On Thursday, Northern Iowa announced that they will be hosting a pretty prominent program this season: No. 1 North Carolina.
On Nov. 21st, the Tar Heels will be paying a visit to Cedar Falls, the start of a three-year series with the Panthers. UNI will be heading to Chapel Hill for each of the following two seasons.
“It’s what we’ve worked hard to do for a number of years and that’s build the best non-conference schedule that we can,” said UNI head coach Ben Jacobson. “This is the highest end game to build around for the next two years and a great place to start.”
The trip will be a homecoming for Marcus Paige, who was Mr. Basketball in Iowa as a senior in high school. Paige is from Marion, which is roughly an hour from the UNI campus.
UNI was a No. 5 seed in the 2015 NCAA tournament, finishing the regular season as a top 15 team nationally as second in the Missouri Valley to Wichita State. The Panthers will be in a bit of a rebuilding year next season, as they graduate Seth Tuttle, who was an NBCSports.com third-team all-american last year.