When Virginia and North Carolina take the court in the Dean Dome, it will have been 1,785 days since the Heels last beat the Hoos. That’s nearly five years, and represents a streak of seven consecutive Wahoo victories.
The last time the two met on Carolina’s home court, it was 2020, and what was then a 5-game win streak appeared moribund. Virginia trailed by one and had the ball, and seconds were slipping by rapidly. But in exhilarating fashion, Kihei Clark found Tomas Woldetensae in the corner for a game-winning three with 0.3 showing on the clock.
That UNC team posted a 14-19 record, the worst in 19 seasons of Carolina basketball. This year’s iteration has its flaws, but it’s far better than that one, and will give Virginia a stiffer challenge.
The Hoos come in riding a two-game ACC road win streak. They scored 74 and 75 points in wins over Syracuse and Clemson, respectively, and seem to have turned a corner. Most teams, though, can string together two good games; it takes a truly good team to do it three times in a row.
The opponent
Hubert Davis’s first season in charge in Chapel Hill has started fairly smoothly. Carolina is 10-4, with no bad losses, though with no great wins. UNC’s only notable wins came when it trounced Michigan—back when Michigan looked like a good team—and proceeded to defeat Georgia Tech handily. Its first three losses were all to ranked teams—Purdue, Tennessee and Kentucky—although at least 9 points separated UNC and its opponent in all three.
Most recently, UNC fell in a tight contest at Notre Dame. The final score was 78-73, and the game could have gone either way. Notre Dame has been wildly inconsistent thus far, but it played its best basketball against the Heels and narrowly won.
Carolina’s lack of an impressive victory is confounding given its stacked roster. Armando Bacot, Caleb Love and RJ Davis are back to headline the lineup, along with Oklahoma transfer Brady Manek. KenPom ranks the Heels as the 18th-best offensive team in the nation.
Love was supposed to be a one-and-done, and was touted as one of the best prospects in the country prior to last season. That prediction didn’t come to fruition, but he’s doing big things in his second year. With 15.6 points per game and a 44% average from deep, Love is one half of a fearsome backcourt duo. The other half is Davis, who handles the ball more often and scores 13.7 points per game on 46% from beyond the arc. The pair averages a combined 7 assists per game.
As evidenced by their stats, both guards can shoot the three and pass the ball. Neither is the quickest, but they will be challenging matchups for Kihei Clark and Reece Beekman.
In the frontcourt, there’s Bacot, a 6’10”, 240 pound junior who averages a double-double. Keeping him off the offensive boards is paramount. Bacot is a very versatile forward who Virginia has seen in the past; Kadin Shedrick’s endeavor to stay out of foul trouble is essential if Bacot is to be contained.
Bacot works alongside Manek, who dropped 13 points on Virginia in the 2019 NCAA Tournament while wearing an Oklahoma uniform. Part of Manek’s strength at Oklahoma was his ability to knock down the outside shot, but that’s been lacking this year, rendering him less effective. Manek is still a threat, though.
Carolina is a deep team (eight guys average over 11 minutes), so discussing the rest of the offensive attack would be a long-winded exercise (as an aside, former Virginia player Justin McKoy plays for UNC now, averaging 6.1 minutes and 0.9 points per game). Suffice it to say that the Heels can shoot, they can rebound, and overall they’re very good offensively.
On the other side of the court they’re not quite as dynamic. KenPom ranks them as the 80th-most efficient defense. Carolina has surrendered 83 points to the College of Charleston, 87 to Brown, 93 to Purdue, and 98 to Kentucky. There’s some length on the interior, but look for Kihei Clark to have another solid game and Jayden Gardner to cook in the midrange and down low.
Carolina is stiff opposition, but Virginia has the tools to get it done on both sides of the floor.
The prediction
In a stunning turn of events on Tuesday, I actually picked a winner correctly! After failing to successfully predict the outcomes of two consecutive Virginia games, I nailed it with my forecast of victory.
I know, I’m amazing. I’ll accept your congratulations by mail or by phone.
Anyway, time to make a pick for the matchup in Chapel Hill. There’s always going to be an element of bias here, but I’m going to roll with the Hoos for the second time in a row.
Putting aside numbers, this pick is about results. Virginia’s constitute a mixed bag, of course, but Carolina hasn’t been much more convincing. The Hoos now have two solid ACC road victories, along with the neutral-site victory over 16th-ranked Providence.
What does UNC have? The home win over a floundering Michigan team. The road victory over ever-inconsistent Georgia Tech. Another road win over a bad Boston College outfit.
Until North Carolina can prove itself against a decent opponent, it’s tough to pick in favor of it. And Virginia appears to be in the midst of a resurgence. The Hoos are trending up, the Heels are oscillating between two decent-but-not-great positions.
An eighth consecutive victory over UNC is there for the taking.
Virginia at North Carolina will tip at 1 pm EST and air on ESPN.
Image – Virginia Athletics