The Facts: The Pack will play host Tuesday evening to the University’s long-standing rivals from Chapel Hill.

Our Opinion: A competitive atmosphere creates an exciting and invigorating fa’ccedil;ade around the game. Students should take that enthused spirit and direct it toward support for the Wolfpack, pushing the team – a composition of students’ peers – to victory.

The annual men’s home basketball game against Carolina is one of the University’s most honored traditions. Students, current and past, revel in camaraderie at the Ram Roast the evening before the game and bear the winter’s cold at the Campout in an effort to gain admission to the big show. The events in the lead-up to those couple hours are quintessentially N.C. State. It becomes more than a game. Students’ peers out on the court become surrogates in a very palpable and fierce form of rivalry. Die-hard fans are expected, almost obliged, to give Will Graves – ‘the man’ for the Carolina game – a warm Wolfpack welcome. But those jeers and good-spirited boos are not an invitation to lose focus on the true meaning of the game and its meaning to the University. Alumni and students can support the Pack while still maintaining a shred of decency; respectful behavior and avid support are not mutually exclusive. In the past, students, admittedly, have engaged in behavior that makes Wolfpack nation look less like the proud winner of two NCAA titles in men’s basketball and more like a backwards school dominated by rednecks – in the worst sense, of course. That isn’t the heritage of the University’s fan base or it’s players. Reynold’s Coliseum is one of the most storied stadiums in the entire country; David Thompson was Michael Jordan’s inspiration and, perhaps, the greatest college basketball player to ever play the game; and Jim Valvano has a legacy unparalleled in life and death. In that tradition, it behooves students to celebrate the University Tuesday evening. Win or lose, come out to the game – in person or in spirit. Be a fan! There will be Carolina fans at the RBC Center for the game and they might rub students the wrong way – that’s a given. But that doesn’t necessitate Wolfpack fans follow suit. Treat the game as an opportunity to celebrate the basketball team and uphold the long and proud institution the program has forged through the years.