The University of North Carolina men’s basketball team has a new coach, 11 new players and, finally, a full slate of new games to play in the 2026-27 season.
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The ACC released conferences slates on Wednesday afternoon, which finalizes the first schedule of games in the Michael Malone era in Chapel Hill. The 18-game slate (excluding a Dec. 15 nonconference matchup with rival NC State in Greensboro) begins on Dec. 30 against California and closes with a matchup against rival Duke on March 6 at the Dean E. Smith Center.
The season will open with on Oct. 9 against Southern California in Greensboro, the first of three exhibitions as a largely-changed group gets acclimated. But the changes come with plenty of intrigue. After a 12-6 finish in conference play and 24-9 overall finish, UNC fired former coach Hubert Davis after five seasons leading the program. Davis led the Tar Heels to the national championship game in his first season at the helm, falling 72-69 to Kansas in the 2022 title game.
But in the four seasons that followed, Davis reached the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend just once more, and was fired after a first-round exit against Virginia Commonwealth in last season’s tournament.
The Tar Heels pivoted to Malone, who won an NBA Championship with the Denver Nuggets in 2023. Malone added marquee transfer additions from the ACC in Virginia Tech’s Neoklis Avdalas and NC State’s Matt Able. He also brought in dynamic Utah guard Terrence Brown and four new pieces in a front court stabilized by returning forward Jarin Stevenson.
Malone’s first ACC slate as UNC’s coach will feature matchups with Duke, Louisville, California, Georgia Tech Miami, NC State, SMU, Stanford and Virginia at the Smith Center. It will also play games at Duke, Louisville, Boston College, Florida State, Notre Dame, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.
While a matchup with Kentucky at Madison Square Garden in New York will surely draw a lot of eyes nationally, the toughest test UNC should face all of next season is against Illinois on Jan. 30 in Nashville, Tennessee. The Fighting Illini are loaded, fresh off a Final Four berth and with a host of new additions, including dynamic Providence guard Stefan Vaaks.
They could be in the running for the preseason No. 1 in the Associated Press men’s college basketball poll, and the Tar Heels will have a shot at them in a neutral site.
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Georgetown has struggled the last several seasons, but its Dec. 12 matchup with UNC comes at a strange part of the Tar Heels’ schedule. Six-straight matchups with high majors — including Arkansas — after a light stretch to open the season begins with a game against West Virginia in Charlotte and builds toward the Kentucky game in New York.
The matchup with the Hoyas falls right in the middle of that stretch, but as the only game in which the Tar Heels leave the state for, it could present some unforeseen challenges — even if Georgetown doesn’t look much better than it has in recent years.
The six games in a row during the nonconference schedule should be in contention, too, but the stretch from Jan. 19 to the Tar Heels’ first game against Duke looks pretty tough. It opens with hosting Ryan Odom and Virginia, then four days later is UNC’s first matchup with a new-look Syracuse led by a former star guard for the Orange, Gerry McNamara.
Three of the next six games are against Illinois and then Louisville and Duke back-to-back.
A game against Georgia falls in the middle of it, but if the Tar Heels are given problems by any of the other four opponents in the first five games in their schedule, that would be a … well, a problem.
The Tar Heels face the Blue Devils twice in the ACC slate, playing at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Feb. 13 and closing the regular season by hosting Duke on March 6.
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