Lucas: Validated

By Adam Lucas

SPOKANE, Wash.—I wish you could have seen that game.

Well, let me clarify that. Not as much the parts of the game that took place on the basketball court. You saw those. And maybe there will be time between now and Saturday to discuss some of the outcomes, including the continued solid play of Jeremiah Francis, a workmanlike effort from Garrison Brooks and maybe—just maybe—a slight thawing over the icy shield that has covered the Tar Heel basket for most of this season.

But I wish you could have seen the game environment. The buzz in downtown Spokane throughout the week, the way every person greeted your Carolina blue shirt with, "Ya here for the game?"

Of course you were. Everyone was. It was obvious months ago that the six thousand seats in the McCarthey Center weren't going to be nearly enough to accommodate the interest. Gonzaga polices the secondary market relatively heavily, and there simply weren't very many tickets out there.

So the city of Spokane, along with the local newspaper and other local businesses, put together a game watching party in a downtown park. Admission was free, but fans who wanted to buy a VIP ticket could mingle with honored guests—members of Gonzaga's 2006-07 team, the last Zags squad to beat Carolina. A game watch party. For a regular season game in mid-December.

Tuesday's newspaper had a large feature story on that 2006 game in Madison Square Garden, a game largely forgotten by most Tar Heels (it is most notable in Roy Williams lore as being the game when Ty Lawson and Deon Thompson wore headbands, a fashion accessory quickly eliminated after the loss). It's not forgotten in Spokane. Here, 13 years later, it is described as one of the biggest wins in program history. Wednesday's paper had front page stories on the game and multiple sports pages devoted to the battle. Gonzaga media relations had to turn away some outlets that wanted to cover the game.

Students lined up for hours in sub-35 degree temperatures to be one of the first to sprint into the student section, where their bouncing feet on silver metal bleachers created a thunderous pounding throughout most of the evening. The national anthem was sung in two different languages--English, of course, but also Salish, a native American dialect that is "critically endangered" and spoken by fewer than 200 people in the world. They don't sing the national anthem in Salish for your average college basketball game.

"Coach Williams deserves all the credit for this," Gonzaga coach Mark Few said afterwards. "He could sit at home and play all home games." Maybe his team isn't the better for that anywhere-anytime philosophy tonight, but the program is.

Those fortunate enough to be inside the Kennel wanted to see the game, but more than that, they wanted to see North Carolina. In Tar Heel context, Gonzaga was simply the opponent in the 2017 national championship game, an event that was largely unmentioned around town in the last couple of days. But to the Bulldogs, who have spent over a decade desperately trying to gain a foothold in the same breath as the nation's elite, it meant something more. Carolina was here. Jay Bilas was here. Big-time, elite level, top of the national consciousness college basketball was here. That's all the Gonzaga world has wanted since before Adam Morrison pulled on a Zag jersey.

"Carolina being here," said Morrison, one of the greatest players in program history, "validates Gonzaga and what we've tried to do here."

They don't need to be validated, not with what they've accomplished. But imagine what it will feel like when ESPN College Football Gameday finally sets up shop in Chapel Hill again for a big game. That's what Wednesday felt like in Spokane.

Of course, part of being North Carolina means not being interested in participation trophies. But Wednesday was a reminder that it doesn't matter if this isn't a vintage Carolina basketball team. The program matters, as much as any other program in college basketball.

Before he left the court after the game, Roy Williams made sure to take a couple steps towards the rabid Gonzaga student section and pointedly give them a couple of claps. He'd felt the mood and intensity in the arena, the type of atmosphere that will be largely absent in Saturday's neutral site meeting with UCLA in Las Vegas. That will feel like an exhibition game. This one felt like college basketball.

"I think this is what college basketball is about," Williams said. "I don't think you need to play 45 conference games. I like to have home-and-away with some big-time opponents, but it's more difficult to do when you go to 20 (ACC games) or 21 with us in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge."

Sometimes we take Carolina basketball a little for granted. Sometimes it's easy to mistakenly believe that it must be like this everywhere. It isn't, and Tar Heel basketball matters, even in this far west outpost over 2,500 miles from home.

That's worth remembering, even if the action on the court wasn't.

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Garrison Brooks

Jeremiah Francis

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