It’s historic, and it’s especially great for college basketball and its media visibility: Kansas And North Carolinaranked first and third respectively in the NCAA’s all-time winningest programs, announced an upcoming doubleheader, beginning in the 2024/25 season.
The “first leg” game will be played in Lawrence, home of the four-time champion Jayhawks, on November 8, 2024. The “return game” will be played during the following campaign, on November 14, 2025, this time in Chapel Hill, on the campus of the six-time champion Tar Heels.
In total, UNC and Kansas have faced each other 14 times in history, for a record of 7 victories on either side. The latest confrontation? The mythical final of the “March Madness” in 2022, when the Jayhawks caught up 15 points behind in the second half to validate the most important “comeback” in the history of the tournament and thus glean their fourth title. There is no doubt that the Tar Heels, even if the players will have changed, will want revenge…
Some fun facts that link North Carolina and Kansas:
– Hall Of Famer Dean Smith (1931-2015) was on the roster that won Kansas’ first-ever title, in 1952. Later, in 1961, he became the coach of North Carolina, where he remained until 1997, winning three college titles with a record of 879 wins and 254 losses, the best record ever for a Tar Heels coach.
– Also Hall Of Famer, Roy Williams began his career in “coaching” in North Carolina, in the staff of Dean Smith between 1978 and 1988. He was then hired as coach of … Kansas, where he remained 15 seasons, before returning to North Carolina in 2003, where he remained until 2021, winning three university titles, like his mentor Dean Smith.
– Always the same theme of the Hall Of Famer coach: Larry Brown played in North Carolina in 1960 and 1963. Twenty years later, he became the coach of Kansas, until being replaced in 1988 by… Roy Williams, who would later, in 2003, become the coach of North Carolina.
– Current Kansas director of basketball operations Fred Quartlebaum was an assistant on the staff of Matt Doherty, who coached North Carolina from 2000 to 2003. He was also an assistant to Roy Williams at Kansas from 1992 to 1999…
