Tobacco Road by the numbers: How many games? How many farms? How many big match-ups?
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A requiem for Tobacco Road
Tobacco Road once facilitated North Carolina’s deep love affair with basketball, a sport that became a defining part of its culture. And the Big Four ACC schools along that stretch — North Carolina, N.C. State, Duke and Wake Forest — once had basketball influence. Now, like the tobacco crop itself, the best days are in the past. Here’s more from The News & Observer.
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A requiem for NC’s Tobacco Road as it loses stature in a changing college sports world
Photo gallery: Take a look back at Tobacco Road basketball action in NC through the years
Tobacco Road by the numbers: How many games? How many farms? How many big match-ups?
The trip from UNC to Duke is about 8 miles. Where’s the fan dividing line on 15-501?
From the archives: Postcard from the center of the Triangle’s college basketball universe
Saturday’s matchup between Duke and North Carolina is the latest in what has long been the greatest rivalry in college basketball and one of the greatest in American sport.
It’s a rivalry that has helped define Tobacco Road.
It’s the 49th time with both Duke and UNC ranked among the top 10 when playing each other.
That’s one of many numbers that help tell the story of Tobacco Road.
Here are others, in no particular order:
▪ 87,876 — tobacco farms in North Carolina in 1964, according to Matthew Vann, a tobacco researcher at N.C. State University, citing the ‘64 USDA Census of Agriculture.
▪ 1,507 — men’s basketball games, all time, among the Tobacco Road Big Four of Duke, N.C. State, North Carolina and Wake Forest.
▪ 1,294 — tobacco farms in North Carolina in 2017, according to the most recently available data from the agricultural census.
▪ 200 — number of Big Four games in which both teams have been ranked among the Top 25.
▪ 85 — times those Top 25 games have been between Duke and UNC.
▪ 48 — times, before Saturday, that Duke and UNC have met as Top 10 teams. That’s by far the most games between any two teams ranked in the Top 10 when playing each other.
▪ 14 — times UNC and N.C. State have met as Top 10 teams (with the Wolfpack 9-5 in those games). That’s the second-most Top 10 games between any two opponents, even still, despite the most recent such match-up coming in 1975.
▪ 24 — victories, for both UNC and Duke, in the 48 games they’ve met as Top 10 teams. That’s right: they’re 24-24 against each other in those match-ups.
▪ 406 — tobacco farms along Tobacco Road — in Durham, Orange and Wake counties — in 1997, according to Vann, the N.C. State tobacco researcher.
▪ 54 — tobacco farms in those three counties as of 2017, including four in Durham County.
▪ 8 — number of actual roads named Tobacco Road in North Carolina.
SOURCES: Matthew Vann, N.C. State assistant professor and tobacco researcher; USDA Census of Agriculture; www.sports-reference.com/cbb/; N.C. Department of Transportation.
This story was originally published January 31, 2024 at 5:45 AM.
