Skip to main content
North Carolina
Join Now

Today's Take: Why The Smith Center Process Matters

TommyAshleyby: Tommy Ashley02/04/26TAshleyIC

Every weekday, Inside Carolina senior reporter Greg Barnes weighs in with his thoughts on the latest in Tar Heel sports. Barnes has been the preeminent reporter and expert analyst on UNC athletics for two decades. Watch his full daily thoughts above.

Greg’s Daily Take
“Think about the magnitude of Carolina basketball and the Carolina basketball family, and what Dean Smith meant to this university and to college of basketball across the country, and then on to Roy Williams. This is one of the ‘Blue Bloods,’ so anytime you make a decision about the basketball arena and where it’s going to be and where the team will play, there is going to be a lot of passionate debate about what that should look like.

“The other component, from a university’s perspective, is you’ve got Carolina North. That’s getting underway. It’s been in the plans for about two decades now. There are going to be 250 acres they’re looking to utilize. Chancellor Lee Roberts said at the Board of Trustees meeting a couple weeks ago that his understanding is that it’s really the biggest parcel of undeveloped land near a booming population area that exists in the southeast. So there’s a lot of opportunity for growth for the university. And so it’s really a matter of, do you see the basketball arena as being a key anchor for that new part of campus?

“All these things matter, and they’re all part of the conversation in terms of what you should do moving forward. And that’s why so many people are so heated about this and so passionate about this, and there are just a lot of different pieces in place. The process is the sticking point for a lot of people. Have (the decision makers) gone about reaching a decision the right way? There is some belief that Roy Williams should be the key stakeholder, and that he’s somebody that you’ve got to have with you in making any of these types of decisions just because of the pull that he has with everybody. Maybe not everybody agrees with that. So a lot of different thoughts and beliefs about how things should be done and how that decision should be reached, and we’re seeing some of that play out because there is a good bit of internal conflict right now.”