Curious to explore an oddity in the rivalry between Duke and North Carolina, fans occasionally approach the Plumlee and Zeller families at Indiana Elite club games and ask why they're sitting together.
Cody Zeller and Marshall Plumlee are highly regarded rising senior recruits and Indiana Elite teammates. But their brothers are on opposite sides of college basketball's biggest rivalry.
Tyler Zeller is expected to start at center for North Carolina next season. Miles (a junior) and Mason Plumlee (a sophomore) will be frontcourt mainstays as Duke tries to defend its NCAA title.
The shared experiences of the families trump any conflict over their sons' preferred shades of blue. Both families are from Indiana, with three boys 6 feet 10 or taller who will play major college basketball on scholarship. (Luke Zeller played for Notre Dame from 2005 to 2009.)
"We just have so many similarities that way," said Lori Zeller, Tyler and Cody's mother, "and it's been fun to hang out with them on some of these AAU weekends."
Cody Zeller and Marshall Plumlee started in the frontcourt for the Indiana Elite team over the weekend in the Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions club basketball event in Chapel Hill and Durham. The team was eliminated from the tournament's consolation bracket late Saturday night.
Their families have known each other personally since a few years ago, when Mason Plumlee took a recruiting visit to Notre Dame when Luke Zeller played there and his father, Steve, happened to be there, too.
Having Marshall and Cody on the same team has helped the families become more familiar. At an Adidas event two weeks ago in Las Vegas, Marshall and Cody even were roommates. They're laid back and easygoing off the court, so they got along great except for one thing.
"He likes country [music]," Marshall Plumlee said, laughing, "and I just can't go along with that. That doesn't fly. We don't play that in the car when we ride around."
Physically they are about the same, as Zeller is 6-11 and 200 pounds and Plumlee stands 6-11, 205. But their games are decidedly different, so they work well together.
Plumlee is most comfortable in the lane on offense, with more height but fewer ball skills than either of his brothers. He is content to bang bodies in the lane and play with his back to the basket.
Zeller has more perimeter skills, with ability to score from 3-point range, handle the ball and pass skillfully.
Together, they're imposing defensively when they're on the floor at the same time, and they work well on offense with Zeller on the perimeter and Plumlee close to the basket.
"It's not as though when Marshall and Cody are on the floor, they're trying to take each other's space," said Perky Plumlee, Marshall's father. "Marshall likes to stay down on the block, and Cody likes to face up."
The big question on college basketball fans' minds is whether they will join their brothers at North Carolina and Duke, respectively. Well-schooled in the recruiting process after watching their older brothers go through it, Zeller and Plumlee answer virtually the same way.
"I'd love to play with my brothers again," Plumlee said. "We all love each other, but that's not the deciding factor in my decision. I want and they want what's best for me."
"I'm not going there just to play with [Tyler]," Cody Zeller said. "I've got to do what's best for me. I'd only be playing with him at most one year, and I don't want to decide on my college just for one year."
Big man, guard skills
In the Indiana Class 3A state title game in March, Zeller scored 20 points and grabbed an astounding 26 rebounds to lead Washington High to a 65-62 overtime defeat of Gary's Wallace High.
"He got them every which way possible," Washington coach Gene Miller said. "He got on the floor for some where he had to fight for them on the floor. ... He just dominated the boards in that ballgame."
But rebounding isn't what Zeller is known best for. When the boys were growing up, his older brothers obviously were bigger, so Cody stayed on the perimeter and played guard.
He was the point guard on his junior high team.
"Then I had my growth spurt when I got into high school," Zeller said.
Too big to play point guard, Zeller nonetheless continued to use his skills away from the basket well enough to be rated the No. 23 player in his class by Scout.com.
He said he is wide open now in his recruiting and plans to narrow his list to five schools after the summer so he can take official visits beginning in the fall.
The next move in this recruiting dance from North Carolina's perspective belongs to coach Roy Williams. Although Williams has actively recruited Zeller, he hasn't offered a scholarship yet.
Three Plumlees at Duke?
Marshall Plumlee's situation with his brothers' school is different.
Although some recruiting websites don't list Plumlee as having a scholarship offer from Duke, Perky Plumlee said coach Mike Krzyzewski called and offered Marshall last August after Duke's elite camp.
But Plumlee is taking his time making a decision. He said he has some ideas about how to narrow the long list of schools he's interested in, but he is taking his time.
He has even been recruited by North Carolina, although the Tar Heels haven't offered him, either. He's a bit more of a free spirit than his brothers, particularly when it comes to enjoying the mountainous terrain around Arden, where he attends Christ School.
He likes to kayak, camp and hike. He knows he has to improve his skill level on offense, but he is rated the No. 32 player in his class by Scout.com by virtue of his size, agility and willingness to run the floor.
"I practice some moves, [and] I'm capable of doing certain things," Plumlee said. "I just need to read the defense better and take a deep breath, slow down a little bit on the offensive end."
During last year's Tournament of Champions, the Plumlees and the Zellers went out together for pizza and learned just how much they had in common.
As they discussed the many schools that had recruited their sons, they marveled at how similar their impressions were of the coaches and programs they had encountered.
Who knows? Although it seems unlikely, it's not out of the question that they could choose the same school. Indiana, Michigan and Purdue are among the schools that have recruited both, in addition to North Carolina.
Their games are different enough that they could fill different roles. And if North Carolina and then UCLA could find scholarships for both Wear twins, somebody may take a Plumlee and a Zeller.
If that happened, their parents finally could sit together at games without anybody asking why.
