.png&width=36&height=36&type=webp)
University of North Carolina Athletics
Friday, November 17
Chapel Hill
8 PM
North Carolina
vs
UC Riverside
Photo by: Peyton Williams
Tar Heels Wrap Up Homestand With UC Riverside Friday
November 16, 2023 | Men's Basketball
• UNC hosts UC Riverside on Friday, November 17, in the third and final game of a three-game homestand to open the season. The ACC Network will carry the game live.
• The Tar Heels are 2-0 after wins over Radford and Lehigh, while the Highlanders are 1-2 coming off a pair of road losses at Utah and Portland.
• This is the first-ever meeting in basketball between UNC and UC Riverside, which plays in the Big West.
• Tip time is 8:05 p.m. at the Dean E. Smith Center, where the Tar Heels are 465-86 in 39 seasons, including 225-18 against non-ACC opponents.
• Jones Angell, 2012 ACC Player of the Year Tyler Zeller, Adam Lucas and Dave Nathan provide the call on the Tar Heel Sports Network.
• The Tar Heels have won their first two games by 16 over Radford and 22 over Lehigh. UNC has shot 49.2% from the floor, held the opponents to 39.4%, had a +12 margin on the boards and averaged 14.5 assists per game, two more than it averaged a season ago.
• Carolina led Lehigh for nearly 36 minutes last Sunday in its 90-68 win, out-scoring the Mountain Hawks by 20 at the free throw line, by 22 in the paint, 14-2 on second-chance points and 17-3 on the break.
• Armando Bacot and RJ Davis each scored 22 points and Bacot grabbed 20 rebounds for his third career 20/20 performance.
• Bacot earned national player-of-the-week honors from the USBWA and Lute Olson Award and was named the ACC Player of the Week for his play in the first two games. The grad student from Richmond, Va., averaged 23.5 points and 16.5 rebounds, made 18 of 30 from the floor (.600) and 11 of 12 free throws (.917).
• The ACC award was the seventh of his career, the third most by a Tar Heel.
ACC PLAYER OF THE WEEK – ALL-TIME, UNC
12 Antawn Jamison, 1995-98
10 Tyler Hansbrough, 2005-09
7 Armando Bacot, 2019-
6 Phil Ford, 1974-78
5 Luke Maye, 2015-19
5 Joel Berry II, 2015-19
5 Marcus Paige, 2012-16
5 Michael Jordan, 1981-84
5 Mike O'Koren, 1976-80
• Despite the wins in its first two games Carolina fell one spot to 20 in the Associated Press poll.
• This is the 938th week all-time the Tar Heels are ranked in the AP poll, the second most in college basketball history.
• This is Carolina's first game vs. a current Big West opponent since playing at Hawai'i on 11/18/2017.
• The Tar Heels will leave Sunday for the Bahamas, where they begin play vs. Northern Iowa on Wednesday, November 22, in the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis.
GAME 3 NOTEBOOK
• The average age of Carolina's 11 scholarship players to begin the season was 21.0 years. Cormac Ryan (25), Armando Bacot (23), Paxson Wojcik (23), RJ Davis (22) and Jae'Lyn Withers (22) are the oldest; freshmen Elliott Cadeau and Zayden High are among five 19-year-olds.
• Carolina was active in the transfer portal with five players joining the program from Brown (grad student Paxson Wojcik), Louisville (grad student Jay'Lyn Withers, Notre Dame (grad student Cormac Ryan), Stanford (junior Harrison Ingram) and West Virginia (junior James Okonkwo).
• The five incoming transfers and two freshmen (Elliot Cadeau and Zayden High) join four holdover players on scholarship (grad student Armando Bacot, senior RJ Davis, sophomore Seth Trimble and sophomore Jalen Washington).
• Seven players on last year's team moved on to other schools and two (Leaky Black and Pete Nance) were fifth-year players who exhausted their eligibility.
• The five incoming transfers – Ingram, Okonkwo, Ryan, Withers and Wojcik – combined last season to start 120 of the 155 games in which they played. They combined to score 1,501 points, grab 783 rebounds, have 317 assists and make 196 three-pointers.
• Carolina's seven outgoing transfers totaled 828 points with 257 rebounds and 121 assists and 109 three-pointers last season. Caleb Love accounted for 550 of the 828 points, 80 of the 121 assists and 73 of the 109 threes.
• In their careers, Carolina's five incoming transfers have scored in double figures 164 times (57 by Ryan), grabbed 10 or more rebounds 21 times and had 15 double-doubles.
