Thursday, February 3
Winston-Salem, N.C.
8 PM
North Carolina
at
Wake Forest
Carlie Littlefield and the Tar Heels play at Wake Forest on Thursday night.
Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
No. 24 WBB Travels To Wake For Thursday Night Matchup
February 3, 2022 | Women's Basketball
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The No. 24 North Carolina women's basketball team plays its third in-state Atlantic Coast Conference rival in a row on Thursday, traveling to take on Wake Forest. Tipoff at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum is 8 p.m.
UNC is 16-4 overall and 6-4 in ACC play. Wake Forest is 12-9 (2-8 ACC).
The game will air on the Regional Sports Networks, with the affiliate varying by market. For information, click here. To listen to the Tar Heel Sports Network radio broadcast, click here.
UNC is fifth in the latest NET ranking and has been in the top five all season. The Tar Heels are 24th in this week's AP poll and 23rd in the USA Today/WBCA coaches' poll.
The Rivalry
The Tar Heels and Demon Deacons are meeting for the 84th time in a series that dates back to the 1974-75 season, UNC's first as a varsity program under the umbrella of the University of North Carolina Department of Athletics. Carolina leads the series 65-18, but Wake Forest won the most recent meeting and has come out on top in four of the past five.
• Three of the past seven UNC-WFU matchups have gone into overtime, including Carolina's most recent win in Winston-Salem, 79-76 OT on Jan. 14, 2018.
• The teams' last meeting was in the opening game of the 2021 ACC Tournament in Greensboro, with Wake Forest winning 82-71 to oust the Tar Heels from the conference tournament for the second year in a row. (Wake won 83-73 in opening game of the 2020 ACC Tournament.) Two then-freshman, now-sophomore Tar Heels had outstanding games, with Alyssa Ustby scoring 23 and Deja Kelly 19.
• The teams split last year's regular-season meetings, each winning on its home court. Both games took place within a 10-day span: On Dec. 10, the Demon Deacons won 57-54 in Winston-Salem, and on Dec. 20, the Tar Heels won 77-74 in overtime in Chapel Hill.
• UNC's last win in Winston-Salem came in the 2017-18 season, 79-76 in overtime on Jan. 14, 2018. The Demon Deacons have won the two matchups on their home court since then. Fifth-year senior Jaelynn Murray started in the 2018 game and played 20 minutes – she's the only member of the current roster (including coaches) to have won at Wake Forest.
Numbers of Note
• UNC coach Courtney Banghart, in her 15th season as a head coach and her third in Chapel Hill, comes into Thursday's game with a career record of 299-132. With Carolina's next victory, she'll become the sixth among current ACC coaches to reach 300 wins.
• UNC ranks in the top three in the ACC in scoring (3), scoring defense (3), scoring margin (1), rebounds per game (2), offensive rebounds (2), field goal percentage defense (2), three-point percentage defense (1), steals (2) and turnover margin (1).
• UNC has held all but two opponents this season to sub-40-percent field goal shooting. The only schools to top that have been ACC opponents BC (49.1 percent) and NC State (41.8 in the first meeting, 44.1 in the second). Opponents are shooting .339 and Carolina ranks second in the ACC and fifth in the NCAA in field goal percentage defense.
• The Carolina defense has forced all 20 opponents into double-digit turnovers and has forced 20+ nine times this season. Opponents are averaging 19.9 turnovers per game vs. UNC.
• Carolina committed a season-low six turnovers in last Thursday's game at Duke. It was the team's third single-digit turnover total of the season. UNC was just barely into double digits vs. NC State Sunday with 10.
Up Next
After Thursday's game it's back Chapel Hill to host Miami (Feb. 6) and Pitt (Feb. 10) for the first back-to-back home games since Syracuse on Dec. 30 and Clemson on Jan. 2.
