2026 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament

Man. I remember Mrs. Castleberry's sixtch grade class at Broadway Elementary and watching the tourney on this very stand. That was 83, the year after they one Dean's first Natty. I found an ad in the back of a magazine that if you wrote in, you could get an autographed picture from the team. I did and still have it. The only one I'm really missing from the '82 team is Worthy. It's pretty neat in that all of the signatures where signed with different pens. Jordan was such a youngin'.
My daughter knew Dean Smith's best friend. Dean gave him the original autographed 1982 team picture. She would visit him and hear his Dean Smith stories. He was in the process of giving his stuff away ( that's what very old codgers do ) and he gave her the original 1982 autographed team picture ( which includes Worthy's signature )

Being the wonderful daughter she is, that picture was given to me as a birthday present. You could have knocked me over with a feather .

It is displayed prominently in my home office.:)
 
Draw a circle that includes Harvard, Yale, MIT and Princeton and you have about 28 million people. That nearly two and a half times the population of NC in less than half the area. Metro LA and Metro San Francisco have a combined population of 23 milion (over twice NC's population) in an area that is 1/4 of the size of NC.
Because no one cares about their sports.
 
Because no one cares about their sports.
Very true, but how about that number of eyeballs. I actually think a more persuasive argument would be the areas I mentioned are already firmly in the pocket of the NFL and college ball would have a tough time winning over those NFL fans. In NC, UNC-Charlotte football really isn't competing with the Panthers for fan dollars
 
From 2014...

"As you scramble to fill out your brackets, we at the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center thought it would be fun to see how the ACC tournament has been discussed across the state throughout the years since the tournament started in the 1950s. While we all know the big names in the tournament who call North Carolina home, many of the state’s smaller institutions have had a lot to say on the tournament over the years as well, even if their own school or anyone from their town is not participating. A look through the newspapers we have in DigitalNC shows that North Carolina is truly basketball country, especially in March."

More at the link, including some clippings...


 
The last tournament I attended was in 2011 at the Greensboro Coliseum. The company my wife worked for managed to get 100 books of tickets. I do not know to this day how they came by the tickets. The company has a charity that raises money to help people in the communities where it has a facility. They helped with paying heating bills and necessities of that kind.
The company raffled off the tickets ti raise money for that charity. Each raffle ticket was $20. If your number was drawn, you won two books of tickets. My wife bought 2 tickets and they both were drawn. The face value of each book was $400. The company asked you not to sell the tickets to scalpers, but to give them away if you couldn’t use them. I offered my SIL’s family are Wake fans. I offered the tickets to them for Wake’s game on the first day. Wake went like 8-23 that year. They refused saying Wake would probably lose anyway. They did. Anyway, it was quite the experience even if we did lose to dook in the championship game.
 
The last tournament I attended was in 2011 at the Greensboro Coliseum. The company my wife worked for managed to get 100 books of tickets. I do not know to this day how they came by the tickets. The company has a charity that raises money to help people in the communities where it has a facility. They helped with paying heating bills and necessities of that kind.
The company raffled off the tickets ti raise money for that charity. Each raffle ticket was $20. If your number was drawn, you won two books of tickets. My wife bought 2 tickets and they both were drawn. The face value of each book was $400. The company asked you not to sell the tickets to scalpers, but to give them away if you couldn’t use them. I offered my SIL’s family are Wake fans. I offered the tickets to them for Wake’s game on the first day. Wake went like 8-23 that year. They refused saying Wake would probably lose anyway. They did. Anyway, it was quite the experience even if we did lose to dook in the championship game.


Hey! I went to that same tournament. Got some tickets through Guilford County Schools somehow.
 
Hey! I went to that same tournament. Got some tickets through Guilford County Schools somehow.
Remember the semis? Carolina vs Clemson and dook vs VT? Both games were close. After the games my BIL, who went with us. Said he saw the head of concessions go to the referees during the last TV timeout and sneak them some money to make sure the championship game was UNC/dook instead of Clemson/VT.
 
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