NC State, UNC planning nonconference men’s basketball game this season

North Carolina and NC State, scheduled to meet just once in the men’s basketball regular season for the second consecutive season, are working to schedule a nonconference meeting in Greensboro in December, WRAL has learned.

The Atlantic Coast Conference rivals had played annual games in Raleigh and in Chapel Hill for more than 100 years before last season when the teams met just once in Raleigh. This season, the ACC scheduled just one meeting between the schools in Chapel Hill.

The additional meeting, which is not finalized, would be played Dec. 15 in Greensboro, according to a source.

The 18-team ACC moved from 20 conference games to 18 before last season in an attempt to improve the league’s NCAA Tournament credentials. It worked as the league received eight bids to the NCAA Tournament in 2026, but it also created some scheduling changes, including the elimination of a second game between NC State and UNC in most seasons.

The current conference schedule dictates that each school plays two teams twice (a primary partner and a variable partner), plays 14 teams once and misses one school altogether. In 2026-27, UNC will play Duke (primary) and Louisville (variable) twice and won’t play Clemson. NC State will play Wake Forest (primary) and California (variable) twice and won’t play Syracuse.

Greensboro was the longtime home of the conference office. The ACC men’s basketball tournament has been held at First Horizon Coliseum, formerly the Greensboro Coliseum, 29 times – the most in league history.

For decades, the ACC played a true round robin among its members — a format that became unworkable as the league grew to 12, 15 and, now, 18 basketball-playing schools.

State lawmakers have pursued various measures to force schools in the UNC System to play each other, citing the economic impact of such meetings. North Carolina and NC State are UNC System schools.

A 2024 bill would have required the two ACC schools to play each other and other in-state public universities in football and basketball. A 2025 bill, aimed at potential conference realignment, would have required that NC State and UNC play each annually in football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and softball. The Senate’s 2025 budget proposal would have required more basketball games between UNC, NC State and smaller schools across the state. The budget would have added UNC and NC State to the schools that receive annual distributions from sports betting tax revenue.

None of those measures have become law.

NC State and North Carolina have been conference mates since 1911, first in the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association, then in the Southern Conference and now the ACC. Both have been members of the ACC since its 1953 founding.