After matching up with a pair of ACC teams during the 2016-17 season, the Vols will have at least three from that conference on the schedule in 2017-18.
The Vols confirmed a home-and-home series with Wake Forest on Friday afternoon in a deal that will take the Vols to Winston-Salem on Dec. 23 of this year and will bring the Demon Deacons to Knoxville for a return game on Dec. 22, 2018.
Tennessee faced UNC and Georgia Tech this season and will face UNC, Georgia Tech and now Wake Forest next season. The Vols could also meet up with NC State in the 2017 Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament.
Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes is a North Carolina native who grew up about an hour and a half from Winston-Salem. And though the deal was finalized earlier in the year before he was hired, new Tennessee AD John Currie also has Wake Forest ties after graduating from there and beginning his career as an athletic administrator before coming to Tennessee for the first time in 1997.
Wake Forest hasn’t been in the NCAA Tournament since 2010, but the Demon Deacons are enjoying their best year since that point in 2016-17 with a 17-12 (8-9 ACC) record. The Vols are 8-2 all-time against Wake Forest with the last meeting coming in 2013 – an 82-63 victory for Tennessee in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.
