WHAT #9 Michigan (4-2) vs #49 North Carolina (4-2)
WHERE Dean Smith Center Chapel Hill, NC
WHEN 9:15 PM Eastern Wednesday, 12/1
THE LINE Kenpom: M -4 Torvik: M -1
TELEVISION ESPN
THE OVERVIEW Michigan seeks to run its recent streak of victories over UNC to three in an ACC/Big Ten Challenge game tonight. Roy Williams retired this offseason and UNC, like so many other schools, decided to run the Juwan Howard playbook by hiring an assistant coach who is a famous alum of the program. In this case Hubert Davis was Williams's right-hand man and widely regarded as a coach in waiting, but it's still the playbook. Davis took over a program that was in rough shape, by UNC standards. In 2019 they imploded, going 6-14 in the ACC, and last year's recovery was only good enough to an 8-9 game against Wisconsin that they lost by 23 points. A relatively wobbly recruiting class (again by UNC standards, just a couple of guys ranked in the 60s) led to Davis hitting the portal for some bigs, and results are trending about where they were last year. UNC has beaten four teams ranked in the 200s on Kenpom and lost to #2 Purdue by 9 and #14 Tennessee by 17, both of those on neutral courts. Michigan will be highly advised to win this winnable game lest things start looking unfathomably grim relative to preseason expectations. THE US Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:
faq for these graphics THE LINEUP CARD Seth's graphic [click for big]:
Seth notes that Hubert Davis set a Bo Ryan Index record with a stunning 0%—he is angry or upset in literally none of the first three rows of google image search photos. [Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]