Tar Heels Will Open 2020 Vs. Yellow Jackets Saturday Night

North Carolina will open play in 2020 at home against Georgia Tech on Saturday night at 6 p.m.

GAME 14 NOTEBOOK
• Carolina is 8-5 overall, including 1-1 in ACC play and 7-4 in non-conference action. Carolina's 70-67 win over Yale on 12/30 was its final regular-season, non-conference game on the schedule this season.
• Ken Pomeroy ranks UNC's schedule as the 11th most difficult in the country (Georgia Tech's is 15th).
• KenPom ranks UNC's non-conference schedule 18th in the country. That's easily the most challenging schedule among ACC teams; Georgia Tech's was second in the ACC at No. 42.
• The average ACC non-conference strength of schedule (other than UNC) is 212.
• The Tar Heels opened the season with an ACC home win over Notre Dame and lost at Virginia on 12/8.
• Georgia Tech is 6-7 overall and 1-2 in the ACC with a road win at NC State, home loss to Syracuse and road loss at Florida State.
• The teams have one common opponent thus far. UNC beat Elon 75-61; the Yellow Jackets beat Elon, 64-41.
• Carolina has lost five of its last eight; the Yellow Jackets have dropped five of their last seven games.
• The Georgia Tech game is the second of a season-long four-game homestand for the Tar Heels and the first of three straight ACC home games (1/8 vs. Pittsburgh and 1/11 vs. Clemson).

SERIES VS. GEORGIA TECH
• Carolina is 69-25 all-time against Georgia Tech, including 30-5 in Chapel Hill and 25-4 in the Smith Center.
• The Tar Heels have won two in a row and nine of the last 10 games overall against the Yellow Jackets.
• UNC has won five straight in the Smith Center.
• Roy Williams is 16-9 as a head coach vs. Georgia Tech, including 15-9 in 16 previous seasons as head coach of the Tar Heels.

LAST YEAR VS. GEORGIA TECH
• The teams played one game last season, a 77-54 UNC win in Atlanta.
• Carolina led by seven at the half, then began the second half on a 25-5 run, during which UNC made five three-pointers and scored the other 10 points on fastbreaks.
• Carolina was 13 for 27 from three-point range.
• Tech's 54 points were the fewest allowed by UNC in an ACC road game since 2015.
• Cameron Johnson led UNC with a game-high 22 points. Coby White had 19 points and eight assists with five three-pointers.

ROY MAKING HISTORY
• Carolina's win over Yale moved Roy Williams into a tie with Dean Smith for fourth place in wins by a Division I head coach with 879 and into a tie with Gary Williams for third place for wins by an ACC head coach with 461.
• Earlier this season Williams passed Jim Calhoun (873) and Adolph Rupp (876).

MOST WINS BY A DIVISION I HEAD COACH
1144 Mike Krzyzewski
954 Jim Boeheim
902 Bob Knight
879 Dean Smith
879 Roy Williams
876 Adolph Rupp

MOST WINS AS ACC HEAD COACH, ALL GAMES
1071 Mike Krzyzewski Duke
879 Dean Smith North Carolina
461 Roy Williams North Carolina
461 Gary Williams Maryland
354 Bobby Cremins Georgia Tech

• The Georgia Tech game is Williams' 600th game as UNC's head coach. The Tar Heels are 461-138 under Williams, a winning percentage of .770. That's No. 3 all-time in ACC history behind only Krzyzewski (.789) and Smith (.776).
• Williams will become the fourth to coach at least 600 games at an ACC school.

MOST GAMES AS ACC HEAD COACH
1357 Mike Krzyzewski Duke
1133 Dean Smith North Carolina
713 Gary Williams Maryland
599 Roy Williams North Carolina

• Regardless of the outcome of the UNC-Georgia Tech game, Roy Williams will have more wins in his first 600 games as an ACC head coach than any other coach in league history.

MOST WINS IN FIRST 600 GAMES AS ACC HEAD COACH
461+ Roy Williams North Carolina
456 Dean Smith North Carolina
446 Mike Krzyzewski Duke
392 Gary Williams Maryland

NOTABLE
• Justin Pierce scored 14 points against Yale, his second game in double figures as a Tar Heel (48th time overall). He also was Carolina's defensive player of the game, his second award of the season. Pierce became the second Tar Heel to win multiple defensive player of the game honors this season; Garrison Brooks is a six-time winner.

• Carolina used its fifth different starting lineup in 13 games in the win over Yale. Last season, Roy Williams used two starting lineups – one for 35 games and a different one for one game.

