Should Monmouth kill UNC game over LGBT law?

The stands against North Carolina’s so-called HB2 law, which removes discrimination protections for the LGBT community, have been high-profile to say the least, with the likes of Bruce Springsteen pulling out of a concert in Greensboro and the NBA moving next year’s All-Star Game from Charlotte.

On the college basketball landscape, no program elevated its stature last season more than Monmouth University when the Hawks pulled off a string of victories over high-major teams, thrusting themselves into the national debate on the NCAA Tournament selection process as it relates to mid-majors.

So with the Hawks scheduled to travel to play the University of North Carolina, the highest-profile program of them all, on Dec. 28 in return for a six-figure payday, the university finds itself in a tight spot.

Do you take a team that went 29-8 last season and returns all but one player into the Dean Dome for a game that could be transformative for an up-and-coming program?

Or do you use your new-found prominence to make a statement that would ripple through the basketball universe in response to the controversial state law?

In West Long Branch, the decision has been made after a fair share of hand-wringing, according to university President Paul R. Brown.

"We will go forward," he said. "What we all agreed to, in the end, is that this is an important experience for our student-athletes. And while you're trying to balance what is the best experience, what's the best statement about some backward thinking, what we really just put a lot of weight on the fact that it's an experience our students richly deserve. And if there are any consequences, and I hope there are not,  because I think our positions are very clear as a university, that more than anything else is why we made the decision."

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In this case, I agree with decision made by Brown, athletic director Marilyn McNeill and head coach King Rice, who starred at North Carolina.

These players shouldn’t be penalized for something they had nothing to do with. They've earned a shot at the team that lost to Villanova in the national championship game earlier this year, both with their play on the court and the way they've represented the school off of it.

Sure, it would be a teachable moment walk away from the matchup. But I'm not sure how much anyone in that locker room would learn if you stripped away the very moment they've spent years preparing for.

But here's the caveat: Absolutely no more scheduling of nonconference games in North Carolina until legislators come to their senses.

The game against the Tar Heels was in the works long before the law was passed in March.

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"We absolutely will not be scheduling more games going forward," Brown said. "What we're hoping for is clearer thinking going forward. And, in the end, we agreed that this is an important experience for our students."

House Bill 2, or HB2, forces transgender individuals to use bathrooms in government buildings, schools and universities that correspond to their biological gender. It also halts anti-discrimination protection for lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

Albany, part of the State University of New York -- SUNY --  system, was scheduled to travel to Duke for a Nov. 12 game, but last month canceled it because of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order banning any state-sponsored, nonessential travel to North Carolina.

"It's an embarrassing bill. That's all I'm going to say about it," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told USA TODAY Sports last month as he prepared the U.S. Olympic basketball team before they traveled to Brazil.

Monmouth's football team will travel to North Carolina to play Gardner-Webb in a Big South affair on Nov. 19 to close the regular season. But a game against a conference opponent is a different kind of commitment than a game you don't necessarily have to schedule.

What’s clear now is that every university needs to do some serious soul-searching before sending a team to North Carolina.

Staff Writer Stephen Edelson is an Asbury Park Press columnist. Email: sedelson@gannettnj.com