University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heels Face Miami on Wednesday
January 6, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 6, 2004
Tar Heels Face Future ACC Foe Miami
Coming off its second loss of the season, Carolina will host future Atlantic Coast Conference member Miami on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in the Smith Center.
Following Wednesday's game, the Tar Heels will enter the bulk of their ACC schedule, beginning with No. 8/8 Georgia Tech on Sunday night in a nationally-televised contest.
Carolina is coming off a 61-56 loss at No. 8 Kentucky last Saturday. The Hurricanes are coming off a blowout win over Savannah State last Saturday.
UNC is ranked No. 12 in the latest Associated Press poll and No. 13 in the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll. Miami is not ranked.
Broadcast Information
Saturday's game will be televised nationally by ESPN.
This season, 26 of 27 regular-season Carolina games will be televised (the lone exception being the Dec. 30 game vs. Coastal Carolina). Fifteen UNC games will be nationally broadcast, not including ACC and NCAA Tournament contests.
The game will be broadcast live on radio by the Tar Heel Sports Network, for which Woody Durham (play-by-play) and Mick Mixon (analyst) are in their 15th year together calling the action for Carolina Basketball. For the third straight season, former UNC All-America Phil Ford (analyst) joins Durham and Mixon on the broadcast team. All Carolina men's basketball games may be heard on the Internet (for a fee) at TarHeelBlue.com.
Tough Five-Game Stretch of Opponents
One game into a difficult, five-game stretch, the Tar Heels have lost at Kentucky (Jan. 3) and face Miami on Wednesday night in the Smith Center. The remaining three games are against Georgia Tech at home (Jan. 11), at Maryland (Jan. 14) and Connecticut at home (Jan. 17).
Among these five opponents are two teams that have been ranked No. 1 nationally (Kentucky and Connecticut) and two teams that have defeated No. 1-ranked teams this season (Georgia Tech, which beat UConn, and Maryland, which won at Florida).
Carolina is 1-2 against ranked teams this season, defeating No. 11 Illinois and losing to No. 14 Wake Forest (in three overtimes on Dec. 20) and No. 8 Kentucky (Jan. 3).
Carolina Looking for 200th Smith Center Win
A win against Miami would be the 200th victory for the Tar Heels in the Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center. The Tar Heels have a 199-42 record in the Smith Center since the building opened in January 1986. That includes a 4-1 mark this season. Carolina has a 92-11 record in the Smith Center against non-Atlantic Coast Conference opposition.
The Series with Miami
Carolina leads the series with Miami, 6-1, including a 3-0 mark in Chapel Hill. The Hurricanes won the most recent meeting, a 64-61 overtime win in Coral Gables on Jan. 4, 2003.
The Tar Heels swept a pair of games at Miami during the 1949-50 season, won home games in the series in 1986-87 and 1989-90 and beat Miami in 1999-2000 in the National Car Rental Center in Sunrise, Fla. In 2000-01, Carolina defeated Miami 67-45 in Chapel Hill as Brendan Haywood became the first Tar Heel in recorded history to post a triple-double.
