The ACC/Big Ten Challenge which begins Tuesday features several intriguing match-ups. The meeting between North Carolina and Iowa will be as important as any.
The ACC/Big Ten Challenge offers a number of interesting games this season, but the game that sees North Carolina take on Iowa at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, may have the best combination of competition and importance.
Current No. 5 Illinois at No. 6 Duke will be a match that has top 5 implications, but very little will be won or lost in terms of national ranking regardless of who comes away with the victory. Michigan State going to John Paul Arena the day after could cost the Spartans a spot in the top-10, but the way Virginia is playing, the possibility of them upsetting the Spartans is unlikely at this point.
This is why the game between current No. 14 North Carolina and current No. 3 Iowa is the most important and not only for the teams involved but the conferences they represent. A North Carolina victory propels them into the top 10 and it drops Iowa from their perch of No. 3 and leaves everything that is not Gonzaga or Baylor in murky waters.
With the Baylor versus Gonzaga main event that was to take place Saturday, Dec. 5 having been postponed, the next opportunity that a change at the very top of the rankings can occur, is Dec. 19 when Gonzaga and Iowa meet up at Sioux Falls Arena on CBS.
That match-up determining a new No. 1 in the AP Poll depends on an Iowa team, who does not match-up well with North Carolina, beating the Tar Heels. It may also be possible that Iowa is just so good that North Carolina will not be able to defeat them despite the match-up problems. These are but some of the storylines that make North Carolina versus Iowa so interesting.