• Carolina has six players who have started 50 or more college games (133 by Bacot, 89 by Ryan, 83 by Davis, 64 by Ingram, 64 by Withers and 57 by Wojcik).
• Wojcik is the son of Doug Wojcik, who was an assistant coach for the Tar Heels from 2000-03 and was part of the staff that recruited all five starters on Carolina's 2005 NCAA championship team.
• Ingram played the last two seasons at Stanford, where he was coached by former Tar Heel assistant coach Jerod Haase.
BACOT, DAVIS
• Carolina returns two starters from last season, forward/center Armando Bacot and guard RJ Davis. They shared the 2022-23 Dean Smith Most Valuable Player Award (Bacot's third and Davis's first).
• Only Lennie Rosenbluth, Billy Cunningham and Hansbrough also won MVP honors three times.
• Bacot earned first-team All-ACC honors for the second straight season, the first Tar Heel to repeat as All-ACC since Tyler Hansbrough accomplished that from 2006-09.
• Bacot is Carolina's all-time leader in rebounds (1,368), offensive rebounds (487), offensive rebounds per game (3.63), double-doubles (70) and games with 10 or more rebounds (77).
• In the first two games this season Bacot has passed Joel Berry II, Bobby Lewis and Marcus Paige for 11th in UNC career scoring with 1,856 points. Walter Davis is 10th with 1,863.
• Bacot is one of eight Tar Heels to average a career double-double (13.9/10.2). He and 2005 Final Four MVP Sean May are the only Tar Heels to average career double-doubles in the last 50 years.
• Bacot has double-doubles in each of the first two games this season (25/13 vs. Lehigh and 22/20 vs. Radford). Those marked the 42nd time he produced double-doubles in consecutive games. Should he have a double-double vs. UC Riverside, it will be the 25th time he has double-doubles in at least three consecutive contests.
• Bacot has 70 double-doubles in 134 games (double-doubles in 52.2% of his games). Only Billy Cunningham (87.0%) recorded double-doubles in a higher percentage of games by a Tar Heel.
• Bacot set UNC single-season records in 2021-22 with 511 rebounds, 31 double-doubles, five 20-rebound games (tied), 32 games with 10 or more rebounds, rebounds in an NCAA Tournament and rebounds by a Tar Heel in the Elite 8, national semifinal and championship games.
• Bacot became the first player in NCAA Tournament history with six double-doubles in one year and tied the NCAA single-season record for double-doubles with 31 (Navy's David Robinson also had 31 in 1985-86).
• Bacot has 11 offensive rebounds in the first two games (the opponents have combined for 19). He passed Tyler Hansbrough in the Lehigh game for the most ever by a Tar Heel (487) and holds the record for most per game (3.63). He grabbed 134 offensive rebounds in 32 games last season, which broke his own single-season UNC record for offensive rebounds per game (4.19).
• Bacot is third in ACC history with 70 career double-doubles. Hall of Famers Tim Duncan and Ralph Sampson are the only players in ACC history with more double-doubles than Bacot.
DOUBLE-DOUBLES – ACC, CAREER
87 Tim Duncan, Wake Forest, 1994-97
84 Ralph Sampson, Virginia, 1980-84
70 Armando Bacot, 2019-
68 Ronnie Shavlik, NC State, 1954-56
67 Tom Burleson, NC State, 1972-74
• RJ Davis is Carolina's all-time leader in free throw percentage (.851). He led the ACC at 88.1% last season, the third highest in a season by a Tar Heel behind Shammond Williams (.911 in 1997-98) and Joel Berry II (.893 in 2017-18).
• Davis scored a career-high 16.1 points per game last season and led UNC is assists, three-point percentage and plus/minus.
• Davis is the only Tar Heel to have 10 or more assists in one NCAA Tournament game (12 vs. Marquette) and score 30-plus in the next (30 vs. Baylor) in the 2022 first and second rounds.
NOVEMBER SIGNEES
• Carolina signed three players last week: James Brown of Aurora, Ill. (Link Prep in Branson, Mo.), Ian Jackson of Bronx, N.Y. (Our Saviour Lutheran) and Drake Powell of Pittsboro, N.C. (Northwood).
