University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
November 6, 2026 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
There were a few people in attendance Friday who would tell you the win over Wofford was one of the most important games of the year.
By Adam Lucas
It wasn't a big deal.
Carolina defeated Wofford on Friday night. The final score was 109-70 and it's unlikely anyone will remember much about this game—Other than the biscuits! Always remember the biscuits!—in a month or so.
Except for those who will remember everything about it.
It's not always easy to be a fan these days. Prices are rising. Parking is a challenge. That TV at home is big and the picture is sharp and the snacks in the kitchen are just a couple of steps away.
Micah Bingham knows this. He's been a Carolina Basketball fan since 1992 but had never attended a game prior to Friday night. Sometimes we take these games for granted. It is just a Friday night game against Wofford but somewhere there is someone in northern Pennsylvania who watches every game and dreams of being in the building for just one night.
Micah and his six-year-old son, Angelo, easily could have watched the game in Pennsylvania. Instead, they drove nine hours each way—with a stop at Cook-Out, of course, to make it an authentic journey South—just to be able to high-five in the Smith Center. Angelo's birthday is in a couple of weeks, and, well, it just felt like it was time to make the pilgrimage. Micah wanted to walk Angelo through the Carolina Basketball Museum and show him all the players his dad had rooted for over all these years, and then they wanted to watch the current team together. That's a really big deal.
We are lucky to cheer for something that becomes part of our life this way. We celebrate birthdays around it. We make road trips for it. We rejoice in it when things are at their best and we grab on to it when things are at their worst.
Glioblastoma is one of those don't-google-it cancers. It's an aggressive, malignant brain tumor, and the treatment options are limited and daunting. It's persistent, too, as Ronnie Warner found out recently. He'd been diagnosed in the spring and then learned in October that another tumor had formed while he was undergoing chemoradiation.
Ronnie has spent a lifetime cheering for the Tar Heels. He loved the Dean Smith era, and considered it an honor when he moved to Chapel Hill and became the manager of Julian's on Franklin Street during the Roy Williams regime. You know that plaid sports coat Williams wore for the 2017 national championship game? It was Ronnie Warner who fitted him for it.
Ronnie would bring his kids, Jack and Sarah, to work with him, and they'd linger in the Julian's office while he worked. Some of the afternoons could be long, but those were offset by the days when someone like Williams would stop by the shop, and Ronnie would proudly introduce his children. "In a lot of ways, my dad lived and breathed Carolina Blue, so naturally my brother and I learned to as well," Sarah says.
Those of us who work in sports only have a job because of people like Ronnie, who take our sports seriously and teach their kids to love it the same way we do. We spend a lot of time telling you that defense matters and get a good shot and make crisp passes. We take it very seriously. Sometimes, too seriously.
Because the games are many times not actually a big deal. Not really. Some of them are. Sometimes they are the culmination of months or years of work, and that is important.
It was not, in the real world, a big deal on Friday that Jarin Stevenson had a big dunk or that Tar Heel reserves scored a combined 58 points. But it was absolutely a big deal that Ronnie Warner was there, in section 126, cheering for the Tar Heels the same way he has done so many times before. He was sitting with his son, Jack (Sarah had to work in Greenville, S.C.), and in what have been months of some very bad days, he was having a really good night. He put his arm around Jack during "Jump Around" and he grinned and for two hours, he was simply a happy Tar Heel, not a cancer patient.
We need these things that are not really a big deal to keep from obsessing over the truly big deals. To give us a reason to watch together and cheer together and to escape, for just a little bit, to a world where there is nothing more important than Maximo Adams's rebounding prowess. For two hours on Friday, that's what the Tar Heels did for Micah and Angelo and Ronnie and Jack and probably a few others, too. "It's an opportunity," Sarah said, "to make a memory with my dad while we still can."
Maybe these early November games are forgettable. But every time the doors open, Carolina Basketball continues to have the power to draw people to the Smith Center who are having a night they will never forget. New fans just starting a life as a Tar Heel. Longtime fans who have made the program a part of their entire lives. And thousands of people who are somewhere in-between, every single night. Someone made you this way (you know who they are) and someone made me this way (thanks Dad and Grandpa Luke and Uncle Ken) and, if we're lucky, maybe one day we'll get to help someone else be this way, too; to be part of this thing that is bigger than all of us but seems to have a knack for bringing us together at just the right times.
