By R.L. Bynum
North Carolina will get a high-profile October test under first-year coach Michael Malone when the Tar Heels face Indiana in a preseason exhibition game Sunday, Oct. 18, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
The start time and television information will be announced later, and tickets are scheduled to go on sale on Wednesday at this link. The Carolina football team plays at Duke the day before on Oct. 17.
The setting adds to the appeal of the matchup. Gainbridge Fieldhouse is the downtown Indianapolis arena that serves as the home court for the Indiana Pacers and the Indiana Fever, giving the exhibition a major-event backdrop before either program begins its regular season. It will undoubtedly be a de-facto Indiana home game.
For North Carolina, the game offers an early measuring stick against one of college basketball’s traditional powers. Indiana and UNC are two of the six Division I men’s basketball programs with at least five national championships and both rank in the top 10 in national title game appearances, Final Four appearances, NCAA tournament appearances and NCAA tournament victories.
It also gives Malone another marquee date as he begins reshaping the Tar Heels after his hiring in April.
Indiana went 18–14 overall and 9–11 in the Big Ten, finishing 10th in the league in Darian DeVries’ first season as coach. The Hoosiers started 17–8 and at one point looked like a likely NCAA tournament team, but they lost five of their last six regular-season games and then fell 74–61 to Northwestern in their first Big Ten tournament game on March 11.
The exhibition will add another chapter to a series that has been sporadic but often memorable. Indiana leads the all-time series 10–6, and the programs have met in postseason games, holiday showcases, ACC/Big Ten Challenge matchups and home-and-home meetings dating back to the early 1960s.
Their first meeting came on Dec. 11, 1961, when Indiana beat North Carolina 76–70 in Fort Wayne, Ind. The Hoosiers also won the next season in Bloomington, 90–76, before Carolina earned its first victory in the series with a 77–70 win in Charlotte on Dec. 7, 1963. Indiana answered a year later with a 107–81 win in Bloomington, giving the series an early back-and-forth rhythm before the programs went more than a decade without facing each other again.
When the series resumed, the games quickly took on more weight. North Carolina won in Bloomington on Dec. 22, 1979, then beat the Hoosiers again in Chapel Hill on Dec. 20, 1980. Just a few months later, the programs met for the national championship in Philadelphia, where Bob Knight’s Indiana team beat Dean Smith’s Tar Heels 63–50 on March 30, 1981, one of the defining games in the history between the schools.
Three years later, the rivalry again crossed paths with March stakes attached. Indiana beat North Carolina 72–68 in the NCAA regional semifinal in Atlanta on March 22, 1984, ending a Tar Heel season led by Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty and Kenny Smith.
That game remains one of the most painful tournament exits in UNC history and one of the most replayed Indiana postseason wins of the 1980s.
North Carolina struck back in the next meeting, beating Indiana 106–92 at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 25, 1988. More than a decade later, Indiana won 82–73 in East Rutherford, N.J., on Dec. 21, 1999, and then went into Chapel Hill and won again, 79–66, on Nov. 28, 2001. Roy Williams’ 2004–05 Tar Heels, who would go on to win the national championship, stopped that stretch with a 70–63 win in Bloomington on Dec. 1, 2004.
The most recent era of the series has been shaped by the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and one meeting in the NCAA tournament. Indiana beat North Carolina 83–59 in Bloomington on Nov. 27, 2012, but Carolina responded with a 101–86 win in the 2016 NCAA East Regional semifinal in Philadelphia. This game sent the Tar Heels on to the Final Four.
Later that same year, Indiana beat UNC 76–67 in Bloomington in another ACC/Big Ten Challenge matchup, and the Hoosiers also won the most recent meeting, 77–65, on Nov. 30, 2022, at Assembly Hall.
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Roster assuming all players with eligibility other than Caleb Wilson, Henri Veesaar and the seven players who entered the transfer portal return, which would put UNC one under the 15-player limit. The class for next season is listed.
| No./ Stars | Class | Player | Pos. | Hgt | Wgt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 star | Freshman | Maximo Adams | SF | 6–7 | 205 |
| 3 star | Freshman | Malloy Smith | CG | 6–5 | 190 |
| 5 star | Freshman | Sayon Keita | C | 7–0 | 215 |
| 4 star | Freshman | Kevin Thomas | W | 6–7 | 190 |
| Freshman | Alexandros Samodurov | C | 6–11 | 212 | |
| RS freshman | Cade Bennerman — W | C | 7–0 | 205 | |
| Sophomore | Neoklis Avdalas — X | G | 6–9 | 215 | |
| Sophomore | Isaiah Denis | G | 6–4 | 180 | |
| Sophomore | Matt Able — Y | G | 6–5 | 196 | |
| 1 | Senior | Terrence Brown — Z | G | 6–3 | 174 |
| 4 | Senior | Jaydon Young | G | 6–4 | 200 |
| 15 | Senior | Jarin Stevenson | 4 | 6–10 | 215 |
| Walk-ons | |||||
| 25 | Junior | John Holbrook | 4 | 6–8 | 230 |
| 32 | Senior | Evan Smith | 2 | 6–1 | 195 |
W — Northwestern transfer. X — Virginia Tech transfer; Y — N.C. State transfer; Z — Utah transfer
Michael Malone’s coaching staff: Chuck Martin, Bryan Tibaldi, Sean May and Pat Sullivan; Deon Thompson will be a graduate assistant, and Brandon Robinson will reportedly have a support staff position.
Players who left for the transfer portal
| Player | Class next season | Pos. | Hgt | Wgt | Next school |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luka Bogavac | Senior | W | 6–6 | 215 | Oklahoma State |
| James Brown | Senior | C | 6–10 | 240 | Howard |
| Derek Dixon | Sophomore | G | 6–5 | 200 | Arizona |
| Kyan Evans | Senior | G | 6–2 | 175 | Minnesota |
| Zayden High | Junior | C | 6–10 | 230 | South Florida |
| Jonathan Powell | Junior | G | 6–6 | 190 | Pittsburgh |
| Ivan Matlekovic | Junior | C | 7–0 | 255 |
Schedule so far
(Other than the ACC/SEC Challenge, games without links revealed from reporting by Alex Rosinski or Rocco Miller)
(11 of 14 games)
Oct. 18 — exhibition game vs. Indiana at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis
Nov. 2 — vs. Western Carolina
Nov. 6 — vs. Wofford
Nov. 10 — vs. Wyoming
Nov. 13 — vs. Georgia
Nov. 20 — vs. Marshall
Nov. 27 — vs. West Virginia at the Dick Vitale Invitational at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center
Dec. 1 — vs. Arkansas in ACC/SEC Challenge
Dec. 6 — vs. Butler
Dec. 12 — at Georgetown
Dec. 19 — vs. Kentucky in CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden, 2:30 p.m.
Dec. 21 — vs. The Citadel
ACC games
Home and away: Duke, Louisville
Home only: California, Georgia Tech, Miami, N.C. State, SMU, Stanford, Virginia
Away only: Boston College, Florida State, Notre Dame, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Photo courtesy of UNC Athletics
