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It will be a busy weekend for Coach Hubert Davis with a good bit of live action. After his Carolina men’s basketball team participates Friday in Live Action with Carolina Basketball, he will be the grand marshal at the Roval 400 NASCAR race Sunday. It’s a 400-kilometer race with 109 laps of a 2.28-mile infield road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway and will air on NBC.
Cameron Johnson has proven doubters wrong since the day that the Phoenix Suns made him the 11th overall pick in the 2019 NBA draft, and he’s about to take that to another level. Suns coach Monty Johnson said Thursday that Johnson would be one of his starters. This comes after last season’s starting power forward Jae Crowder was told in the offseason that he’d have a smaller role on the team. Crowder has since asked for a trade and isn’t in training camp.
Live Action With Carolina Basketball, scheduled for this Friday, has been postponed until Friday, Oct. 7, because of the forecast for remnants of Hurricane Ian to move through the Triangle area early Friday. The event will be the first public appearance for both the UNC men’s and women’s basketball teams. Numerous recruits were scheduled to attend the event.
There was a lot of bad news for Tar Heels fans who hate late games with the announcement Wednesday of all Carolina men’s basketball starting times. But there also is a game that starts late on a Saturday morning. Six games will start at 9 p.m. or later, starting with the 9 p.m. Nov. 7 opener against UNC Wilmington.
You’ll get your first look at UNC men’s and women’s basketball teams that both have high expectations at Live Action with Carolina Basketball at 7:30 Friday night. The name comes from one of Coach Hubert Davis’ frequently used phrases, “live action,” which fans first learned about during a halftime television interview during the Final Four. While “Late Night” was the traditional name of the event, it never really happened late in the evening.
Could the one-and-done era be about to end, with players such as Coby White, Cole Anthony, Day’Ron Sharpe and Nassir Little never playing for Carolina? It could happen. According to The Athletic’s sources, eligibility for the NBA draft could be lowered from 19 years old to 18 as early as the 2024 draft.
The Perth Wildcats are undefeated through four exhibition games, and Brady Manek started to find the perimeter range down under on a Manek Monday. The “Bang Bang” yells we heard so many times last season in Carolina games may not have happened, but the silky-smooth jumpers slithered through the nets.
Brady Manek has been in Australia for a few weeks and made his National Basketball League debut Sunday in a preseason game. Manek scored 15 points and pulled down five rebounds in 21 minutes of his Perth Wildcats’ 97–91 victory over the Adelaide 36ers. He was 6 of 15 from the floor but couldn’t find the range from the perimeter, missing all seven 3-point field-goal attempts.
North Carolina faces a demanding ACC men’s basketball schedule as the Tar Heels try to follow up last season’s run to the NCAA tournament championship game.
The schedule, which the ACC released Tuesday, opens at the Smith Center on Monday, Nov. 7 against UNCW, with the first league game on Sunday, Dec. 4 at reigning ACC champion Virginia Tech. It will be the fourth time in the last five seasons that Carolina has opened ACC play on the road.
North Carolina’s men’s basketball team will reportedly be headed to the Maui Invitational in 2024, marking their ninth time in the event but first Hawaii visit since 2017. The Tar Heels have won the tournament four times, winning the national championship in three of those seasons.
In a nod to Coach Hubert Davis’ energetic halftime interview during UNC’s Final Four semifinals victory over Duke, the late night event this year will be called “Live Action with Carolina Basketball,” and is set for Friday, Sept. 30.
The preseason AP men’s basketball poll is more than a month away from release, but one respected yearbook has already declared North Carolina the No. 1 men’s basketball team.
Jackie Manuel’s role will change for the fourth consecutive season, this time adding UNC junior varsity basketball coach to his duties.
CHAPEL HILL — The dramatically different college sports landscape has led to never-before-seen events, one of which happened Saturday afternoon at the Smith Center. Fans got a rare August chance to see RJ Davis, D’Marco Dunn, Puff Johnson and Justin McKoy, and, yes, even Armando Bacot, sink 3-pointers. Some of Caleb Love’s 3s were from beyond the NBA arc.
Bitter rivals North Carolina and Duke played three times in men’s basketball last season. But what if that happened in the regular season before ACC and NCAA tournament play?
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