The North Carolina Tar Heels will host the Tennessee Volunteers this November as part of the 2023 SEC/ACC Basketball Challenge.
The Tar Heels and the Vols will square off in Chapel Hill at 7:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, November 29.
The last time that Tennessee and North Carolina squared off on the court came during the Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off Challenge in 2021 which saw the Vols take the victory by a score of 89-72. Zakai Zeigler, a freshman at the time, dazzled to score a team-high 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting.
Prior to that game, though, the Tar Heels had rattled off five straight wins against the Volunteers with two of those coming in the Rick Barnes era. North Carolina defeated Tennessee 78-73 in Knoxville in 2017 and then in Chapel Hill in 2016 by a score of 73-71.
North Carolina holds the 10-2 advantage over Tennessee in their 12 all-time matchups, the first one dating all the way back to Feb. 21, 1911.
The SEC/ACC Challenge replaces the SEC/Big 12 Challenge that many Tennessee fans have been familiar with for nearly a decade. The SEC/ACC Challenge will give opportunities for new matchups across both conferences while eventually adding Texas and Oklahoma into the rotation as well.
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North Carolina will be the first of two confirmed ACC matchups for Tennessee before the calendar even flips over to 2024. The Vols are set to take on NC State in San Antonio, Texas on Dec. 16 as part of the Hall of Fame San Antonio series.
The Vols will have plenty of early non-conference tests throughout the season. In addition to the two aforementioned ACC teams, Tennessee will take on Wisconsin in Madison, WI on Nov. 10 and will host Illinois in Knoxville on Dec. 9.
The Tar Heels are looking for more consistent success during the 2023-2024 season. North Carolina won the National Championship during the 2016-2017 season and returned to the tournament finals during the 2021-2022 season. Despite that success, though, the Tar Heels went into the 2022-2023 season as the AP preseason No. 1 team in the country but failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
Tennessee, meanwhile, began the previous season as the AP preseason No. 11 team in the country before losing in the Sweet 16 round of the 2022-2023 NCAA Tournament.
Tennessee and North Carolina will square off for the 13th time this November in Chapel Hill for the inaugural 2023-2024 SEC/ACC Challenge.