• Cole Anthony (nine games), K.J. Smith (three) and Jeremiah Francis (one) have started at the point this season. This is the first time since 2007-08 UNC started three players at the point in a season (Ty Lawson 29, Quentin Thomas 9 and Bobby Frasor 1).

• Freshman guard Anthony Harris tore his right ACL in the second half of the Yale game and will undergo surgery next week. Harris had missed the first eight games this season due to a left knee injury he suffered as a high school senior.

• The Tar Heels will be without at least four players for the Georgia Tech game: Harris, Cole Anthony (right knee), Sterling Manley (left knee) and Andrew Platek (left ankle). Harris and Manley are out for the season, Anthony is expected back in 4-6 weeks from 12/16 when he had arthroscopic surgery and Platek is out game-to-game.

• Seven different Tar Heels have combined to miss a total of 39 games due to injury thus far this season: Manley (13), Jeremiah Francis (8), Harris (8), Anthony (4), Brandon Robinson (4), Leaky Black (1) and Platek (1).

• Brandon Robinson not only established career highs in points (20), three-pointers (5) and minutes played (36) against Yale, he also led UNC in scoring for the first time in his career.

• Robinson has scored in double figures in five of the nine games he has played in this season. He reached double figures twice in his first three collegiate seasons.

• Carolina is 423-74 in the Smith Center (215-57 in ACC games). The Clemson game on 1/11 will be the Tar Heels' 500th game in the Smith Center.

• The Tar Heels lead the nation in rebounds per game (44.9), are sixth in offensive rebounds per game (14.4) and 11th in rebound margin (+9.8).

• Carolina has led the nation in rebounds per game in each of the previous three seasons.

• Carolina scored a season-high 81 points at Gonzaga. It was the first time this season the Tar Heels scored 80 or more points. It was the first time UNC scored less than 80 points in each of the first 10 games since 1949-50.

• Carolina has shot under 50 percent from the floor in the first 13 games. That's the longest stretch to open a season since the 1959-60 team
shot 53.6 percent against Duke in the 16th game.

• Carolina's field goal percentage (.401) is its lowest since the 1957-58 season and its three-point percentage (.299) is its lowest ever.

• Carolina is 10th in the ACC in scoring at 69.8 points per game. Carolina has finished first, first, second and first in the ACC in scoring in the last four seasons.

• In Roy Williams' previous 16 seasons, Carolina has led the ACC in scoring eight times, finished second five times and third three times.

• No Roy Williams-coached team in 16 previous seasons at UNC has averaged less than 74.5 points per game (in 2009-10). The lowest scoring average in his 15 seasons at Kansas (1988-2003) was 72.1 in 1998-99. Williams' teams have averaged 80 or more points in 23 of his previous 31 seasons as a head coach.

MEDIA POLLING
• Carolina is not ranked in the Associated Press poll for the third week in a row. UNC had been ranked in the top 10 in each of the first five weeks of the 2019-20 AP poll.
• The December 16th poll marked the first time in 107 polls the Tar Heels were not ranked in the AP poll.
• The last time UNC was not in the AP top 25 was the 16th week in the 2013-14 season.
• UNC has finished the season in the top 10 in each of the last four seasons (3 in 2015-16, 5 in 2016-17, 10 in 2017-18 and 3 in 2018-19).
• Carolina has been ranked in 922 AP polls, the most rankings of any school in the country.
• Carolina has finished in the Top 10 of the AP poll 38 times, including 27 of the previous 39 years.

AP POLL STREAKS
• Carolina's 106-week streak of being ranked in the AP poll was the third longest in UNC history and the sixth longest in ACC history.
• UNC's longest streaks include:
172 weeks from 11/1/90 to 1/18/2000;
171 weeks from 12/5/72 to 12/14/82;
106 weeks from 2/24/14 to 12/16/2019;
87 weeks from 11/27/84 to 12/5/90

ALL-DECADE
• The Lute Olson National Player of the Year Award selected 25 players to its 2010-19 All-Decade team and two Tar Heels made the list, Harrison Barnes (2010-12) and Justin Jackson (2014-17).

2019 SIGNEES
• R.J. Davis, a 5-11 guard from White Plains, N.Y.
• Donovan "Puff" Johnson, a 6-7 forward from Moon Township, Pa.
• Walker Kessler, a 7-0 forward from Newnan, Ga.
• Caleb Love, a 6-3 guard from St. Louis, Mo.
• Day'Ron Sharpe, a 6-10 forward from Greenville, N.C.

Scoreboard Slider

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Cole Anthony

Leaky Black

Garrison Brooks

Jeremiah Francis

Anthony Harris

Cameron Johnson

Sterling Manley

Justin Pierce

Andrew Platek

Brandon Robinson

K.J. Smith

Coby White

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