SPOKANE, Wash. — The date for Gonzaga basketball's most notable home game in school history against North Carolina was announced Thursday by UNC Athletics.
There is only one problem: it's on Dec. 18, which is when students will be on Christmas vacation for five days or longer.
You don't want to lose that advantage of the Kennel Club, which is arguably a top five college basketball student section in the country,
Final exams schedules are a big part of how scheduling for non-conference games are determined.
Games aren't played on finals week, but they are played before and after.
Both Gonzaga and North Carolina's final exam weeks end on Friday, December 13. It makes sense to put this game on the 14th, which is a Saturday. Students would only have to stay over an extra day.
The problem with this year is Gonzaga is already penciled in to play Arizona on that date.
If you look back to last year when these teams played in Chapel Hill, that's actually how it ended up working out. Both schools final exams finished up on Friday, Dec. 14 and game day was Saturday, Dec. 15.
How about before finals? Saturday, Dec. 7 could have worked for both teams. However, with this announcement, Gonzaga likely has another non-conference game in the works for that date.
The fact of the matter remains that this game is going to be sold out and there is zero doubt about that. It's going to be a tough ask for the normal amount of a students to be there.
Frankly, that isn't great news. They make the atmosphere.electric.
This is North Carolina, one of the most historic blue-blood programs at home. If you have North Carolina, Duke or Kentucky coming to your place in the non-conference, it's a different kind of special.
This game deserves a full student section and with the scheduling, who knows if they'll get it.