UNC Basketball: Tar Heels schedule future series with Monmouth

The UNC Basketball program adds Monmouth to their future schedule, setting up three matchups beginning in 2020.

Former point guard King Rice is returning to Chapel Hill and he’s bringing his Monmouth Hawks into the Dean E. Smith Center.

While the North Carolina Tar Heels are struggling here in the 2019-20 season, they made some future schedule additions on Wednesday morning. The program announced that they have agreed to a three-year series with Rice’s Monmouth team that will see UNC travel to New Jersey next season.

The series tips off next season in West Long Branch as the two teams will meet on December 17th, 2020. From there, Monmouth will visit Chapel Hill for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.

No official dates have been set for the other two matchups in the series.

Rice released a statement on the upcoming series, thanking head coach Roy Williams and the UNC program for making this happen.

“This is an exciting game for Monmouth Basketball and I am truly thankful to Coach Williams and the North Carolina Basketball family for coming up here in what will be my 10th year to play in our home arena,” said Rice. “This has been a dream of mine since I became a head coach and I knew I could count on my North Carolina family to make my dreams come true again.”

The trips to Chapel Hill will be the third and fourth for Rice as head coach at Monmouth, bringing his team there in 2012 and then again in 2016.

Rice spent four seasons as point guard at North Carolina under head coach Dean Smith and helped the Tar Heels reach the 1991 Final Four. In 140 career games with UNC, Rice left third all time in program history with 629 assists.

For more on the UNC Basketball program and their future basketball schedule, please check back with Keeping It Heel.