CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The annual basketball tip-off event at the University of North Carolina has been called Late Night With Roy for the past 15 years, ever since Roy Williams, a prodigal son of Asheville, returned from the University of Kansas to take over the Tar Heels.

So why was this year different from all other years?

It was not the goofy dances the players performed, a shtick that has become a mainstay of the event. It was not even the unfurling of a new national championship banner, one representing the Tar Heels’ 71-65 victory over Gonzaga in April. That had been done twice previously in Williams’s tenure here, in 2005 and 2009.

What distinguished Friday night’s festivities, which packed the Dean Smith Center with 21,000 Tar Heels faithful, was the sense of relief. That morning, the N.C.A.A. had announced — after wrangling which had lasted the better part of a decade — that not only was its investigation into academic misconduct at North Carolina completed, but that there would be no penalties.

The Tar Heels could keep their scholarships, their recruiting rights, their coach. The team could play in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, and if the season were to go as expected, in its eighth consecutive N.C.A.A. tournament as well.