Ace Buckner scored 11 points when Clemson beat North Carolina in the ACC tournament in March. Thirty years earlier, his father Greg scored 20 in Clemson's other tournament victory over the Tar Heels. Two wins, two generations of the same family.
Now the teams have no regular-season meeting scheduled for 2026-27.
That is a strange place to interrupt the series. The September 9 Carolina schedule release identifies this as the first season without a scheduled regular-season meeting since 1950-51. Clemson's own announcement confirms the gap. A postseason meeting remains possible.
The omission was already public in UNC's May 28 opponents announcement. The September release supplied the dates.
The last meeting had people worth remembering
Clemson's account of the March 12 quarterfinal records an 80-79 win. Nick Davidson finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Carolina cut into an 18-point deficit, and Dillon Hunter made four late free throws to help Clemson survive.
The recap also records the Buckner connection. Greg's 1996 team and Ace's 2026 team produced Clemson's two ACC tournament wins over UNC. Ace's official biography places his own college performances alongside his father's, including their respective debuts.
A conference series gives those careers a common opponent. Ace had his own work to do in March. His eleven points helped decide a one-point game. The family comparison adds something to that performance without requiring him to reproduce his father's career.
There are other reasons Clemson supporters remember Carolina. UNC's January 11, 2020 postgame notes record its first home loss to Clemson after 59 consecutive wins in Chapel Hill. Years of frustration ended in one visit. An annual game gave Clemson repeated opportunities to change a familiar story, and eventually it did.
That history can survive a season off. I would still prefer the teams to have a date. Shared opponents give supporters a way to connect one group of players to another while allowing the new group to make its own contribution.
The format makes a choice
The ACC's announced arrangement gives each team 18 conference games. Each plays two partners home and away, then fourteen of its other fifteen opponents once. One opponent is omitted.
Carolina's two-game partners are Duke and Louisville. Clemson's are Georgia Tech and Florida State. Those selections preserve some recurring games and give others a second meeting. They also leave UNC and Clemson waiting for a possible tournament draw.
I would rather see all seventeen opponents once, with one return game. That would also total eighteen. It would trade a second home-and-away pairing for a meeting with every conference opponent. I would favor that trade because annual contact across the league seems worth protecting.
There is a cost to my preference. Supporters would lose some second meetings that they value, and there would still be seasons when a particular opponent never visits their home arena. No eighteen-game arrangement can give everyone everything. The question is which absence a conference is willing to accept.
Carolina's calendar shows another way a familiar opponent can remain involved. UNC and NC State have a December 15 nonconference game in Greensboro in addition to their January 9 ACC meeting in Chapel Hill. I wish Clemson and Carolina had found room too.
CBR's Duke road-stretch preview follows the games the calendar does provide, including Duke's visit to Clemson. For now, anyone hoping to see the next chapter of this particular matchup has to wait for the postseason draw or another year's schedule.
