Thursday, February 13, 2014

The UNC-Duke Game That Wasn't

Edited at 10:21 2/13/14 

Much can be said about the “Greatest Rivalry in Sports” taking a backseat to Mother Nature last night.  As a alum of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a current graduate student at Duke University I believe I can offer some unique (and only slightly biased) insight into the situation.

Let’s start with the facts.

First, and most unequivocal, the game should have been cancelled earlier than it was.  We have radars, we have relatively accurate weather reports.  There was no reason to cancel the game right before 6 pm.

Having said that, Duke could have absolutely made it to Chapel Hill yesterday if they wanted.  Duke could have left around noon and beat traffic, or drove over around 6 like planned (a bad idea).  One fellow decided to make the drive himself to assess road conditions.  You can see his results here:  



The ACC has a policy that if both teams, the officials, and enough game operations folks can get to the stadium, the game will be played.  So, from the UNC perspective the matter was simple:  the refs were there, UNC was obviously ready to play and Duke simply didn’t hold up their end of the bargain.  I spoke to a buddy earlier today who was a former manager of a UNC team.  He reminded me that Carolina typically leaves Chapel Hill 3 hours before tip-off when they play in Durham.  To say Duke was breaking protocol is incorrect.

The other fact is that the weather was terrible.  For fans to consider driving to the game from anywhere outside of the immediate Chapel Hill area was insanity.  The Dean Dome holds over 21,000 fans.  My guess is only around 2 to 4,000 would have made it to the game.  Some sold their tickets on stubhub during the afternoon, others just sat on their tickets hoping for a reschedule.  UNC announced around mid-afternoon that all unused seats would be given to students, something that hasn’t happened since the 2000 snow game vs. Maryland.  Students were psyched.  My guess is around 8,000 would have made it down, a guess which may be off by 4,000 or so either way.

To suggest Duke and Coach K did not want to travel to Chapel Hill to play a game because the Dean Dome would be swarming with students rather than old, blue-haired, wine-and-cheesers is probably ridiculous.  Duke was favored, holds the recent advantage in the series, and is likely the better team regardless of venue.  As a Carolina fan, it is fun to think the Heels had an advantage last night, but the truth is more students doesn’t mean Roy Williams will change his three-point defensive scheme.

Coach K was able to get his side of the story on the record this noon.  The Leader of Men said, “There's still problems today. That's why the game was not pushed to today. We're going to play it next week, and it was the smart thing to do. Their fans were not able to get to the game, and we couldn't even get a bus here. The main route you have to take there was a parking lot." 

See, not only is K the Greatest Coach of All Time, but he’s also benevolent and cares deeply about UNC’s fans. 

I don't believe him.  You shouldn’t either.  It is completely reasonable to cancel the game for weather.  But to say the game was called because the bus couldn’t make it?  I’m not buying it.

My friend Marcus made some great points about the game in an email today.  He wondered what kind of message it would send about college athletics that classes can be cancelled and campuses shut down, but games are still played.  Fair point.  He also wondered about Duke’s team and fans getting back to Durham after the game.  Another fair point.

The facts tell two stories:  Duke could have made it to the game and home afterwards in sub-optimal conditions.  The other fact is that the weather was terrible and some roads un-drivable.  Playing the game from a rational, “I care about safety” perspective would have been a bad decision.

As we stand now, the only real losers are the fans who sold their tickets yesterday afternoon for a percentage of face value and all the UNC students who waited all afternoon in the snow to watch a once-in-a-generation game.  Thankfully, we have no reports of people getting in accidents traveling home from the game that wasn’t.  The game is rescheduled for Feb. 20, just two days before Duke’s rematch with Syracuse. 

I’m a UNC fan and I think Duke could have left earlier in the day to play the game, but the responsible decision was made to postpone the game.  No matter how awesome the rivalry, it's not worth the damage a drive home at night could cause.


I just don’t buy the bus excuse.

PS - Evidently DPAC felt their Wednesday show of the Book of Mormon was worthy of people risking their life to see.  

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