CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina will begin life in a new-look ACC next season, and on Thursday, the team got more clarity on what its new schedule may look like.
The ACC released each team’s opponents for the 2024-25 season to include the additions of Cal, Stanford and SMU. North Carolina is 4-1 vs. Cal, last facing the Golden Bears in 1998. The Tar Heels are also 2-1 vs. SMU, with their last meeting taking place in 1987, and 13-0 against Stanford, with 2020 being the most recent matchup.
Each team will still play 20 conference games and face three of its opponents both at home and on the road. Every team will have to constant opponents each year that they’ll face both at home and on the road, and one additional opponent that they’ll play twice as well. For UNC, those two teams will still be Duke and N.C. State, and Pitt will be the extra repeat opponent.
North Carolina will not have to head to California or Texas to face the league’s new teams.
In next season’s non-conference slate, UNC is already set to face Kansas (Nov. 8) and Hawaii (Nov. 22) on the road. The team will also take part in the Maui Invitational along with Auburn, Colorado, Connecticut, Dayton, Iowa State, Memphis, Michigan State. North Carolina will take part in its second ACC-SEC Challenge game against an opponent to be announced later.
The 2025 ACC conference tournament will be played at the Spectrum Center from March 11-15.
The Tar Heels lead the ACC with a 14-3 conference record. The last time UNC held at least a share of the conference regular season title was in 2019, and the last time North Carolina won it outright was 2017.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina coach Hubert Davis has worn white athletic tape around the ring finger on his right hand throughout the majority of this college basketball season.
Either head athletic trainer Doug Halverson or head team manager Ragan Copeland applies the tape job before games, Davis said, and a ring sits beneath. But it’s not a wedding band. That hasn’t come off the ring finger on his left hand in 25 years, according to Davis. It’s an Oura Ring instead, a fitness smart ring that monitors physical activity and sleep schedule, among other things.
“It keeps track of your heart rate, calories, all kinds of stuff and it (sends) it to your phone,” Davis said Wednesday night, during the latest edition of his weekly radio show. “And my wife has been like, ‘I want to see what it looks like during the game.’ So I have it on then. … But this ring is a little bit bigger, and it can come off. I’m a little active on the sidelines. Without the tape, I think it might fly on the court.”