Lucas: Empty

By Adam Lucas

DURHAM—Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we're never going to have to do a Carolina-Duke game in Cameron Indoor Stadium this way again. Next year the fire marshal will be back to pretending the place isn't a hazard, the students will be back to trying to get on television, er, supporting the team, and the best rivalry in sports will again be played in front of a sold-out crowd.

So this one meeting, on February 6, 2021, is our only likely example of what it will be like to play a Carolina-Duke game at Cameron Indoor Stadium with no fans.

It is…the exact same. It is Carolina-Duke in Durham.

If you have been to a game there before, you understand what this means. You walk in with every good intention. You are going to be the adult, you are just going to simply feel a little sorry for the olfactory challenged tent dwellers, and you will absolutely not cast aspersions upon those youngsters who made the unfortunate decision to play their basketball so close yet so far from Blue Heaven.

And by the time the first jump shot is taken, the general atmosphere of the building has forced you to renege on all those promises, and you're white-knuckling the pen or the remote control or the beverage you're holding.

It is true that during the 91-87 win over Duke on Saturday night, the Tar Heels did not get the privilege of quieting a sold out crowd. They were not able to attempt to throw the ball in bounds while kids who made fun of the jocks in high school waggled their fingers and shouted, "Ohhhhhh."

If you want the real Cameron experience, perhaps we should pause here to allow you to queue up "Everytime We Touch," by Cascada, a giant hit in Belgium, Sweden and Ireland that is a staple of the building.

They still played the song on Saturday. I did the sprinkler in my seat, just to make sure it was received with its normal quota of coolness.

This game tells you a lot about what Carolina-Duke means to you. If you're in it for the television show, for the manufactured drama and the face painting and the cheer sheets, you probably feel like it was missing something. But if you're in it for the raw hatred and the fundamental differences between the two programs, you probably didn't even notice fans were absent from the building, because this was the freaking Duke game, man.

"Of course it did," Leaky Black said when asked if it felt like the Carolina-Duke game even without the fans. Of course it does. What we learned on Saturday is that winning in this rivalry feels good. Winning in front of a sellout feels good. Winning in an empty building feels good. Winning on a playground feels good. Winning on a blacktop with no TV cameras in attendance and no pregame hype and no television network trying to sell a replay of the 1995 Jeff Capel shot as a game-winner feels...well, that would never happen.

By the time the two teams played to a 77-77 tie with under five minutes to play, it felt exactly right. Jordan Goldwire helpfully slapped the floor on that defensive possession, a nice throwback nod to the 1980's and 1990's and how we got here with this particular rivalry. To make it even nicer, Armando Bacot swished a couple of free throws on that trip and the Tar Heels never trailed again.

Holding off the Blue Devils was largely thanks to Caleb Love, who made this edition the Caleb Love Game by scoring 25 points and handing out seven assists. Love was coached in AAU basketball by the father of former Duke player Jayson Tatum. Asked if he talked to the elder Tatum, Love replied, "I told him we were going to beat them. And then I talked to Jayson, and I told him we were going to beat them."

Thank you, Caleb Love. It isn't quite, "As long as me, Touche and Jerry are here, we ain't ever losing here," (kids, ask your parents) but it's close enough for 2021.

Fittingly for this year's squad, which seems intent on doing everything as a team, even the Caleb Love Game required contributions from everyone. Black made three of four colossal free throws. Armando Bacot had 16 points. Day'Ron Sharpe grabbed nine rebounds. Kerwin Walton made four three-pointers.

And Garrison Brooks, well, the stat line says he had 12 points and six rebounds. What the stat line does not show is that with 1:09 remaining in a three-point game, Carolina was inbounding the ball in the backcourt with 23 seconds on the shot clock. The play was following a timeout, and Brooks went directly to the official to confirm that the ten-second backcourt call reset with the timeout. After receiving confirmation, he went to each teammate on the court to remind them that they had the full ten seconds, not just three seconds, to get the ball across midcourt.

That's a senior move, and it's the type of mature play that helps win close games. Could Carolina have won without it? Maybe. But let's be glad we don't have to find out.

We still haven't solved the issue of whether a tree makes noise if it falls in the forest. But the majority of the game was about realizing that if Love dunks on Jaemyn Brakefield and no one is there to see it, it still feels amazing.

The reverse is also true. When Black toed the free throw line with 17.0 seconds left in a one-point game, it forced all but the most optimistic Carolina fan to consider the possibility that this was heading for a devastating ending. It wasn't going to hurt less because attendance was zero.

But it didn't have to hurt, because Black made three out of four and also helped on a final key defensive play against Wendell Moore. Carolina has won seven out of nine and also has hopefully won exemption from the tired, "The blue bloods aren't playing well this year," a sentence that should more appropriately be started, "Except for Carolina…"

The Tar Heels left Durham with a win and with the knowledge that Cameron Indoor Stadium is pretty much the same empty as it is packed. The differences are still stark. The music on the PA is still turned up to 11. The banners recognizing individual coaching achievements still hang in a place of prominence.

And it still feels great to walk out after a Carolina victory. Even when it's empty.

Scoreboard Slider

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Leaky Black

Garrison Brooks

Caleb Love

Day'Ron Sharpe

Kerwin Walton

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