NCAA Basketball: 10 teams that will be hurt most from fan-less games

North Carolina Tar Heels

Without the Smith Center and the fans who inhabit it, you simply cannot properly tell UNC Basketball’s story, and consequently, college basketball’s in its entirety as well. Although last season came as an outlier, UNC frequently highlights division one basketball as a marquee team, frequently boasting championship aspirations and making their basketball program impossible to ignore for anyone living near Chapel Hill.

Unlike most other programs, their fans view home games as not just opportunities to watch their team play, but obligations, as all but one year since the Smith Center’s completion in 1986 the school’s attendance rate for basketball achieved a top-five ranking nationwide. Also during games against big-time ACC rivals like Duke, the arena fills up with incomparable feelings of intensity and anticipation.

Most recently, FOX Sports conducted a bracket-style contest meant to determine the nation’s best fanbase. You guessed it, the Tar Heels went onto win, coming out on top above an all too familiar 64-team format. Although this victory might not bring the more desired trophy to Chapel Hill, it does well to reiterate astonishing energy and influence which UNC basketball fans exert.

While their trademark light blue threads and court layout intend to remain intact, the fans’ presence typically filling in around instead feels jeopardized. Losing perhaps the entire country’s most recognizable fanbase on game day poises to inflict discomfort to a degree as badly as it sounds for UNC, so once considering that, a statement claiming that the Tar Heels might even suffer the most from a fan-less basketball environment certainly holds some legitimacy.