UNC Basketball vs Notre Dame Fighting Irish Game Preview

The UNC basketball program will take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in their fourth Atlantic Coast Conference game of the season.

The Tar Heels are 3-0 in conference play and looking to stay unbeaten when they travel to South Bend to take on a mercurial but pesky Notre Dame team. The Irish got blown out by a not-so-great Boston College program but beat the same Kentucky Wildcats team that obliterated North Carolina by 29 points.

There aren’t a lot of good wins in the ACC this season for the Tar Heels to build their NCAA Tournament resume with, so they’ll definitely need to beat the middle-of-the-road teams like Notre Dame in order to secure a decent seed in the Big Dance.

The Tar Heels have won all of their true road games (three) this season, so that will be on the line in front of a raucous crowd at Purcell Pavilion on Wednesday night. That’s North Carolina’s longest such streak to begin a season since the 2007-08 campaign when they didn’t lose a single road game all season.

History indicates that this will be a good matchup. Nine of the Tar Heels’ last 15 games against the Irish have been decided by single digits and six have been decided by two points or less. That, of course, does not include their most recent meeting, a 42-point drubbing in last year’s ACC Tournament in Greensboro.

Bottom line: the Tar Heels cannot go into this game looking ahead or underestimating the opponent at hand. Notre Dame seems to almost always play North Carolina down to the wire, and they’ll be in front of their home crowd playing a team that every other team in the nation loves to beat.

Key to Victory

The Irish know how to score points. They average better than 70 per game and have scored over 80 points on three occasions this season. And while they’re not a great three-point shooting team at just 34.5 percent (120th in the nation), they are one of the most efficient offensive units as a whole. They’ve got an offensive efficiency rating of 110.3, which is good for 34th-best in the country according to kenpom.com. They’re also north of 78 percent at the free throw line this season and that’s 17th-best.

In other words, the Tar Heels will need to score points on Wednesday night, as their bout with the Irish isn’t likely to be won in the 50s. The Tar Heels are averaging 79.5 points per game through their first 13, and they’re the No. 8 team in the nation from beyond the three-point line. It would help if those two statistics would hold true for North Carolina when they take the court against the Irish.

It would also be beneficial for the Tar Heels if they can keep from putting Mike Brey’s team on the foul line too much. North Carolina averages a half-dozen more rebounds (40.1) a game than Notre Dame (34.1); that rebounding edge and the second-chance points that come with it could be the difference in the game.

Something to Watch

It’ll be interesting to see what Hubert Davis’ rotation looks like on Wednesday night since the Tar Heels will likely be without usual starter Dawson Garcia (head injury) and key reserve Justin McKoy (COVID-19 protocols).

It should be Brady Manek who gets the start in place of Garcia, and there are those who feel he should be regardless. Manek is playing more minutes, averaging more points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks, and shooting substantially better for the season. The shift from Garcia to Manek shouldn’t cause much of a problem, and it might even put a stronger starting unit on the court to begin the game than we are used to seeing.

Assuming McKoy isn’t ready to go yet, the Tar Heels’ already short bench gets a bit shorter. Sure, they’ve got a handful of talented freshmen down the line, but none of them have played many minutes or appear as game-ready as maybe we’d want them to. The Tar Heels will probably need a dominant performance from their starting five to put away a pesky Irish squad that beat Kentucky earlier this season.

Last Meeting

North Carolina beat Notre Dame 101-59 on March 10, 2021, in the second round of the 2021 ACC Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum.

Sophomore center Armando Bacot led the Tar Heels with a 20-point, 13-rebound performance in just 24 minutes on the court. North Carolina also got double-doubles from freshman bigs Day’Ron Sharpe (14 points, 10 rebounds) and Walker Kessler (16 points, 12 rebounds), as well as 15 points, six assists, four rebounds and two steals from starting point guard Caleb Love.

The Tar Heels shot nearly 51 percent for the game, while the Irish connected on less than 37 percent of their attempts. North Carolina also won the rebounding battle by 23, and had 19 assists to Notre Dame’s eight.

Projected Starters

No. 4 R.J. Davis (So., 6-0, 175) – 13.3 ppg, 3.6 rpg
No. 2 Caleb Love (So., 6-4, 195) – 15.6 ppg, 3.9 rpg
No. 1 Leaky Black (Sr., 6-8 200) – 4.2 ppg, 4.8 rpg
No. 45 Brady Manek (So. 6-9, 230) – 12.7 ppg, 5.8 rpg
No. 5 Armando Bacot (Jr., 6-10, 240) – 15.3 ppg, 9.9 rpg

What You Need to Know

WHAT? North Carolina Tar Heels (10-3, 2-0 ACC) vs Notre Dame Fight Irish (7-5, 1-1 ACC)
WHEN? Wednesday, January 5 – 9:00 p.m. EST
WHERE? Purcell Pavilion – South Bend, Indiana
TV? ESPN2
RADIO? Tar Heels Sports Network
LINE? UNC -2.5
LAST MEETING? UNC won 101-59 on March 10, 2021, in Greensboro, North Carolina
ALL-TIME SERIES? UNC leads all-time series 27-8
PREDICTION? UNC 78, Notre Dame 71

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