Eva Hodgson and Ariel Young are both in their fifth seasons playing college basketball. The two veterans of the Tar Heel women’s basketball team each began their careers in the fall of 2018 – Hodgson at William & Mary and Young at Michigan. Yet even when you use Hodgson and Young as a measuring stick, the last sellout of Carmichael Arena for a Carolina women’s basketball game occurred during their freshman year. Of high school. Paulina Paris, the youngest Tar Heel, was in fourth grade when over 6,000 Tar Heels fans crowded the historic hub of women’s basketball for the Jan. 25, 2015, clash with Duke.
Nearly eight years later, the veterans and rookie – and superstars in between such as Deja Kelly, Alyssa Ustby, and Kennedy Todd-Williams – were able to experience the new feeling of playing in front of a sellout crowd at home. Together. And to make matters better, the 6,319 fans, a heavy majority of whom wore Carolina blue, witnessed a 56-47 Tar Heel win, Carolina’s fourth against a ranked team this season.
“I’m filled with gratitude,” Carolina head coach Courtney Banghart said. “I told my (players) that how they do their work, how they treat one another, and how they play through adversity (was) on full display to a community that really respects it. To have that fanbase is earned.”
You could tell the day was different when the lines to get in the door stretched to the top of the Carmichael Arena driveway before gates opened. Precious general admission seats in the Carmichael upper deck were at stake – some that might not have been used to view a basketball game since that January day in 2015 when Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars topped the Billboard charts with their hit Uptown Funk! (Was that song played on Sunday? Someone should let me know because my broadcast headphones block out most media timeout music.) Carolina students raced to fill up the student section behind the north goal, eager to enter their names into a drawing for a free pair of Jordans. Student-athletes from other teams came. Men’s basketball, women’s soccer, field hockey, and more came en masse, and so did the dignitaries such as Mack Brown, Roy Williams, and their wives. Over 70 former Tar Heel players and managers were back at Carmichael for Alumni Weekend, too.
The baseline for excitement for a Carolina home game against NC State or Duke…
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