GREENSBORO, N.C. – North Carolina forward Kennedy Meeks knew that after the pregame stretching, it was going to be a different kind of crowd than a Dean E. Smith Center home game.
Carolina was supposed to face No. 20 Notre Dame on 6 p.m. Saturday at home, but a water shortage and state of emergency declared in the town of Chapel Hill moved the game to Sunday at the Greensboro Coliseum. The 12th-ranked Tar Heels won anyway 83-76.
“Usually when we’re at home they never clap really loud like they do after stretching, like they did here,” Meeks said. “Fans at home are great, but it definitely was a great experience for our team.”
Technically, it will go down as a neutral-site game. But the Tar Heels felt quite at home in front of the crowd of 17,051. For the first time since their 107-75 win over Oklahoma State in November, Carolina had six players score in double figures.
The Tar Heels have won more games in program history in the city of Greensboro than any other place outside of Chapel Hill, with the majority of those wins in ACC and NCAA tournament games. Yet still, North Carolina coach Roy Williams did not want to play there.
Greensboro was supposed to host some of the NCAA tournament’s first and second rounds this year, but the games were removed in response to the state’s controversial HB2 law, also known as the Bathroom Bill, which limits legal protections for the LGBT community and is best known for a provision that requires transgender people to use public restrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificates.
“I didn’t want to do this, I wanted to play in the Smith Center, but I trust our people, they made a great decision,” Williams said. “And yet right now everything is cool in Chapel Hill. Restaurants are open, people can go to the bathroom, all kinds of stuff. And you can go to any bathroom you want to in Chapel Hill. But I didn’t like it, don’t like it, never will like it.”
Carolina’s players had to be housed in a hotel on Friday night because there was no working water on campus or in the Smith Center. They stayed in a hotel Saturday night in Greensboro to avoid making a Sunday morning commute.
The university honored tickets that were already purchased simply by grouping them into upper-level and lower-level general admission seating. When the doors opened 90 minutes before the game, fans ran down the steps to claim their seats.
Carolina junior guard Theo Pinson said it would be like this. Pinson, a Greensboro native, wanted to play in front of his hometown crowd but missed his third straight game with an ankle injury.
“I was making little remarks, but I knew I wasn’t going to play,” Pinson said. “I told them [his teammates] it was going to be live. The fans here, they don’t take these chances for granted, especially if it’s first come, first serve.”
It was the second game this season the Tar Heels had postponed and moved a day. Their 107-56 win over NC State was delayed from Saturday to Sunday due to a snow-and-ice storm that hit the area. The football team played Virginia Tech after remnants of Hurricane Matthew brought more rain to a soaked field.
“It’s been a weird this year because we’ve had Hurricane Matthew and the junk they put on us and the feelings our administration had about that decision and the way we played that night,” Williams said. “We had the State game and the problems getting everybody to understand what we were trying to do. We played great. And then this one here is the most weird thing I’ve ever been involved in in my life.”
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