Albany, which is part of the State University of NY system, had previously scheduled a game at Duke for November 12, but the men’s basketball team announced Wednesday it will not make that trip. It has prompted major musical acts to cancel concerts, forced big conventions out of North Carolina, and if it remains in place, National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver has indicated the 2017 All-Star Game could be taken out of Charlotte.
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After passing the “bathroom bill” many states have banned non-essential travel to North Carolina, New York being one of those states.
Marist, another private school in New York (Poughkeepsie), is a rumored replacement for Albany.
Instead, ACC foes Duke and UNC will face each other in a nonconference game on September 25 in Chapel Hill.
On Wednesday, SUNY spokeswoman Holly Liapis emailed a statement to The Herald-Sun explaining the decision.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ban on state-sponsored, non-essential travel to North Carolina has caused Albany’s scheduled game at Duke this season to be cancelled, according to the Durham Herald-Sun.
The ban only applies to public schools, meaning private institutions (Syracuse, for example) are not subject to the mandate. It has to replace the game in order to fulfill its contractual requirement to the event.
The Cameron Crazies won’t have Albany to target as November game gets pulled from schedule..
However, in March of 2016, the North Carolina General Assembly passed House Bill 2, which is a law that stipulates that transgender people must use the bathroom corresponding with their birth gender while taking away the ability of employees to sue their employers in state court for discrimination or wrongful termination.
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The law has been strongly criticized in and out of the state, and the National Basketball Association is considering moving its All-Star game from Charlotte due to HB2.
