No. 21 WBB Travels To No. 20 Notre Dame For Sunday Matchup

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – After a week without a game, the No. 21 North Carolina women's basketball team hits the road to take on No. 20 Notre Dame on Sunday. Tipoff at Purcell Pavilion is 1 p.m.

The game will air on the Regional Sports Networks. For a list of stations, click here. Fans can also watch on ESPN.com here and listen here on the Tar Heel Radio Network.

The Tar Heels (14-1, 4-1 ACC) had a bye in the Atlantic Coast Conference schedule on Thursday and last played on Jan. 9, when they beat Virginia Tech 71-46 in Chapel Hill. Notre Dame (12-3, 3-1) is coming off a 74-64 win at Wake Forest on Thursday.

The Series
UNC and Notre Dame are meeting for the 13th time in a series that dates back to the 1999-2000 season. The Fighting Irish leads the series 9-3 overall and 7-2 since joining the ACC. All but one of those conference-era matchups has come in regular-season play, with the exception a meeting in the 2019 ACC Tournament.
• UNC won the most recent meeting, 78-73 in Chapel Hill on Jan. 24, 2021. Carolina's grad student guards both hit season highs in scoring with Stephanie Watts notching 25 points and Petra Holešínská 24. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Tar Heels. (Watts, who also had 12 rebounds and nine assists in that game, went on to be a top-10 pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft.)
• The teams met twice in the 2018-19 season, with UNC pulling off an upset of the top-ranked Irish in Chapel Hill on Jan. 27, 2019, and UND getting revenge by eliminating the Tar Heels from the ACC Tournament field, 95-77 on March 8, 2019, in Greensboro, N.C.
• The teams have met at Notre Dame on four previous occasions, with the home team winning all four. Most recently, in Carolina's only trip to South Bend with Courtney Banghart as head coach, Notre Dame won 83-65 on Feb. 27, 2020, in the second-to-last game of the 2019-20 regular season.

Scouting the Irish
Notre Dame is 12-3 overall and 3-1 in ACC play coming off a 74-64 win at Wake Forest on Thursday evening. Four players scored in double figures, led by Dara Mabrey with a season-high 22. Olivia Miles, who leads the nation in assists, registered her sixth double-double of the year with 15 points and 12 assists.
The win over the Demon Deacons was a return to action after an 11-day break following a 72-70 loss at Duke on Jan. 2.
• Five Irish players are averaging in double figures, led by Maddy Westbeld wit 13.3 per game. Miles is scoring 12.8, Maya Dodson 12.0, Sonia Citron 10.9 and Mabrey 10.8 following Thursday's big night.
• Syracuse is the only common opponent the teams have had this season, with Notre Dame beating the Orange 82-58 in Syracuse on Nov. 14 and UNC winning 79-43 in Chapel Hill on Dec. 30.
• Notre Dame leads the ACC in assists and assist/turnover ratio. The Fighting Irish rank second in blocks and third in scoring, rebounding, rebounding margin and field goal percentage.

Up Next
Following Sunday's road trip, the Tar Heels are back on their home court to host Virginia on Jan. 20. After that it's back on the road for two more for games at Georgia Tech and Duke.
UNC plays back-to-back home games on only one occasion through the rest of the season, on Feb. 6 vs. Pitt and Feb. 10 vs Miami.

Noting the Heels
• UNC leads the ACC in scoring, scoring margin, rebounds, rebounding margin, defensive rebounds, offensive rebounds, three-point percentage defense, steals and turnover margin. No other team leads the league in more than three categories.
• UNC has held all but two opponents this season to sub-40 field goal shooting. The only schools to top that have been ACC opponents BC (49.1 percent) and NC State (41.8). Opponents are shooting .325 and Carolina ranks second in the league field goal percentage defense.
• The Carolina defense has forced all 15 opponents into double-digit turnovers and has forced 20+ eight times this season, including five times in the past six games. In the exception, UNC's loss at NC State, the Wolfpack committed 17 turnovers, equal to the team's second-highest total of the season. Tar Heel opponents are committing 21.3 turnovers per game this season, 23.3 over the past six games.
• Carolina leads the ACC in steals (11.0 per game) and five Tar Heels rank among the ACC's top 25 individually: Ustby is 7th (2.0), Kelly 10th (1.8), Littlefield and Todd-Williams tied at 22nd (1.4), and Hodgson at 24th (1.3).
• After a streak of five games with single-digit steals, UNC reached double digits in five in a row, with 11 against UNCA, 17 at BC, 13 against Alabama State, 12 vs Syracuse and a season-high 18 vs. Clemson. The Tar Heels have averaged 8.5 over the past two games, with eight at NC State and nine vs. Virginia Tech.
• Deja Kelly leads the ACC with an .849 free throw percentage (62-73). In ACC games only, she's even better at .909 (20-22), which ranks fifth.

Quick Hits
• The Tar Heels are fourth in the NET rankings, 18th in the coaches' poll and 21st in the AP poll. Carolina appeared in both preseason polls in 2015-16 (20th coaches, 22nd AP) but fell out as the season started and didn't show up again until this December.
• Sunday's opponents sit back-to-back in both national polls this week, with Notre Dame 20th and UNC 21st in the AP poll, and UNC 18th and Notre Dame 19th in the coaches' poll.
• Carolina has already bettered last season's wins total. The Tar Heels finished 13-11 last season after making the program's 28th NCAA Tournament appearance.
• UNC has played the same starting lineup in all 15 games this season: Kelly, Littlefield, Todd-Williams, Ustby and Poole. In comparison, through 15 games last season the Tar Heels had tried five different lineups, and they would use seven during the course of the season's 24 games.

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Players Mentioned

Petra Holešínská

Deja Kelly

Stephanie Watts

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University of North Carolina Athletics