Is Carolina proving that graduation is more important than money?

Two interesting basketball stories came out Thursday about early season games from the Bahamas to Chapel Hill. The common denominator is Gonzaga, which I will explain in a little bit.

The Tar Heels are playing their first regular-season game in Carmichael since 1986, before they finally got to move into the Dean Dome in the all-world opener against Duke. If you’re old enough to remember, UNC’s second-ranked team was supposed to unveil the Smith Center on November 24, 1985, against UCLA.

But construction delays pushed the opener to the following January 18 against the No. 3 Blue Devils. Nine days earlier, the now top-ranked Tar Heels spanked Jim Valvano’s Wolfpack in the last official game in the old Blue Heaven, which had opened back in 1964. Remember Jimmy V dragging Dean Smith out of his locker room to watch him shoot a layup, saying he wanted to make the last basket in what was then known as Carmichael Auditorium.

Carolina did play once more in the building since renovated and renamed an arena in the first round of the NIT at the end of the forgettable 2010 season. The Heels whipped William & Mary in a tight game before an excited crowd of about 6,000. The Smith Center was already under renovation, and no one ever thought the defending 2009 national champions (sans Tyler Hansbrough and three other starters) would wind up in the NIT.

This time it’s against Wofford on the December 15 Sunday winter graduation has been scheduled for the Dean Dome, and Roy Williams wants to get out of town on the way to Spokane for a home-and-home ESPN rematch with Gonzaga. Williams said the heck with the money the school would lose, probably offered to pay the difference out of his own pocket, and wanted no part of a possible weather delay and jet lag before playing the Zags for what could be the second time in just three weeks.

That’s right, Ol’ Roy club and good buddy Mark Few’s team are also in the Battle for Atlantis in the Bahamas in late November. And they could possibly meet in the championship game of that tourney on November 28, almost three weeks earlier to the day.

What fun! Go Heels!

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