Fast Reactions on 2017–2018 UNC Basketball Schedule

An interesting non-conference block, combined with a tough ACC schedule highlights the Heels’ upcoming season.

The schedule can be found here at Tar Heel Times.

Non-Conference

As far as difficulty goes, interesting is the only viable term to use. An early perspective on the 12 (possibly 13) games is that it isn’t extremely tough at first look. The Heels open with Northern Iowa, who has been a tough adversary on occasion in the past, but we ran over pretty easily last year. This opening portion of the season can basically be divided into two sections: the easy and the tough.

The Easy

• Bucknell
• Stanford
• Portland
• Davidson
• Tulane
• Western Carolina
• Wofford

The Tough

• Arkansas or Oklahoma (Phil Knight Invitational)
• Possible Phil Knight Invitational Championship Game
• Michigan
• Tennessee
• Ohio State

It seems that Roy has taken a slightly easier approach to a season that has quite a few questions surrounding it. However, Arkansas was one of our tougher NCAA tourney games last season, Michigan is coming off of a great tourney run, and Ohio State is bound to be a fun game.

ACC Play

As per usual, the ACC presents an arduous schedule to any team in the conference. Here are some of the more notable games and/or series that UNC will play.

Notable Games

• Florida State
• Virginia
• Georgia Tech
• Louisville
• Miami
• Notre Dame (twice)
• NC State (twice)
• Duke (twice)

The ACC will likely see a lot of turnover after coaching changes and important seniors graduating from some of 2017’s better teams. Obviously, the most important games of the season will be against preseason #1 Duke, who gained some very impressive freshmen this season.

Looking past the Duke series, the Notre Dame games may be the most exciting series, with fans getting to see them play at both schools. Georgia Tech will also be a team to keep your eye on, after they gave UNC a pretty rough game last season.

Overall (calm) Reaction

I don’t think it’s too crazy of a prediction to imagine this team finishing with a 22–24 win regular season. Certainly Roy will have a lot of work to do, but somewhere between a two to four seed in the 2018 NCAA tournament will definitely be feasible.

Overall (excited) Reaction

Tie your shoe laces up tight, boys and gals. This schedule is the fast track to ANOTHER NATTY!!!!!!