And that, indeed, is a big deal.
It wasn't a big deal.
Carolina defeated Wofford on Friday night. The final score was 109-70 and it's unlikely anyone will remember much about this game—Other than the biscuits! Always remember the biscuits!—in a month or so.
Except for those who will remember everything about it.
It's not always easy to be a fan these days. Prices are rising. Parking is a challenge. That TV at home is big and the picture is sharp and the snacks in the kitchen are just a couple of steps away.
Micah Bingham knows this. He's been a Carolina Basketball fan since 1992 but had never attended a game prior to Friday night. Sometimes we take these games for granted. It is just a Friday night game against Wofford but somewhere there is someone in northern Pennsylvania who watches every game and dreams of being in the building for just one night.
Micah and his six-year-old son, Angelo, easily could have watched the game in Pennsylvania. Instead, they drove nine hours each way—with a stop at Cook-Out, of course, to make it an authentic journey South—just to be able to high-five in the Smith Center. Angelo's birthday is in a couple of weeks, and, well, it just felt like it was time to make the pilgrimage. Micah wanted to walk Angelo through the Carolina Basketball Museum and show him all the players his dad had rooted for over all these years, and then they wanted to watch the current team together. That's a really big deal.
We are lucky to cheer for something that becomes part of our life this way. We celebrate birthdays around it. We make road trips for it. We rejoice in it when things are at their best and we grab on to it when things are at their worst.
Glioblastoma is one of those don't-google-it cancers. It's an aggressive, malignant brain tumor, and the treatment options are limited and daunting. It's persistent, too, as Ronnie Warner found out recently. He'd been diagnosed in the spring and then learned in October that another tumor had formed while he was undergoing chemoradiation.
Ronnie has spent a lifetime cheering for the Tar Heels. He loved the Dean Smith era, and considered it an honor when he moved to Chapel Hill and became the manager of Julian's on Franklin Street during the Roy Williams regime. You know that plaid sports coat Williams wore for the 2017 national championship game? It was Ronnie Warner who fitted him for it.
Ronnie would bring his kids, Jack and Sarah, to work with him, and they'd linger in the Julian's office while he worked. Some of the afternoons could be long, but those were offset by the days when someone like Williams would stop by the shop, and Ronnie would proudly introduce his children. "In a lot of ways, my dad lived and breathed Carolina Blue, so naturally my brother and I learned to as well," Sarah says.
Those of us who work in sports only have a job because of people like Ronnie, who take our sports seriously and teach their kids to love it the same way we do. We spend a lot of time telling you that defense matters and get a good shot and make crisp passes. We take it very seriously. Sometimes, too seriously.
Because the games are many times not actually a big deal. Not really. Some of them are. Sometimes they are the culmination of months or years of work, and that is important.
It was not, in the real world, a big deal on Friday that Jarin Stevenson had a big dunk or that Tar Heel reserves scored a combined 58 points. But it was absolutely a big deal that Ronnie Warner was there, in section 126, cheering for the Tar Heels the same way he has done so many times before. He was sitting with his son, Jack (Sarah had to work in Greenville, S.C.), and in what have been months of some very bad days, he was having a really good night. He put his arm around Jack during "Jump Around" and he grinned and for two hours, he was simply a happy Tar Heel, not a cancer patient.
We need these things that are not really a big deal to keep from obsessing over the truly big deals. To give us a reason to watch together and cheer together and to escape, for just a little bit, to a world where there is nothing more important than Maximo Adams's rebounding prowess. For two hours on Friday, that's what the Tar Heels did for Micah and Angelo and Ronnie and Jack and probably a few others, too. "It's an opportunity," Sarah said, "to make a memory with my dad while we still can."
Maybe these early November games are forgettable. But every time the doors open, Carolina Basketball continues to have the power to draw people to the Smith Center who are having a night they will never forget. New fans just starting a life as a Tar Heel. Longtime fans who have made the program a part of their entire lives. And thousands of people who are somewhere in-between, every single night. Someone made you this way (you know who they are) and someone made me this way (thanks Dad and Grandpa Luke and Uncle Ken) and, if we're lucky, maybe one day we'll get to help someone else be this way, too; to be part of this thing that is bigger than all of us but seems to have a knack for bringing us together at just the right times.
And that, indeed, is a big deal.
Players Mentioned
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