PRESEASON RECOGNITION
Armando Bacot
Wooden Award Player of the Year watch list
Naismith Award Player of the Year watch list
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award watch list
First-team All-ACC (ACC media, Lindy's and Blue Ribbon Yearbook)
First-team All-America (AP, CBS, Fox Sports, Dick Vitale, The Almanac, 247 Sports)
Second-team All-America (Lindy's and Blue Ribbon Yearbook)
No. 2 player in the country (CBS and Lindy's)
No. 4 player in the country (Field of 68)
RJ Davis
Wooden Award Player of the Year watch list
Naismith Award Player of the Year watch list
Bob Cousy Award watch list
No. 19 player in the country (CBS), No. 26 (Lindy's), No. 27 (Field of 68)
Harrison Ingram
Julius Erving Watch List
No. 98 player in the country (CBS), No. 114 (Lindy's)
Elliot Cadeau
ACC Rookie of the Year (media, Lindy's and Blue Ribbon Yearbook)
No. 5 on Andy Katz's Top Freshmen
No. 92 player in the country (Lindy's)
NBA TAR HEELS
Cole Anthony, 4th year Orlando
Harrison Barnes, 12th year Sacramento
Leaky Black, rookie Charlotte
Reggie Bullock, 11th year Houston
Danny Green, 15th year free agent
Cameron Johnson, 5th year Brooklyn
Nassir Little, 5th year Portland
Day'Ron Sharpe, 3rd year Brooklyn
Coby White, 5th year Chicago
The following players are playing professional basketball overseas or the G League:
Tony Bradley (G-League, Texas Legends)
Garrison Brooks (South Korea)
Ed Davis (China)
John Henson (Puerto Rico)
Isaiah Hicks (South Korea)
Baden Jackson (formerly Dexter Strickland) (Tunisia)
Justin Jackson (G-League, Texas Legends)
Joel James (Mexico)
Brice Johnson (Japan)
Christian Keeling (Sweden)
Justin Knox (South Korea)
Ty Lawson (Venezuela)
Brady Manek (Lithuania)
Sterling Manley (Dominican Republic)
Luke Maye (Turkey)
James Michael McAdoo (Japan)
Ryan McAdoo (Italy)
Kennedy Meeks (Dominican Republic)
Walker Miller (The Netherlands)
Pete Nance (G-League, Cleveland Charge)
Justin Pierce (Japan)
Theo Pinson (G-League, Texas Legends)
Andrew Platek (Azerbaijan)
Reyshawn Terry (Mexico)
Deon Thompson (Japan)
J.P. Tokoto (Israel)
Justin Watts (Bulgaria)
Kenny Williams (Greece)
Â
• The Tar Heels are 2-0 after wins over Radford and Lehigh, while the Highlanders are 1-2 coming off a pair of road losses at Utah and Portland.
• This is the first-ever meeting in basketball between UNC and UC Riverside, which plays in the Big West.
• Tip time is 8:05 p.m. at the Dean E. Smith Center, where the Tar Heels are 465-86 in 39 seasons, including 225-18 against non-ACC opponents.
• Jones Angell, 2012 ACC Player of the Year Tyler Zeller, Adam Lucas and Dave Nathan provide the call on the Tar Heel Sports Network.
• The Tar Heels have won their first two games by 16 over Radford and 22 over Lehigh. UNC has shot 49.2% from the floor, held the opponents to 39.4%, had a +12 margin on the boards and averaged 14.5 assists per game, two more than it averaged a season ago.
• Carolina led Lehigh for nearly 36 minutes last Sunday in its 90-68 win, out-scoring the Mountain Hawks by 20 at the free throw line, by 22 in the paint, 14-2 on second-chance points and 17-3 on the break.
• Armando Bacot and RJ Davis each scored 22 points and Bacot grabbed 20 rebounds for his third career 20/20 performance.
• Bacot earned national player-of-the-week honors from the USBWA and Lute Olson Award and was named the ACC Player of the Week for his play in the first two games. The grad student from Richmond, Va., averaged 23.5 points and 16.5 rebounds, made 18 of 30 from the floor (.600) and 11 of 12 free throws (.917).
• The ACC award was the seventh of his career, the third most by a Tar Heel.
ACC PLAYER OF THE WEEK – ALL-TIME, UNC
12 Antawn Jamison, 1995-98
10 Tyler Hansbrough, 2005-09
7 Armando Bacot, 2019-
6 Phil Ford, 1974-78
5 Luke Maye, 2015-19
5 Joel Berry II, 2015-19
5 Marcus Paige, 2012-16
5 Michael Jordan, 1981-84
5 Mike O'Koren, 1976-80
• Despite the wins in its first two games Carolina fell one spot to 20 in the Associated Press poll.
• This is the 938th week all-time the Tar Heels are ranked in the AP poll, the second most in college basketball history.
• This is Carolina's first game vs. a current Big West opponent since playing at Hawai'i on 11/18/2017.
