With the release of the 2019-2020 women's basketball ACC schedule on Tuesday, North Carolina now has a complete idea of its schedule for the coming year. Here's some notes on the upcoming slate for the Tar Heels in the first season of the Courtney Banghart era:
- The Tar Heels kick off the season at home against Western Carolina on Nov. 7. That game is the first of a four-game home stand that also features matchups with Navy, Charleston Southern and Elon.
- After that, UNC will make the trip to Mexico for the Cancun Challenge, facing Temple on Nov. 28 and Missouri on Nov. 29. The game against the Tigers will be North Carolina's first game of the year against a Power 5 opponent.
- The ACC-Big Ten Challenge on Dec. 5 will pit the Tar Heels against Illinois. Later, UNC's non-conference schedule ends with a game against Yale on Dec. 28 in Chapel Hill.
- This is the first year of an 18-game ACC schedule for both men's and women's basketball. UNC's first conference game comes against Pittsburgh on Dec. 30 in Chapel Hill.
- UNC will play four ACC teams twice in the regular season: Virginia, Virginia Tech, N.C. State and Duke. Matchups with the Wolfpack come on Jan. 9 and Jan. 26, with the first being in Chapel Hill.
- Matchups with Duke come on Feb. 6 and March 1, with the latter being at home for the Tar Heels' Senior Night. Prior to that, a three-game road stretch will see UNC face Boston College, Wake Forest and Notre Dame.
- All of UNC's conference games will be available through the ESPN family of networks, including the ACC Network, the conference's Regional Sports Networks (RSN) or ACC Network Extra.
In 2019-20, the Tar Heels will look to follow up a season in which they finished 18-15 with an 8-8 mark in conference play, highlighted by upset wins against Notre Dame and N.C. State. This year will be the first for North Carolina with Banghart, who was hired in April after longtime head coach Sylvia Hatchell resigned after the season.
