No. 9 North Carolina will travel to Lawrence, Kan., to take on No. 1 Kansas in an early season top-10 matchup Friday night at Allen Fieldhouse.
It is the first time the Jayhawks (1-0) and Tar Heels (1-0) will square off since the 2022 NCAA Tournament championship game, which the Jayhawks won 72-69 after trailing by 15 points at halftime.
The two basketball blue bloods have a rich history — they’ve met seven times in the NCAA Tournament, including two national title games — and the series is tied 6-6, with Kansas winning the past four. This is the only the second time the teams will have met in a campus arena, doing so on Dec. 17, 1960, in Lawrence. There also are several coaching connections between them.
Kansas beat Howard 87-57 at home Monday in its season opener. Guard Zeke Mayo, a graduate transfer from South Dakota State, scored 19 points. Center Hunter Dickinson, a preseason All-American, posted 16 points and six rebounds in his return from a preseason injury. Flory Bidunga added 13 points and a game-high eight rebounds.
Coach Bill Self was impressed with Mayo’s Kansas debut.
“I think he’s reluctant to shoot sometimes, but I thought tonight and (the previous exhibition) he was more aggressive shooting the ball,” Self said. “I like it. He’s a weapon out there. He can knock it down.”
Ten players scored for the Jayhawks, who led by as many as 38 points. They shot 11-for-22 from 3-point range and 32-for-53 (60.4 percent) overall.
The Jayhawks limited Howard to 22-for-58 (37.9 percent) shooting, forced 17 turnovers, and finished with a 40-20 advantage in points in the paint.
“I thought we looked fast. We looked athletic. We pitched (the ball) ahead, and we ran a transition better than what we had been,” Self said. “And I thought defensively, we really pressured them and did some good things.”
Unlike Kansas, North Carolina labored to win its season opener, beating Elon 90-76 at home thanks to a 21-5 run to close the game. The Tar Heels led by 16 in the first half and for double digits most of the game, but they trailed briefly with less than seven minutes left after a 14-0 run by the Phoenix.
“We talked about in the huddle, âHow are you going to react? How are you going to respond?'” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “This was actually the perfect game and a perfect situation to be in because this will help us grow. This will help us get to the team we want to become.”
Four Carolina players scored in double figures, led by All-American guard R.J. Davis, who poured in 24 points despite a poor shooting night. Davis also had seven assists and seven rebounds. Guard Elliot Cadeau contributed 17 points and eight assists, Seth Trimble had 15 points, and Jae’Lyn Withers notched 10 points and 10 rebounds. Elon shot 13-of-29 from behind the arc.
“We’re going to look back at this and we might be a little bit embarrassed at how messy it was (and) how sloppy it was,” Tar Heels forward Jalen Washington said. “It wasn’t probably what we wanted it to be … so we’re just going to look at this and keep growing and take it as a lesson.”