Yeah, you'd have to go downtown first.
You can put your destination & starting points into google maps, and click on the bus logo (that looks like a trolley to me), and it will give you bus routes. Always double-check with the transit site, just to be sure the times given are correct. It gives you the information closest to the current time, but you can click the date & time to customize that (or change it to "arrive by"). It has always given me accurate information and times.
The system is designed to get you there in the quickest time, but there have been times that really complicated things - i.e., taking one bus, walking 3/4 mile to switch to another, when I could have caught the other bus downtown originally.
It looks like your trip - that would take 20 minutes by car - would take about 1.5 - 2 hours by bus:
UNCC to Northlake