Lucas: Home

By Adam Lucas

It never gets old, and let's hope it never does.

Monday night was a basketball night in the Smith Center, so by definition: it was a good night.

Of course, it wasn't just any night. It was the home opener, which still feels special even in the 16^thseason of the Roy Williams era. There's still that same pop when the head coach comes out of the tunnel to toss t-shirts into the crowd and there's still that same buzz when the Tar Heels take the court and every time those first notes of "Jump Around" blast from the PA system, even the absolute worst dancers among us still feel just that tiny urge that maybe today it would be OK to dance (our daughters quickly tell us otherwise).

There are some who might prefer to talk about those who weren't there. You should know that there were park and ride issues that kept hundreds of Tar Heel fans who wanted to be inside the arena instead standing in the rain, and that's something that needs to be fixed—and will be—before Friday night's home game against Tennessee Tech.

So let's talk about those who were there. Three of the six living Tar Heels who have their jersey retired in the front row of the Smith Center were there. That's not normal, folks. We all sort of get used to seeing Phil Ford across the arena, or Antawn Jamison sitting behind the Carolina bench, or Lennie Rosenbluth in line for concessions, but in most college basketball arenas, you don't get that experience.

If you put the results on the court (Carolina beat Stanford, 90-72, and Roy Williams wasn't happy with much of anything that happened in the second half) together with the environment around the program, it's entirely possible that—say this quietly, because it will sound crazy to some people—we are living in the golden age of Carolina Basketball, right now.

So, yes, these home openers are special.

It's not just the building. And it's not just the people. And it's not just the Tar Heels.

It's all of those people in this building watching that team.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. There were the aforementioned park and ride issues. Students will complain about the alum fans. Alum fans will complain about the students. The upper level will complain about the lower level and vice versa. None of this is intended to mean that improvements can't be made. Those are constantly being tried. Some will work and some, well, are playing music right before Carolina shoots a free throw.

But in the end, it's Carolina basketball. We know that in February we'll be watching a much more mature Coby White and Nassir Little and Leaky Black—which is an intoxicating thought considering how good they are right now—and we'll be able to say, "Remember back in that Stanford game…"? We get to watch White take an ill-advised shot but then set off on a full sprint 75 feet to get a steal at the other end of the court, and we know, because we've seen this before: that kid's got it. And over the next few months, we'll get to watch him figure it out.

And there are only limited opportunities left to see a player like Kenny Williams, who started the season 0-for-10 from the field and yet still plays so hard that he was out there intensely contesting a simple midcourt inbounds pass with his team up by 25 points, eventually deflecting it and running the full length of the court trying to chase it down. There are 15 opportunities remaining to see him—along with National Player of the Year candidate Luke Maye and 71.4 percent three-point shooting Cam Johnson—in the Smith Center. That doesn't seem like enough.

Some things change. We started playing games in the Smith Center still using Dean Smith's rolling flip scoreboard—which like most things Smith-related, was decades ahead of its time, but that's a story for another day—and now there are four humongous video boards that measure 19 feet by 100 feet each. The boards are the best kind of update, an improvement that immediately felt like it had been there forever. In the 2018 Smith Center, there is food delivered to your seat and complete individual stats available anytime and…traffic.

Not everything changes.

But overall, it is a Carolina basketball game at the Smith Center, which is the best kind of day. The Tar Heels play a home basketball game 15 more times during the 2018-19 season. Those are virtually guaranteed to be 15 of the best days in the next five months.

Stanford head coach Jerod Haase was once new to all of this. When he moved here from Lawrence, Kansas, in the spring of 2003, he was, it's fair to say, a little bit of a Kansas snob. The Jayhawks did this. The Jayhawks did that. He was not easy to win over, and he was a little bit skeptical. Imagine, for a moment, if you were picked up and transplanted to Lawrence, how you might feel about your surroundings. That's how he felt about Chapel Hill.

Monday night, an hour before the game, he was asked his first thoughts when he walked into the Smith Center. His response was simple:

"I love it."

Me, too.

University of North Carolina Athletics

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Leaky Black

Nassir Little

Luke Maye

Coby White

Kenny Williams

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