Welcome in to IC Daily for Friday, January to 16th. I'm Tommy Ashley. That's Greg Barnes. Always sponsored by Johnny T-shirt and always going to hit you up to join Inside Carolina.com either by the QR code on the screen or go to Inside Carolina, sign up for the premium membership. Still half off for the month of January.

Greg, we are in mid-January. North Carolina lost to Stanford on Wednesday night.

They play a game against Cal on this California road trip.

We expected or talked about the metric said probably one-in-one on this trip,

but with the loss on Saturday, or excuse me, on Wednesday,

makes Saturday's game critically important for Carolina

basketball.

It does and this is shaping up to be another potential nel-biter if Carolina doesn't

bring it's a game because when you look at the metrics,

Carolina's expected to win by three points,

which is the same as Wednesday night.

And Cal does not have a playmaker like a Corey for sure, but they do have some different

pieces that have had some success this year.

And so it's going to be a challenge.

And they're one of those teams where they're not great offensively,

nor are they great defensively, but they're not bad in either.

And I think whenever you look at North Carolina's team,

clearly Henry Vassar and Kelly Wilson are in the strength.

And when you look at what Cal brings,

I mean, you've got a couple bigger guys down low that can provide some physicality.

And Stanford,

to use that effectively on Wednesday night,

...