Hopefully, Clemson won’t follow Miami’s lead.

The Tar Heels scheduling a non-conference home game with Northeastern Wednesday closes the book on Miami making up the unplayed game of February 8 at Carolina.

The Hurricanes currently have an open week, 5 days between games, and refused to make a return trip to Chapel Hill. UNC officials are not happy, but the U cited its injuries and time needed to heal for not coming back to play the postponed game.

With Miami, as well as Virginia Tech, having no reasonable dates left to reschedule their games here, it leaves Clemson with the only possibility to make up its originally scheduled January 9th date at the Smith Center.

The Tigers are free to play during their open final week of the regular season, even though Carolina visits Syracuse on Monday and then has Senior Night against Duke on Saturday. Roy Williams has already said he would be willing to play three games in one week.

Every team has had injuries and infections causing postponements and changes. Duke will go on without its most talented player, freshman forward Jalen Johnson, who has opted out to try to salvage his fading hopes of becoming a first-round NBA draft choice.

Will Clemson do what Miami did for selfish reasons? Currently, UNC and Clemson are tied for fifth place in the ACC standings with 7-5 records, both still in contention to finish in the top four and draw a first-round bye in the tournament.

However, by virtue of their home win over Carolina on February 2, the Tigers now hold the tiebreaker for the higher seed. If they lost the rematch, UNC would have the advantage or another tiebreaker would have to kick in if they both wound up tied in the standings.

So will the Tar Heels finish the season (barring any more cancellations) with only seven home ACC games of the 10 scheduled, or will Clemson stand up and show the guts and conference responsibility that Miami shirked?

The way the COVID season has unfolded, it looks like there is no honor among some supposed friends.

Featured image via ACC Media


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