CHAPEL HILL – Coaches in all sports often complain about the challenges of scheduling games. But seeing how BYU and Coastal Carolina made it happen in a 36-hour stretch this past football season and North Carolina’s successful Twitter search for a hoops foe this week, perhaps it’s not so difficult, after all.
Roy Williams is about to find out, again.
Fresh off his team’s 82-62 victory Wednesday night over Northeastern, which agreed to play the Tar Heels on Monday, it appears as if Carolina is going back out on the Twitter trail to find more opponents.
UNC tweeted from its official account Monday morning it was looking for an opponent to play this week and it came up with Northeastern, which is in second place in the Colonial Athletic Conference. Two days later, the Huskies and Heels battled in a game both programs needed.
Now, with two other postponed home games to make up and next Tuesday’s contest at Boston College now shelved, Williams and Carolina are going to look for more teams to play.
“We were told we could play 27 games,” Williams said. “That's what I'd like to play. Play 20 conference games and one ACC-Big 10, I’d like to play all of those. But, if we don't, our kids like to play games. They get tired of listening to me and running sprints and things in practice all the time.”
The NCAA put a 24-game limit on regularly scheduled games for this season while allowing three exempt games in a sanctioned tournament. UNC got that when it faced UNLV, Stanford, and Texas in the Maui Invitational in Asheville early in the season.
The ACC laid out a 20-game conference slate, so that meant its teams could schedule four other nonconference opponents. UNC hosted College of Charleston and NC Central and played at Iowa in the AC/Big Ten Challenge and Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic in Cleveland.
But when the Virginia Tech game, originally on the docket for Tuesday night of this week, was postponed last Saturday, Williams realized there wasn’t any way they would play a full ACC schedule, so they set out to find an opponent. After having no luck reaching out to teams that were initially on its schedule before most of it was scrapped due to the NCAA’s maximum mandate and other in-state schools, UNC went the social media route.
As it stands, Carolina still has three ACC games hanging out there and a fourth could happen if Saturday’s scheduled home game versus Louisville doesn’t happen. The Cardinals were slated to come out of a COVID pause this week, but Wednesday’s game versus Syracuse was postponed because Louisville is apparently going back into a pause.
If so, it won’t make the trip to Chapel Hill this weekend, and UNC will hunt for another opponent to fill the void. Williams needs it and his team needs it. College basketball teams can easily lose their edge if they break from a routine of scheduled games, and with UNC now having played just four times since Jan. 26, the Tar Heels can’t afford anymore lost game opportunities.
“A few weeks back, it looked like our schedule would be 10 road games and seven home games,” Williams said. “And since that time, we've lost two more home games. So, come on now, we're going to try to play people and don't have any idea what's going to come from it.”
Even if it means getting back on “tweeter,” as Williams sometimes calls it, though not this time.
“Yes, if we have to go on Twitter again, I'm gonna try to find another home game,” he said.
And it may work again, too.
