University of North Carolina Athletics
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Lucas: Rapid Reactions
September 12, 2019 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Quick takeaways from the announcement of Carolina's 2019-20 schedule.
By Adam Lucas
1. The most important unknown element of the schedule (by this point, we already knew the nonconference schedule and we knew the Atlantic Coast Conference opponents) is how many short turnarounds a team receives. This year's slate doesn't present an especially good draw, with three Saturday-Monday turnarounds. The worst part of the two games in three days situation is when a team has to go on the road in the back half of the duo; Carolina is on the road for the Monday game in all three short turnaround scenarios this season. Two of those three Monday road games (FSU on Feb. 3 and Notre Dame on Feb. 17) involve a flight, and the three Saturday-Monday turnarounds come in a four week span.
2. It's a welcome change to see both Carolina-Duke games on the weekend. The rest of the nation traditionally begins to pay closer attention to college basketball after the Super Bowl; it's probably no coincidence that the first game in the rivalry this season will be the weekend after the Super Bowl (Feb. 8 in Chapel Hill). The rematch will be March 7 at Duke. The two games in the series had been sliding closer together in recent years, and it's nice to see them get a little more separation this season.
3. The ACC Network is going to matter. Of the 11 Carolina conference games that have a firm announced network, seven of them are on the ACC Network. There are still nine Carolina league contests that are listed as "An ESPN channel," which could mean the ACC Network--and both Duke games are in the TBA network category. Anyone who doesn't receive the ACC Network won't be able to watch Carolina's first four conference games on television.
4. Two weird scheduling quirks that are likely products of the expanded league schedule (remember, this is the first year with 20 ACC games): Carolina will play Pitt twice in three games between Jan. 8 and Jan. 18. And Carolina will face Notre Dame on Nov. 6, and then not see the Irish again for more than three months, as the Tar Heels don't travel to South Bend until Feb. 17.
5. The "TBA" trend that infests college football is starting to spread to college basketball. The game time for all 20 of Carolina's league games is listed as "TBA." Uncertain starting times have an impact on the ability of fans to make plans to attend a game, and ultimately have an impact on attendance. The schedule the Tar Heels received today isn't all that different than the football schedule, which usually has dates but very few times (but is released seven months before the first game). The basketball schedule came out less than two months before the first game.Â
6. Yes, this is another backloaded ACC schedule. It's generally accepted that preseason rankings will put Duke, Louisville and Virginia along with Carolina among the league favorites. The Tar Heels play five games against those three opponents, and four of those five matchups come in the final month of the season (the other is a likely made-for-ACCN meeting with Virginia on Dec. 7).Â
7. It's starting to look like along with the death of Raycom, another traditional conference casualty was the Wednesday night league game. Carolina plays just two Wednesday night ACC games this season, with both of them taking place before the end of January.
8. Since the death of the double roundrobin, one relatively consistent way to gauge the difficulty of any given ACC slate is examining which opponents a team faces in road games only. The tougher those four games are, the tougher the team's league schedule will be. Carolina caught a relative break with those games last year. That isn't the case this season, when Carolina's one-off road games are at Virginia Tech (Cassell Coliseum is a sneaky tough place to play), at Florida State (the Tar Heels have had some adventures in the Tucker Center over the years), at Louisville (a likely top-10 team) and at Syracuse.
1. The most important unknown element of the schedule (by this point, we already knew the nonconference schedule and we knew the Atlantic Coast Conference opponents) is how many short turnarounds a team receives. This year's slate doesn't present an especially good draw, with three Saturday-Monday turnarounds. The worst part of the two games in three days situation is when a team has to go on the road in the back half of the duo; Carolina is on the road for the Monday game in all three short turnaround scenarios this season. Two of those three Monday road games (FSU on Feb. 3 and Notre Dame on Feb. 17) involve a flight, and the three Saturday-Monday turnarounds come in a four week span.
2. It's a welcome change to see both Carolina-Duke games on the weekend. The rest of the nation traditionally begins to pay closer attention to college basketball after the Super Bowl; it's probably no coincidence that the first game in the rivalry this season will be the weekend after the Super Bowl (Feb. 8 in Chapel Hill). The rematch will be March 7 at Duke. The two games in the series had been sliding closer together in recent years, and it's nice to see them get a little more separation this season.
3. The ACC Network is going to matter. Of the 11 Carolina conference games that have a firm announced network, seven of them are on the ACC Network. There are still nine Carolina league contests that are listed as "An ESPN channel," which could mean the ACC Network--and both Duke games are in the TBA network category. Anyone who doesn't receive the ACC Network won't be able to watch Carolina's first four conference games on television.
4. Two weird scheduling quirks that are likely products of the expanded league schedule (remember, this is the first year with 20 ACC games): Carolina will play Pitt twice in three games between Jan. 8 and Jan. 18. And Carolina will face Notre Dame on Nov. 6, and then not see the Irish again for more than three months, as the Tar Heels don't travel to South Bend until Feb. 17.
5. The "TBA" trend that infests college football is starting to spread to college basketball. The game time for all 20 of Carolina's league games is listed as "TBA." Uncertain starting times have an impact on the ability of fans to make plans to attend a game, and ultimately have an impact on attendance. The schedule the Tar Heels received today isn't all that different than the football schedule, which usually has dates but very few times (but is released seven months before the first game). The basketball schedule came out less than two months before the first game.Â
6. Yes, this is another backloaded ACC schedule. It's generally accepted that preseason rankings will put Duke, Louisville and Virginia along with Carolina among the league favorites. The Tar Heels play five games against those three opponents, and four of those five matchups come in the final month of the season (the other is a likely made-for-ACCN meeting with Virginia on Dec. 7).Â
7. It's starting to look like along with the death of Raycom, another traditional conference casualty was the Wednesday night league game. Carolina plays just two Wednesday night ACC games this season, with both of them taking place before the end of January.
8. Since the death of the double roundrobin, one relatively consistent way to gauge the difficulty of any given ACC slate is examining which opponents a team faces in road games only. The tougher those four games are, the tougher the team's league schedule will be. Carolina caught a relative break with those games last year. That isn't the case this season, when Carolina's one-off road games are at Virginia Tech (Cassell Coliseum is a sneaky tough place to play), at Florida State (the Tar Heels have had some adventures in the Tucker Center over the years), at Louisville (a likely top-10 team) and at Syracuse.
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