• With five straight games at home or against in-state rivals, UNC will go almost three weeks without leaving North Carolina. After returning from the trip to Atlanta on Jan. 23, the team won't leave the state again until traveling to Blacksburg, Va., for a matchup with Virginia Tech on Feb. 13.
UNC is 16-4 overall and 6-4 in ACC play. Wake Forest is 12-9 (2-8 ACC).
The game will air on the Regional Sports Networks, with the affiliate varying by market. For information, click here. To listen to the Tar Heel Sports Network radio broadcast, click here.
UNC is fifth in the latest NET ranking and has been in the top five all season. The Tar Heels are 24th in this week's AP poll and 23rd in the USA Today/WBCA coaches' poll.
Dancing along with our captains for #GameDayEve!
💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽#GoHeels #InPursuit pic.twitter.com/IIqn5LNHaD— Carolina Women's Basketball (@uncwbb) February 3, 2022
The Rivalry
The Tar Heels and Demon Deacons are meeting for the 84th time in a series that dates back to the 1974-75 season, UNC's first as a varsity program under the umbrella of the University of North Carolina Department of Athletics. Carolina leads the series 65-18, but Wake Forest won the most recent meeting and has come out on top in four of the past five.
• Three of the past seven UNC-WFU matchups have gone into overtime, including Carolina's most recent win in Winston-Salem, 79-76 OT on Jan. 14, 2018.
• The teams' last meeting was in the opening game of the 2021 ACC Tournament in Greensboro, with Wake Forest winning 82-71 to oust the Tar Heels from the conference tournament for the second year in a row. (Wake won 83-73 in opening game of the 2020 ACC Tournament.) Two then-freshman, now-sophomore Tar Heels had outstanding games, with Alyssa Ustby scoring 23 and Deja Kelly 19.
• The teams split last year's regular-season meetings, each winning on its home court. Both games took place within a 10-day span: On Dec. 10, the Demon Deacons won 57-54 in Winston-Salem, and on Dec. 20, the Tar Heels won 77-74 in overtime in Chapel Hill.
• UNC's last win in Winston-Salem came in the 2017-18 season, 79-76 in overtime on Jan. 14, 2018. The Demon Deacons have won the two matchups on their home court since then. Fifth-year senior Jaelynn Murray started in the 2018 game and played 20 minutes – she's the only member of the current roster (including coaches) to have won at Wake Forest.
Numbers of Note
• UNC coach Courtney Banghart, in her 15th season as a head coach and her third in Chapel Hill, comes into Thursday's game with a career record of 299-132. With Carolina's next victory, she'll become the sixth among current ACC coaches to reach 300 wins.
• UNC ranks in the top three in the ACC in scoring (3), scoring defense (3), scoring margin (1), rebounds per game (2), offensive rebounds (2), field goal percentage defense (2), three-point percentage defense (1), steals (2) and turnover margin (1).
• UNC has held all but two opponents this season to sub-40-percent field goal shooting. The only schools to top that have been ACC opponents BC (49.1 percent) and NC State (41.8 in the first meeting, 44.1 in the second). Opponents are shooting .339 and Carolina ranks second in the ACC and fifth in the NCAA in field goal percentage defense.
• The Carolina defense has forced all 20 opponents into double-digit turnovers and has forced 20+ nine times this season. Opponents are averaging 19.9 turnovers per game vs. UNC.
• Carolina committed a season-low six turnovers in last Thursday's game at Duke. It was the team's third single-digit turnover total of the season. UNC was just barely into double digits vs. NC State Sunday with 10.
Up Next
After Thursday's game it's back Chapel Hill to host Miami (Feb. 6) and Pitt (Feb. 10) for the first back-to-back home games since Syracuse on Dec. 30 and Clemson on Jan. 2.
• With five straight games at home or against in-state rivals, UNC will go almost three weeks without leaving North Carolina. After returning from the trip to Atlanta on Jan. 23, the team won't leave the state again until traveling to Blacksburg, Va., for a matchup with Virginia Tech on Feb. 13.
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