• The Tar Heels will leave Sunday for the Bahamas, where they begin play vs. Northern Iowa on Wednesday, November 22, in the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis.
GAME 3 NOTEBOOK
• The average age of Carolina's 11 scholarship players to begin the season was 21.0 years. Cormac Ryan (25), Armando Bacot (23), Paxson Wojcik (23), RJ Davis (22) and Jae'Lyn Withers (22) are the oldest; freshmen Elliott Cadeau and Zayden High are among five 19-year-olds.
• Carolina was active in the transfer portal with five players joining the program from Brown (grad student Paxson Wojcik), Louisville (grad student Jay'Lyn Withers, Notre Dame (grad student Cormac Ryan), Stanford (junior Harrison Ingram) and West Virginia (junior James Okonkwo).
• The five incoming transfers and two freshmen (Elliot Cadeau and Zayden High) join four holdover players on scholarship (grad student Armando Bacot, senior RJ Davis, sophomore Seth Trimble and sophomore Jalen Washington).
• Seven players on last year's team moved on to other schools and two (Leaky Black and Pete Nance) were fifth-year players who exhausted their eligibility.
• The five incoming transfers – Ingram, Okonkwo, Ryan, Withers and Wojcik – combined last season to start 120 of the 155 games in which they played. They combined to score 1,501 points, grab 783 rebounds, have 317 assists and make 196 three-pointers.
• Carolina's seven outgoing transfers totaled 828 points with 257 rebounds and 121 assists and 109 three-pointers last season. Caleb Love accounted for 550 of the 828 points, 80 of the 121 assists and 73 of the 109 threes.
• In their careers, Carolina's five incoming transfers have scored in double figures 164 times (57 by Ryan), grabbed 10 or more rebounds 21 times and had 15 double-doubles.
• Carolina has six players who have started 50 or more college games (133 by Bacot, 89 by Ryan, 83 by Davis, 64 by Ingram, 64 by Withers and 57 by Wojcik).
• Wojcik is the son of Doug Wojcik, who was an assistant coach for the Tar Heels from 2000-03 and was part of the staff that recruited all five starters on Carolina's 2005 NCAA championship team.
• Ingram played the last two seasons at Stanford, where he was coached by former Tar Heel assistant coach Jerod Haase.
BACOT, DAVIS
• Carolina returns two starters from last season, forward/center Armando Bacot and guard RJ Davis. They shared the 2022-23 Dean Smith Most Valuable Player Award (Bacot's third and Davis's first).
• Only Lennie Rosenbluth, Billy Cunningham and Hansbrough also won MVP honors three times.
• Bacot earned first-team All-ACC honors for the second straight season, the first Tar Heel to repeat as All-ACC since Tyler Hansbrough accomplished that from 2006-09.
• Bacot is Carolina's all-time leader in rebounds (1,368), offensive rebounds (487), offensive rebounds per game (3.63), double-doubles (70) and games with 10 or more rebounds (77).
• In the first two games this season Bacot has passed Joel Berry II, Bobby Lewis and Marcus Paige for 11th in UNC career scoring with 1,856 points. Walter Davis is 10th with 1,863.
• Bacot is one of eight Tar Heels to average a career double-double (13.9/10.2). He and 2005 Final Four MVP Sean May are the only Tar Heels to average career double-doubles in the last 50 years.
• Bacot has double-doubles in each of the first two games this season (25/13 vs. Lehigh and 22/20 vs. Radford). Those marked the 42nd time he produced double-doubles in consecutive games. Should he have a double-double vs. UC Riverside, it will be the 25th time he has double-doubles in at least three consecutive contests.
• Bacot has 70 double-doubles in 134 games (double-doubles in 52.2% of his games). Only Billy Cunningham (87.0%) recorded double-doubles in a higher percentage of games by a Tar Heel.
• Bacot set UNC single-season records in 2021-22 with 511 rebounds, 31 double-doubles, five 20-rebound games (tied), 32 games with 10 or more rebounds, rebounds in an NCAA Tournament and rebounds by a Tar Heel in the Elite 8, national semifinal and championship games.
• Bacot became the first player in NCAA Tournament history with six double-doubles in one year and tied the NCAA single-season record for double-doubles with 31 (Navy's David Robinson also had 31 in 1985-86).
• Bacot has 11 offensive rebounds in the first two games (the opponents have combined for 19). He passed Tyler Hansbrough in the Lehigh game for the most ever by a Tar Heel (487) and holds the record for most per game (3.63). He grabbed 134 offensive rebounds in 32 games last season, which broke his own single-season UNC record for offensive rebounds per game (4.19).
