road games with Clemson comes immediately following the trip to Durham and marks the only time UNC plays on the road in back-to-back games.
Other tidbits: UNC will attempt to extend The Streak vs Clemson on January 18th in Chapel Hill. John Henson will be looking to ruin someone’s college career on November 28th when UNC hosts College of Charleston. Oh and UNC plays Georgia Tech once…in Atlanta.
I hate it when they play in Atlanta.
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why are we playing Texas in Greensboro?
Because the game last year was on a neutral court at Cowboys Stadium
can we fast-forward to basketball?
Cowboys Stadium…Greensboro Coliseum. hm.
whats harder to find than a freelance tutor?
more difficult to discover than who’s playing football in Carolina Blue in less than 51 hours?
the phrase “dook @” in the pre-ACC schedule.
For which game is Hansbrough going to make his re-appearance to celebrate his newly discovered fifth year of eligibility?
Hey, look, if the NCAA gets to ruin our football season, maybe they should do something to improve our hoops season.
^i say put Tyler in at linebacker on Saturday night.
Can we stay within 20 at Duke?
HTTE –
I always thought he would make a great wide receiver, like Harold Carmichael of the Philadelphia Eagles years ago. Carmichael was 6’9″. Hansbrough would actually be better. Not only can he catch the ball where no one else can, but who’s going to take it away from him? He has the strength and ferocity to overwhelm anyone playing in the secondary.
I’m only being half facetious here. If there is an NBA lockout, I’d love to see him try out for an NFL team.
^what a difference a year makes, last year at this time we were all hyped about a return trip to the Final Four, now we are hoping to stay within 20 @ Dook. Question is can anyone on dook stop Harrison Barnes.
^i’m not hoping to stay within 20 @ dook or anywhere else. we’re beating those chumps, holders of the Weakest All-Time Championship.
Easy there willy, did you see any of the pro-am games this Summer? I think we look good and I would like to think that the locker room issues are behind us.
As to the schedule, gotta love me some FSU before every Dook game. Excellent, let’s get all thug-a-licious before the most important game of the season, twice.
Some of those guys last year just wear’ed out their welcome, and now we have reloaded. I think UNC has a real chance to win the regular season title. We will be much more athletic. The real key will be learning from how Duke was defended by Butler in the title game last year.
Most coaches never even bothered to adjust their schemes, including us, but if we let Duke just shoot and shoot and shoot three pointers, they will annihilate us again. You have to make them shoot inside, where their lack of athleticism really hurts them.
^Finally, the real william has arrived.
^^i dont know if it was HOW Butler defended dook as much as they had quality players interested in defending.
it helps to not play any Top 10 teams til the National Semifinal, and then one that is missing their starting pg. we saw what happened when they finally played a healthy top team. they nearly lost. unfortunately, it was the last game.
not to worry this year, as i know one Top 10 team theyll be facing at least twice.
True, that.
Hey UNC peeps,
Deaner is back, and I’m gonna bring a new header with me. That header ^ has been the biggest freaking jynx in the history of any team that I have supported. THF, just for kicks, remove it for a day and see if anything positive happens. Since that header has gone up we have witnessed:
The MJ HOF speech debacle
The NIT season and all of the wonderful individual contributions to such an ugly season
Dean Smith is not doing well, which upsets me in many ways
DOOK won both the hoops and lax natties
DOOK will most likely land the #1 overall recruit in the 2011 class (Austin Rivers)
UNC football is going under the knife
…man, that header needs to GO!
I know were all pumped up, but do we have the point guard to be great?
Larry Drew will be much improved and Marshall has winner written all over him.
Basketball Scheduling Question:
Is UNC 100% responsible for working out the TV schedule with the networks, or does the ACC either do it or have a hand in it?
I’m asking because, living in exile, we rely on ESPN and the networks to watch and find that many UNC games are Raycom, but Duke has only one game the entire season not on national TV.
Just curious. Thanks.
I think ESPN/Raycom working with the ACC probably has most of the control. Duke always gets a fair share of national games on ESPN. The fact they will likely be pre-season #1, are the defending champs and will be favored to repeat means they will get a lot of choice TV games. I did note it seemed like UNC was on Fox Sports more during the non-league portion of the schedule with the usual amount of Raycom games. Next year however it will all be ESPN except for games they will syndicate back to Raycom for local broadcast.
Thank you, THF