‘It’s a rivalry?’ North Carolina and NC State ready for another basketball showdown
North Carolina’s Ian Jackson, being from the Bronx, being a freshman, being just 16 games into his college basketball career, can probably be excused.
UNC’s Drake Powell, being from Pittsboro, knew better.
It was late Tuesday night and the Tar Heels had dispatched of SMU, winning 82-67 at the Smith Center. The game had been rehashed -- of UNC’s strong defense and rebounding, of Jackson scoring 15 of his 18 points in the second half after Powell had 14 of his 17 points in the first. Of R.J. Davis scoring a team-high 26.
The subject soon turned to the Heels’ next game – at N.C. State on Saturday.
It was mentioned to Jackson it would be his first time playing in a rivalry game and …
“It’s a rivalry?” Jackson said, smiling.
Um, yes. And while some media fingers were typing that reply into social-media perpetuity – Drake Maye probably got a laugh over it when he saw it – Jackson quickly added more context to his quick-twitch three-word reply.
“Nah, N.C. State’s a great team. Every team in the ACC is a great team. It’s a hard conference,” Jackson said. “We just want to go out there and play our game. We’re not looking at it as a rivalry. We just want to go out there and win another game in conference play. But they’re a great team.”
So it is a rivalry, Jackson was asked.
“Whatever you guys want to describe it as,” he said, breaking into another smile as he deferred to the media.
Powell has a much better feel for the State-Carolina rivalry, growing up with it, around it. While the Heels’ basketball games against Duke take on a certain enormity and will again this season, State-Carolina remains State-Carolina.
It is for UNC coach Hubert Davis, who well recalls his games against the Pack at Reynolds Coliseum. It is for the players who lost to the Wolfpack last March in the ACC tournament championship game. And the Lenovo Center should be rocking Saturday when the ball goes up.
Powell expects as much. He, too, is a freshman who will be experiencing the game for the first time.
“I’m very excited, very excited,” Powell said.
Powell said he asked sophomore Elliot Cadeau about the atmosphere at rivalry games, what to expect at Duke and N.C. State.
”About how hectic it was,” Powell said.
The answer: very hectic. And loud. The Wolfpack student body will be fully engaged and anything but welcoming for the guys in blue.
R.J. Davis has been there and experienced that. A graduate student, the Heels’ guard has had his moments against the Pack. Many have been good ones, including UNC’s 67-54 victory in Raleigh last season.
N.C. State shot 27% from the field, missing 18 of its 20 shots from 3-point range, in that one. It was the Pack’s worst shooting percentage against the Heels since 1954 and made for an anticlimactic finish.
But the last time Davis was on the court with the Wolfpack, at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., the Pack was the team cutting down the nets after their 2024 ACC tournament title.
Davis had a 30-point game but on 10-of-26 shooting – he was 4-for-13 on 3’s. D.J. Horne had 26 points and D.J. Burns 20 for the Wolfpack in State’s 84-76 victory, completing its amazing five-game run through the tournament.
Horne and Burns are gone, along with Casey Morsell, but some familiar Wolfpack faces remain: Michael O’Connell, Jayden Taylor and Ben Middlebrooks among them.
And there’s Dontrez Styles, an old, familiar face. He was once Davis’ teammate at UNC before transferring to Georgetown. Now. he’s playing for the Pack.
“It’s always been a good back-and-forth history,” R.J. Davis said Tuesday of the State-Carolina rivalry. ”It’s going to be a great atmosphere on Saturday. I remember playing against D.J. Burns and every time he got the ball how the crowd goes wild. It’s just fun matchups.
“At the end of the day, they’re up the street in Raleigh and we’re in Chapel Hill. There’s a lot of bickering going back and forth, but at the end of the day it’s just basketball and I’m looking forward to it. And I’m looking forward to playing ‘Trez.’”
This story was originally published January 9, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
