An ode to Tuesdays in Greensboro, and the ACC tournament’s weirdest, quirkiest day

The vibes up in Section 217 of the Greensboro Coliseum were immaculate. They were restorative. They were peaceful. Meditative? Sure. That, too. It was midway through the first half of the Florida State-Georgia Tech game on Tuesday in the first round of the ACC tournament — Tuesday in Greensboro! — and it was possible to have Section 217 all to yourself.

Along with, well — several other sections, too. Down below, way down below, the Seminoles and Yellow Jackets were fighting to extend their seasons one more day. Florida State led by two, then four, but outside of the friends and family there to support both schools — and, indeed, friends and family probably made up a good chunk of the crowd — the score couldn’t have mattered too much.

This was Tuesday in Greensboro, after all. The upside-down-smiley emoji of postseason basketball. The “let’s get weird-iest” day of the greatest (or what used to be the greatest) conference tournament of them all. The living embodiment of that meme that originated in a satirical editorial cartoon in The Onion, with a deranged-looking, stubble-faced man wearing a “sickos” shirt leering out of a window, cackling, “Yes ... ha ha ha ... YES!”

ACC tournament Tuesday? Some not-great basketball in a mostly-empty building? A sporting display so bad (and a little sad) it’s ... kind of good?

Indeed, folks. Bring it on. Or, to put it another way: “Yes ... ha ha ha ... YES!”

Much has been written, and said, over the years about the general decline of the ACC tournament. There was a day when this event was the pride of North Carolina, and perhaps the toughest ticket in the state (at least, that is, until teams began losing in the quarterfinals). Those days are gone, and have been for the past decade or so, if they didn’t disappear long before then.

This event changed for good, somewhat imperceptibly at first, when the ACC went from an eight-team league to nine in 1992, with the addition of Florida State. That mandated the addition of the Thursday night 8/9 play-in game, which came to be known as the Les Robinson Invitational. These days, Tuesday offers an entire three-game slate of play-in games. Wednesday, really, is more of the same, with another four games offering teams a chance to play their way into the quarterfinals.

By the time those start, on Thursday, almost half of the league is already home. And, depending on which teams are left (Miami may have won the ACC’s regular season, for instance, but it’s a safe bet the Hurricanes won’t have close to the kind of support usually befitting of the tournament’s top seed), the arena will either come alive like ACC tournaments past or ... not.

Given the tournament is in Greensboro this year — and who knows when it’ll be back — chances are the Coliseum will offer glimpses in the coming days of what was. Tuesday, meanwhile, offered its own kind of charm, if one knew were to look. Like up in Section 217, which came with no shortage of space. Want to come out and watch some college basketball, but don’t like crowds?

Well, do we have an event for you.

There are a couple of ways these days to view ACC tournament Tuesday, especially in Greensboro, home to so many of the most important memories in the conference’s history. It can be viewed with sadness, and a longing of what was; a somber testament to the reality that nothing lasts forever, not even the shine of what was this state’s most coveted sporting event.

On the other hand, it can be embraced. Want to sit in the first row of the Coliseum, close enough to feel Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton scowl (and scowl he did while the Seminoles surrendered a five-point lead in the final minutes of the early game here)? You can! Want to sit in the very last row of the corner of the upper deck! You can.

ACC tournament Tuesday knows no such thing as seating assignments. It’s all general admission.

Want to come out for some postseason college basketball and not deal with the hassle of waiting in line to park, or to buy an $11 can of America’s finest (or at least most readily-available) domestic beer? ACC tournament Tuesday has you covered.

One doesn’t come to a Tuesday in Greensboro — or Charlotte, or Washington, D.C., or Brooklyn — for the quality of the basketball. Oh, no. Georgia Tech’s 61-60 victory against Florida State had all the artistry of a Kindergartner’s drawing, and none of the false admiration. There was no sugarcoating a display in which neither team shot better than 41 percent from the field.

It did have some charm, though: the bands blaring away at full volume, to an audience of several hundred (OK, maybe a few thousand). The mascots, Buzz and Cimarron, standing around as if looking for something to do. The head coaches, Josh Pastner and Leonard Hamilton, attempting to will whatever energy they could muster into their teams, who played on in a mostly lifeless arena. The Coliseum, itself, produced its own aura to anyone familiar with the history of the place.

Hey, Tuesdays in Greensboro are more festive than Tuesdays in Brooklyn. At least inside the building.

It felt at times during the early game on Tuesday like those who gathered to see it were part of a communal experience, some sort of higher plane of in-person sports-watching. These were the diehards, the devoted, the questionably-employed who could muster the time to make it out to the Coliseum for a 2 p.m. tip-off on a Tuesday. And the finish didn’t disappoint, at least, what with Georgia Tech securing its victory in the final milliseconds.

Hang it in the Louvre.

Afterward, Pastner went in the way Pastner often does, energetically shouting out everything from his team’s gutsiness and never-give-in attitude to longtime ACC writers David Teel and Barry Jacobs (“Barry’s a legend, too — he’s written books!” Pastner said) to the movie Creed III actor/director Michael B. Jordan. It was weird. It was Pastner. It was Tuesday in Greensboro.

The 13th-seeded Yellow Jackets lived to play another day. Florida State went home.

The night was young. Good seats were still available.