A national championship rematch is headed to Lawrence in 2024 — and to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the following year.
Kansas Athletics announced Monday morning that its basketball team will take on North Carolina in a home-and-home series, set to be contested at Allen Fieldhouse on Nov. 8, 2024, and at the Dean E. Smith Center on Nov. 14, 2025.
The pair of college basketball blue bloods will not only meet for the first time since KU’s title-winning comeback in April 2022, but also have a chance to break the deadlock in their all-time series, which is locked at 6-6. The Jayhawks have won the last four meetings; UNC’s last victory came prior to Bill Self’s arrival as KU’s head coach, on Nov. 27, 2002 in the preseason version of the National Invitation Tournament.
The two teams first met in 1957, when the Tar Heels won in triple overtime; since then, as KU noted in its press release, numerous connections have formed between the two schools. UNC’s arena’s namesake Smith played basketball for the Jayhawks, former KU coach Larry Brown played at UNC, Roy Williams coached at both schools and so on.
“These will be two great games from programs whose rich histories are intertwined so much,” Self said in the news release. “It will be a special day in both Chapel Hill and Lawrence when we play and I am looking forward to it.”
The series allows KU to continue to bolster its nonconference schedule, which in 2023-24 includes challenges like a Champions Classic neutral-site date with Kentucky, a tough Maui Invitational field and a road game at Indiana. The Jayhawks have also regularly played against Duke and Michigan State as part of the national championship; following the pattern of previous years, KU would play Michigan State in 2024-25 and Duke in 2025-26, creating a tough mid-November stretch with the new UNC games.