A Duke University economics major was testing the law of supply and demand when he thought about accepting $3,000 for a courtside ticket to Saturday night's Duke-Carolina men's basketball game.

But instead, Tristan Patterson, a freshman from Raleigh, got a lesson in the value of tradition.

Fellow students evicted him from Krzyzewskiville, the tent village that sprouts every year outside Cameron Indoor Stadium as students wait for tickets to The Game.

Patterson had lived in Tent 16 with 11 other students since Jan. 9, staking claim to a close-up view of one of college sports' biggest rivalries.

Then, a week ago, another village dweller noticed an ad on Craigslist, an online flea market. The person who posted the ad was looking for someone who could pass as a student and would pay big bucks to see the game from the Duke student section.

The buyer also would get a wristband and ID, extras that presumably would make the package legal under the state's law against scalping tickets.

Patterson says he was trying to find out whether a seat in the student section would sell for more than a seat in the upper arena.

But he got stung.

Jeff Kovacs, a former Cameron usher, posed as "Tim" and responded to the Craigslist offer. The two settled on a price.

"At that point, I never committed myself to selling the ticket," Patterson said. "I'm not sure what I would have done. Three thousand dollars is a lot of money for a college student."

But the sin had been committed. A Krzyzewskiville line monitor -- a student who enforces the rules of the tent village -- was alerted. She sent a message to Tent 16, and Patterson was exiled.

"The ability to go to these games, some of the best games ever in sports, for free, is just such a great privilege we get from the university," Lauren Troyan, the line monitor, said Thursday. "To sell it off [would be] really disgraceful."

After the incident, on the warm days this week, students were studying, listening to music and dozing at the tent village. Some were trying to cook up something sassy for Tyler Hansbrough, the Tar Heels' freshman center, who apparently has a fear of snakes.

The unfathomable

Few could fathom a fellow tent dweller giving up a ticket -- even for thousands of dollars.

"I can't imagine putting all that time in and not going to the game," said Ashleigh Martin, a freshman from Vienna, Va.

Turns out students are not the only ones watching the online markets for basketball tickets.

Duke University and Durham police turned to eBay for clues to a break-in Feb. 1 on Sheridan Drive. Thieves made off with tickets to the Duke-Carolina, Duke-Miami and Duke-Wake Forest basketball games, among other things, police said.

Investigators spotted the tickets on eBay, according to Durham police, with the Duke-Carolina game fetching $3,100.

As a result, detectives executed a search warrant last week and confiscated five computers and a shotgun from a Garrett Road apartment.

Karim Jarrett, Kevin Ottey, Ibrahim Waheed and Abdul Waheed, all of 4216 Garrett Road, Apartment C-8, were charged with possession of stolen property. Antonio Castro of 4230 Garrett Road, Apartment L-35, was charged with breaking and entering, larceny and larceny of a firearm.