University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Doctor's Visit
March 12, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
GREENSBORO—For the first time in a long time, on Wednesday I went to the ACC Tournament.
For the last several years, I've attended the ACC Tournament without really going. I used the media entrance. I ate the media food (ice cream bars!). I sat in my media seat. It was…fine, I guess. Just basketball games.
I don't mind admitting that I'd become a bit of an ACC Tournament grouch. It doesn't matter anymore. People only remember the NCAA Tournament. There are too many games and too many teams I don't know.
But with Carolina taking on Boston College on what felt like a Friday but was actually a Wednesday, I did the ACC Tournament the right way. First requirement: an excuse note to my son's teacher to spring him from school. If you're a kid in the state of North Carolina, you shouldn't go to school on a day of ACC Tournament games. This should be a requirement. If you absolutely must go, of course, your teacher is obligated to wheel in the TV on the big black cart from the library (do they still have those?).
With a suitably excused absence—thank you, Ms. Najera—we headed for the exit. On the way out, Asher's PE teacher stopped him. “Are you feeling sick?” she asked. Right on cue, he gave a cough. “I bet there's a doctor in Greensboro that could cure that,” she said.
Don't give up on public education just yet, folks. There are lots of good ones out there.
At the game, we arrived in our seats for the final minutes of what looked like a snoozer between Clemson and Florida State. I silently told my dad I was sorry for all those similar games I made him sit through as a kid, when I had to attend every game of every session of every day.
But then, as if they'd been waiting for us to get there, it turned into, well, it turned into that same ACC Tournament you remember. Clemson shaved a 13-point deficit with two minutes to play to just two points with 25 seconds left. The Tigers had the ball, Asher and I were talking through strategy and high-fiving as if the game mattered, and at that moment, it did.
Florida State eventually won, which most of us instantly forgot. That finally enabled Carolina to take the floor to the traditional roar from the Greensboro crowd, which is consistently one of the Tar Heels' biggest assets in this event.
Let's not pretend: the 81-63 win over Boston College wasn't particularly artistic. The environment, though, often turns out to be the star on Friday—er, sorry, Wednesday—in the ACC Tournament. It's not until semifinal Saturday—er, sorry, semifinal Friday, although this year there are some quarterfinal Thursday matchups that should be excellent—that the basketball takes over.
Until then, you have to be content to see how many ACC stars you can find in the crowd, while occasionally glancing up to see some basketball, and maybe shoving down a large cup of Dippin Dots (everyone 12 and under prefers Dippin Dots to real ice cream, and then when you turn 13 you realize how foolish you were as a kid). Hey, isn't that Ralph Sampson going down the aisle? Wow, what a block by Isaiah Hicks. Look, that kid with a NC State shirt is getting an autograph from Phil Ford. You know, Brice Johnson has really gotten more consistent than he gets credit for being.
Carolina won, which barely anyone noticed. Some people shuffled to the parking lot to tailgate in the rain. Some went to stand in line at Stamey's. We did something it's sometimes easy to forget to do at the ACC Tournament: we went to have a good time.
That means we went to the ACC FanFest. We played ACC trivia, jumped on inflatable basketball goals, and saw the Hokie bird mascot's impressive dance moves. It was a little bit corporate, yes, but when the staffers threw free mini nerf basketballs into the crowd, none of the kids seemed to mind what kind of logo they had on them. They were just having fun.
On the way home, we made plans to do it again tomorrow, when Carolina-Louisville will take over the spotlight and the sideshow will go back to being the sideshow.
“What was your favorite part of today?” I asked Asher.
He pondered this question for a second, ticking through all the highlights. “I think,” he said, “my favorite part was going to the doctor.”
