CHARLOTTE — In order to advance to the Sweet 16, North Carolina must get past Washington first.
The Tar Heels and Huskies meet for the first time since 1972 when they battle in Charlotte’s Time Warner Cable Arena in the NCAA tournament’s third round.
Washington boasts at 24-10 record after winning the Pac-10 Conference tournament championship and besting Georgia in the second round of the NCAA tournament, 68-65.
The Tar Heels enter the game with a 27-7 record after beating Long Island 102-87 in the second round.
The Huskies have experienced the greatest success in program history with the direction of head coach Lorenzo Romar. Romar has taken Washington to six NCAA tournaments in his nine years there.
Isaiah Thomas leads the Huskies from the point guard position. The 5-foot-9 Thomas averages 16.9 points per game and six assists. In his 104 games at UW, Thomas has scored in double digits in 91 of them.
Romar changed his lineup to better suit UNC’s height. His typical starters entering the tournament averaged nearly 2.5 inches shorter than UNC’s. Romar will start 7-foot center Aziz N’Diaye to match up against Tyler Zeller in the paint.
UNC shooting guard Dexter Strickland has been doing a lot of shooting but not a lot of hitting. The sophomore is 3-for-10 in the past four games.
Both teams are coming off poor 3-point shooting performances. The Tar Heels went 3-for-17 from behind the arc against the Blackbirds on Friday and the Huskies were 4-for-18 against the Bulldogs.
