Lucas: Black Friday

By Adam Lucas

PORTLAND—There are many, many more good days than bad days.

This is what I have been repeating to myself since about 7:40 p.m. Eastern this afternoon and I am almost to the point of believing it but then it all comes rushing back and the kick is sailing wide and a 16.7 percent three-point shooter is lighting it up and there's an interception and three straight turnovers and ugh, are you really sure you want to relive this?

Again, it is much more often a great day to be a Tar Heel than a painful day to be a Tar Heel. Out of all the latter, though, this was one of the worst.

No seasons were ended on Friday. That's the best possible light in which to cast the day. Other than that, though, this is the kind of day we'll use as a point of reference in future years. Something negative will happen to Carolina and we'll gaze knowingly at a future generation and say, "Let me tell you about Black Friday of 2022."

It was on that day that the Tar Heels had the top-ranked basketball team in the country and a football team sitting on nine wins with only a regular season game against NC State remaining.

Sounds promising, right?

Here's the crazy thing: for part of the day, it was. The basketball Tar Heels built a seven-point lead on unranked Iowa State with 3:55 remaining, and it looked like it wasn't going to matter that someone named Caleb Grill (a 4-for-24 three-point shooter entering the day) was having the game of his life.

I will be honest with you: through the miracle of technology, I may have let my eye wander a little at this point. The football game was streaming on my phone, and even in the Tar Heel Sports Network basketball broadcast position at venerable Veterans Memorial Coliseum, we were keeping watch as the football Heels tried to rally. It was much more tense than a typical November basketball game, because there were two games being decided simultaneously. Watch the action on the court. Wince at a turnover. Glance down at the phone. The Pack just scored.

Anyone who has lived through the Tar Heels for any amount of time knows that any game requires complete attention. The "chat while the game is happening" approach does not work. So how, then, do you divide your attention between two Carolina games while both are spiraling?

Woody never told us exactly how to go where we go and do what we do if on the one hand I'm going but on the other hand I'm doing.

We were not alone. On the bench at courtside, Beau Maye was getting periodic updates as his brother played quarterback for the football team. You think you had it bad? Beau Maye has dreamed his entire life of being a Tar Heel, and had to watch from courtside while his teammates struggled to the end against Iowa State, while getting second-hand updates as his brother played quarterback 3,000 miles away.

Sitting there, in Portland, the football game made the basketball game worse. I'm guessing that sitting there, in Kenan, the basketball game made the football game worse. It is a very rare day where something doesn't happen in the world of Tar Heel sports that makes you feel a little better about any setback. This was that day.

Less than a week ago, one of the greatest athletes in school history won a national championship, and a Carolina alum is coaching the United States national team in the biggest sporting event in the world, and tomorrow one of the greatest dynasties in the history of sports, Carolina women's soccer, will play for a berth in the Final Four. The reason Friday was so wonderful for everyone who hates the Tar Heels is that the vast majority of the athletic departments in the country, including the two that defeated the Tar Heels on Friday, would sell every bit of logo gear they own just to have Carolina's bad days. In the entire history of the program, Iowa State has never been ranked higher than number three in the country. And NC State has never, not once, played in the ACC championship game. The bar is just different here, and that should never change.

But Friday still happened. We have friends whose fifth-grade son is completely enraptured by the Tar Heels. He lives it in all the best ways so many of us did as kids, where the players are superheroes and every tip-off and kickoff is a new referendum on the quality of our lives.

He spent Friday afternoon wearing both a Carolina basketball and football jersey simultaneously. After the final seconds elapsed, I was worried about him, and texted for an update. The response from his mother:

"He said he had to take a shower and go to bed. He is currently in the shower blaring Chicago's 'Hard to Say I'm Sorry.'"

Somehow, this felt absolutely perfect. Everybody needs a little time away…after all that we've been through. On Saturday, Anson will coach and Armando will be back on the court on Sunday and next weekend Drake will play for Carolina's first ACC title since 1980. Tomorrow honestly isn't all that bad. It really isn't.

Today, though, was Black Friday.

Players Mentioned

Beau Maye

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