The first showdown between the headliners of State and UNC’s 2010 freshman classes attracted much more than a packed house to N.C. Central’s McLendon-McDougald Gymnasium in Durham Tuesday night. The crowd, which nearly filled the gym an hour before the 8 p.m. Greater N.C. Pro-Am game between Team McGladrey and Team Stackhouse, was only growing larger before Durham police officers were forced to intervene. Erroll Reese, community relations director for the Greater N.C. Pro-Am, which is in its third year, moved the game’s start time from 6 to 8 p.m. in an effort to accommodate what he expected to be a large crowd.
“I suggested that people get there early,” Reese said. “I said that because I anticipated there would be some interest.”
McLendon-McDougald quickly filled to it’s capacity of 3,100, and at 7:30 p.m., with hundreds more waiting outside, a police sergeant instructed onlookers to head home, as the event had been declared a fire hazard.
“We were overblown, overwhelmed, whatever word you want to use, by the crowd,” Reese said. “It was the most amazing thing we have ever seen. It was characterized as crazy. It was just incredible, the hype around it, the interest and just the number of people, that were in the building, and unfortunately outside it as well. We had to turn away at least 1,000 people.”
Along with diehard Wolfpack and Tar Heel fans, hundreds of neutral fans had combined to swamp the streets surrounding Central’s gym well before tip-off of the pro-am game between Team McGladrey and Team Stackhouse.
The Greater N.C. Pro-Am is an annual summer basketball league featuring a mix of established ACC basketball players, highly-touted incoming recruits and high school players.
Team McGladrey features Wolfpack rising senior Tracy Smith and three of the most heralded recruits of Sidney Lowe’s tenure in Ryan Harrow, Lorenzo Brown and Tracy Smith. Team Stackhouse’s roster includes UNC sophomore John Henson and Tar Heel recruits Reggie Bullock and Harrison Barnes.
The fact that their summer league game Tuesday night drew a crowd of such proportions is a testament to the amount of respect Harrow, Brown and Leslie are bringing to Wolfpack basketball months before they ever put on red and white jerseys.
“The interest is clearly behind the fact that the N.C. State basketball program is extremely relevant,” Reese said. “There is an awful lot of promise that is associated with those kids coming in. Ryan Harrow is a great kid and C.J. and Lorenzo are unbelievable players, so I can understand why it is that way. Couple that with the fact that the other schools playing have been consistently bringing in guys, and it’s like a level playing field now. The relevancy of the N.C. State program has heightened our N.C. Pro-Am to the point where we could never imagine and we are very happy about that.”
Those among the 1,000 turned away missed out on an uncharacteristically intense basketball in a game played in a summer league environment devoid of half-court sets and many other staples of ACC basketball.
“The first 10 or 20 minutes of that game, it was like they were playing for a championship,” Reese said. “It was ‘for real’ basketball.”
But Tuesday was not the last time before the regular season that fans can catch a glimpse of the Pack’s prized recruits taking on their future UNC rivals. Team McGladrey will take on Team Stackhouse in a rematch Tuesday, July 20 at 9 p.m. at McLendon-McDougald.
“There’s another N.C. State-UNC matchup next week too and people don’t know that yet,” Reese said. “I think that’s going to be pretty big. We did that on purpose because some of the guys may not be here the week after next. Everything is done on purpose. There are no mistakes in this.”
