Lucas: Today

By Adam Lucas

This year has been exhausting. This year has been bizarre. This year has, very often, been frustrating.

But today? Today was pretty close to perfect.

These last 365 days have been the strangest of many of our lifetimes. We have sanitized and masked and stayed home.

This year, I have almost missed dealing with traffic on campus. This year Franklin Street institutions have closed. This year my college sophomore daughter never had a normal college weekend, not the way you or I did, not once out of these last 12 months. That's a full year of college completely changed.

But today she was in the Smith Center for a 91-73 win that tied for the biggest Roy Williams era victory over Duke, and that's one positive memory she gets to have forever.

This year has been a struggle for small businesses.

Today the sky was that perfect blue and there were lines at Chapel Hill restaurants like Top of the Hill and Sup Dogs and Four Corners. Have you ever been so happy to see a line?

This year the Tar Heels have most often run out of the tunnel to a recording of the band and canned crowd noise. Today they took the court to actual cheers.

This year has been nothing like Walker Miller ever imagined for his senior year. Today, as he usually does, he sat off to the side of the court during warmups to collect his thoughts. Today his thoughts were different. "I was looking around, just taking it all in," he said. "I honestly can't believe it was the last time."

This year being a senior has been different. Different arenas have different attendance policies, and sometimes your parents can't come watch you play, and even when they do you're supposed to spend very limited time around them for fear of infection. Today being a senior was exactly what it's supposed to be on Senior Day, because there was Walker Miller taking a charge from D.J. Steward—oh, the crafty senior took advantage of the raw freshman, and it was so satisfying—on the very first Duke possession of the game.

"I knew I was going to try for one as soon as he turned the corner," Miller said. "That was without a doubt Coach's favorite play of mine in my career."

This year we have not gotten to see enough of the Tar Heels in person. And so, I'm sorry, but today I am questioning the priorities of anyone who—in a season with very limited opportunities to see the Tar Heels—would bring a Duke fan to the Smith Center on Saturday. You can not make me understand this. I don't even understand this in a normal year. Look, you didn't come here for dating advice but here it is: love isn't worth hearing the person next to you chant, "Let's go Devils," during the Carolina-Duke game. There are plenty of other options out there. Get out while you still can.

This year it hasn't always been easy to know how to react. One year ago was the first time it happened—fans and coaches and players at the Carolina-Syracuse ACC Tournament game were actually hesitant to shake hands. We started learning how to elbow tap. Normal interactions became awkward.

Today Walker Kessler had one of my favorite reactions of all time. The freshman thunderslapped a Joey Baker shot out of bounds, and Baker hit the deck from the force of the ball rocketing out of bounds. Kessler immediately extended a hand to help up Baker. But the Duke forward very purposefully ignored him, instead waiting for his teammate to pull him to his feet.

Kessler just stood there, hand extended. And when it became obvious Baker wasn't going to reciprocate, the Carolina freshman grasped his own hand with his other hand and mimed pulling someone to their feet. It was so perfect, and anyone who has watched Christian Laettner to Lee Melchionni to Greg Paulus could immediately relate.

This year the Smith Center has often felt empty.

Today Josh Mayo—you know him, the kid with the hair—was in the stands. Not in his usual spot in the risers (for seemingly the last decade), but in the stands, and this season, that's close enough.

This year has been one long rehabilitation session for Sterling Manley, who last played for the Tar Heels in March of 2019.

Today he dunked (on a pass from classmate Andrew Platek) and blocked in a real game, all in the span of 30 seconds, and maybe Carolina already had the game in hand, but for the rest of his life he is never going to forget that sequence. Two years working behind the scenes to get to that moment, and it couldn't have happened more perfectly.

This year has occasionally been frustrating for Garrison Brooks.

Today, for the first time in his life, he attempted a heat check three-pointer, Danny Green style, after draining a pair of trifectas.

"I never hit two three-pointers in a game before," Brooks said. "So I was like, 'This is my chance. I better go ahead and get this next one up, because Coach Williams isn't going to go for this in any other game.'"

This year has sometimes seemed unending.

Today, there was Brooks, playing for the very last time at the Smith Center. Remember, Garrison Brooks wasn't even planning to come to Carolina. He was headed to Mississippi State, then changed his mind to attend college seven hours away (it depends on who's driving, as his mother will be quick to tell you), and now it's impossible to imagine these last four years without him, or—as the shared tears between player and head coach showed—next year without him.

"Nobody wants to leave here," Brooks said. "Coach Williams and I are very passionate guys. And we love this place."

This year there have been too few opportunities to gather. This year we missed out on so much. This year has not been normal.

Today was right, because today was a Carolina-Duke gameday in Chapel Hill. Most everyone in the crowd of 3,263 stayed to listen to the senior videos and hear Williams address the crowd. They sang the alma mater, and they danced to the fight song. And walking outside the Smith Center at that exact moment, you heard something very distinctly that made you think that normalcy may be returning, that we're going to get our lives back and more days like today are in the near future.

It was the sound of thousands of people punctuating the fight song in unison with one simple phrase. It was melodic and it was hopeful and it was that lovely sound of humanity uniting with these words:

"Go to hell Duke."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Garrison Brooks

Walker Kessler

Sterling Manley

Walker Miller

Andrew Platek

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