Michael Malone’s first North Carolina team gets one more exhibition tune-up before the games start counting for real, and the final test comes Tuesday, Oct. 27 against Charlotte.
UNC heads into the matchup still carrying some preseason buzz, even if the national polling hasn’t fully caught up. The Tar Heels are unranked, but they did pick up 20 votes, which puts them unofficially at No.
- That leaves Malone’s group in an interesting spot: noticed, but not yet fully validated.
The results so far have been mixed. North Carolina opened the exhibition slate with an 88-70 win over Southern California, a strong start for the Malone era.
But the follow-up trip to Indianapolis on Sunday, Oct. 18 went the other way, with Indiana handing the Tar Heels a 76-58 loss. Indiana is also unranked, though it received eight votes, so the two teams entered the year from a similar place.
There’s no real reason to go overboard with any preseason result, especially this time of year. Even Florida, the No. 1 team in the country, has already taken a hit in exhibition play against Baylor.
Charlotte comes in with its own recent look at top-level competition. The 49ers played at Georgia on Friday, Oct. 16 and lost 87-67. Georgia buried 17 three-pointers in that game, and it remains Charlotte’s only game so far this preseason.
That makes this matchup a useful measuring stick for UNC, especially with Georgia visiting Chapel Hill on Friday, Nov. 13. The Tar Heels will get a chance to see how they stack up against a team the Bulldogs already handled by 20.
The series history also gives this exhibition a little extra weight. North Carolina is 2-0 all-time against Charlotte, including a 93-83 win in the 1998 NCAA Tournament, when the Tar Heels knocked out the 49ers in a second-round game that needed overtime. The two teams met again later that year in December, and UNC survived another overtime battle, winning 75-73.
UNC’s projected starting lineup against Charlotte features Terrance Brown, Matt Able, Jarin Stevenson, Neo Avdalas and Sayon Keita.
Charlotte’s projected starters are Chaze Harris, Michael Walz, Keyshaun Tillery, Arden Conyers and Tyler McKinley.
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