UNC Basketball: Five bold predictions for the Tar Heels 2017-18 season

The Tar Heels will enter ACC play with only one loss on their resume.

If you look back to last year, you’ll find that the national championship winning team only had two losses entering conference play. That normally is a pretty good start.

But this years team can do even better than that.

The schedule appears to be even easier this year for the Tar Heels, except for the PK80 tournament in late November. In that tournament, the Heels could potentially play Michigan State, Oregon, Connecticut, Arkansas, or Oklahoma.

After that, the Tar Heels’ toughest test this season will come at Stanford or Tennessee.

Stanford, coached by former Tar Heels assistant Jerod Haase, is expected to be a good team this season. Last season, they were 14-17, but as many people know, facing former assistant coaches can be tricky. Also, the Tar Heels will be flying all the way out to the west coast for an early season match up, making the game even tougher.

The Tennessee game is going to be tricky this year, too. Tennessee took North Carolina to the brink last year, and that was in Chapel Hill. The game against Tennessee also falls around Christmas break, a notoriously tough time to play games.

This game has early season upset written all over it.

But the Tar Heels can certainly come away from both of those games unscathed.

There are a few other games that could be difficult, including Davidson in Charlotte, Ohio State in New Orleans, and Michigan in the ACC/Big Ten challenge. But those are all games that North Carolina will be heavily favored in.

I am predicting that the Tar Heels drop an early game in the PK80 tournament, but win both at Stanford, and Tennessee, to finish with only one non-conference loss.