jjohnson@heraldsun.com; 419-6667
CHAPEL HILL -- The year-and-a-half odyssey away from Carmichael Auditorium ended on Tuesday for the North Carolina women's basketball team.
The Tar Heels returned to their renovated arena to face Kennesaw State, beating the Owls 89-44, in the first game at Carmichael since UNC beat Duke to close out the 2007-08 season.
The multi-million dollar renovation brings the storied facility into the modern age without losing the tradition and ambience associated with the building.
Visitors are greeted by a new brick facade, and some of the modern touches inside include a new scoreboard with full video capabilities on each of its four sides.
Gone are the aluminum bleachers, replaced by individual stadium seats. And the sound system has been improved to the point that announcements now are clearly audible.
Yet the biggest change is with the court arrangement, which has been flipped so that the benches and scoring table now are on the opposite side from their previous locations.
UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell said that change was prompted to improve television broadcasts of games in Carmichael.
"I'm not afraid of change," Hatchell said of the new configuration. "We debated for quite a while but thought it was best in the long run."
She also said she was glad to be back at "home."
"It's good to be back in Carmichael," Hatchell said. "We wanted to have a few games [in Carmichael] before we start playing ACC games."
Athletic director Dick Baddour called the renovation a rousing success in that it maintains the Carmichael character while giving fans and players a new flavor for UNC women's basketball.
"It does look good, and we're excited about the women's basketball team returning to their home," Baddour said. "When we started planning this project, we talked about holding onto the tradition but bringing it into the modern era."
There still are finishing touches that have to checked off, though. The rafters are bare, waiting for the return of numerous championship banners and honored jerseys.
The women's basketball museum still is a few weeks from opening. Fans, though, will be greeted by ashe-paneled walls, which brighten the corridors and updated restrooms.
One of the downsides of replacing the bleachers, though, is reduced capacity. The arena, which once could accommodate about 10,000 fans, now seats 6,822.
Hatchell said she wasn't worried.
"When you put three for four thousand people in here, it still gets pretty loud," Hatchell said.
UNC senior forward Trinity Burnsey, who scored a career-high 11 points in her return to Carmichael, said playing the game brought back a lot of good memories of her last time on the court.
"I just played real hard," Burnsey said. "It's just awesome to be back."
The renovation is part of a long-range decision-making process within the athletic department, according to Baddour. He said looking 20 or 30 years into the future with the women's basketball program and where they'd play their games was one of the main considerations.
While the women's team has played games at the Smith Center occasionally in the past, moving there on a permanent basis was not attractive, according to Baddour.
"We want our women's team to have a homecourt advantage, and that was not always the case with games at the Smith Center," Baddour said. "We could get more fans in there for some games but not every one.
"There was a competitive advantage in Carmichael, and we wanted to return to that. I've been told by a number of fans they couldn't wait to get back to Carmichael."