• Bacot is third in ACC history with 70 career double-doubles. Hall of Famers Tim Duncan and Ralph Sampson are the only players in ACC history with more double-doubles than Bacot.
DOUBLE-DOUBLES – ACC, CAREER
87 Tim Duncan, Wake Forest, 1994-97
84 Ralph Sampson, Virginia, 1980-84
70 Armando Bacot, 2019-
68 Ronnie Shavlik, NC State, 1954-56
67 Tom Burleson, NC State, 1972-74
• RJ Davis is Carolina's all-time leader in free throw percentage (.851). He led the ACC at 88.1% last season, the third highest in a season by a Tar Heel behind Shammond Williams (.911 in 1997-98) and Joel Berry II (.893 in 2017-18).
• Davis scored a career-high 16.1 points per game last season and led UNC is assists, three-point percentage and plus/minus.
• Davis is the only Tar Heel to have 10 or more assists in one NCAA Tournament game (12 vs. Marquette) and score 30-plus in the next (30 vs. Baylor) in the 2022 first and second rounds.
NOVEMBER SIGNEES
• Carolina signed three players last week: James Brown of Aurora, Ill. (Link Prep in Branson, Mo.), Ian Jackson of Bronx, N.Y. (Our Saviour Lutheran) and Drake Powell of Pittsboro, N.C. (Northwood).
PRESEASON RECOGNITION
Armando Bacot
Wooden Award Player of the Year watch list
Naismith Award Player of the Year watch list
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award watch list
First-team All-ACC (ACC media, Lindy's and Blue Ribbon Yearbook)
First-team All-America (AP, CBS, Fox Sports, Dick Vitale, The Almanac, 247 Sports)
Second-team All-America (Lindy's and Blue Ribbon Yearbook)
No. 2 player in the country (CBS and Lindy's)
No. 4 player in the country (Field of 68)
RJ Davis
Wooden Award Player of the Year watch list
Naismith Award Player of the Year watch list
Bob Cousy Award watch list
No. 19 player in the country (CBS), No. 26 (Lindy's), No. 27 (Field of 68)
Harrison Ingram
Julius Erving Watch List
No. 98 player in the country (CBS), No. 114 (Lindy's)
Elliot Cadeau
ACC Rookie of the Year (media, Lindy's and Blue Ribbon Yearbook)
No. 5 on Andy Katz's Top Freshmen
No. 92 player in the country (Lindy's)
NBA TAR HEELS
Cole Anthony, 4th year Orlando
Harrison Barnes, 12th year Sacramento
Leaky Black, rookie Charlotte
Reggie Bullock, 11th year Houston
Danny Green, 15th year free agent
Cameron Johnson, 5th year Brooklyn
Nassir Little, 5th year Portland
Day'Ron Sharpe, 3rd year Brooklyn
Coby White, 5th year Chicago
The following players are playing professional basketball overseas or the G League:
Tony Bradley (G-League, Texas Legends)
Garrison Brooks (South Korea)
Ed Davis (China)
John Henson (Puerto Rico)
Isaiah Hicks (South Korea)
Baden Jackson (formerly Dexter Strickland) (Tunisia)
Justin Jackson (G-League, Texas Legends)
Joel James (Mexico)
Brice Johnson (Japan)
Christian Keeling (Sweden)
Justin Knox (South Korea)
Ty Lawson (Venezuela)
Brady Manek (Lithuania)
Sterling Manley (Dominican Republic)
Luke Maye (Turkey)
James Michael McAdoo (Japan)
Ryan McAdoo (Italy)
Kennedy Meeks (Dominican Republic)
Walker Miller (The Netherlands)
Pete Nance (G-League, Cleveland Charge)
Justin Pierce (Japan)
Theo Pinson (G-League, Texas Legends)
Andrew Platek (Azerbaijan)
Reyshawn Terry (Mexico)
Deon Thompson (Japan)
J.P. Tokoto (Israel)
Justin Watts (Bulgaria)
Kenny Williams (Greece)
Â
Players Mentioned
F/C
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballCarolina Insider - Interview with Ivan Matlekovic (Full Segment) - October 20, 2025
Monday, October 20
Carolina Insider - Interview with Michael Malone (Full Segment) - October 17, 2025
Monday, October 20
UNC Men's Soccer: Tar Heels Blank Hokies, 3-0
Monday, October 20
UNC Volleyball: Tar Heels Best Syracuse in 4 Sets
Sunday, October 19