With four starters returning from last season’s Sweet 16 team, North Carolina is expected to be a contender both within the ACC and nationally in 2015-16. Wednesday afternoon the program announced its completed its non-conference schedule, which includes games against Maryland, Texas and UCLA.
Roy Williams’ team will begin its season in Annapolis, Maryland, where they’ll play Temple in the Veterans Classic which is hosted by Navy. In the other game of that doubleheader the Midshipmen will play Florida. North Carolina’s neutral site game against the Owls is one of four games they’ll play on a neutral court next season.
The Tar Heels also have two games in the CBE Classic in Kansas City (Kansas State, Missouri and Northwestern being the other teams), and on December 19 they’ll play UCLA in Brooklyn, New York. North Carolina has two true road games in non-conference play as well, as they’ll face Northern Iowa in a homecoming of sorts for Iowa native Marcus Paige November 21st and visit Texas December 12.
The game against Maryland, which is also expected to be a national title contender, is North Carolina’s biggest non-conference game of the season. The former conference foes will meet December 1 as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, with this being the first game between the Tar Heels and Terrapins since 2014. Prior to last season the two programs had met at least once in every season since the 1953-54 campaign (the first year of the ACC).
Below is North Carolina’s complete non-conference schedule.
November 13: Temple (Annapolis, Maryland)
November 15: Fairfield (CBE Classic)
November 18: Wofford (CBE Classic)
November 21: at Northern Iowa
November 23: CBE Classic (Kansas City)
November 24: CBE Classic (Kansas City)
December 1: Maryland (ACC/Big Ten Challenge)
December 6: Davidson
December 12: at Texas
December 16: Tulane
December 19: UCLA (Brooklyn, New York)
December 21: Appalachian State
December 26: UNCG
