‘The circus is coming to town’: UNC’s Hubert Davis preaches calm ahead of Duke

The circus is coming to town.

That’s the phrase Hubert Davis has repeated this week as No. 14 North Carolina (18-4, 6-3 ACC) prepares to host No. 4 Duke (21-1, 10-0 ACC), a reminder to his players that while the noise and history of college basketball’s most storied rivalry are unavoidable, their preparation can’t change. It’s a message Davis is fond of, one that’s often accompanied with Proverbs 4:25: “Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions.”

But, as much as players like Caleb Wilson have been trying to treat it like a regular week, those distractions inevitably rise. The freshman said campus has been “way different,” this week.

“I go to class and people are asking me about the game and stuff like that,” Wilson said. “It’s like, man, let’s just play, bro.”

Wilson’s been waiting for what feels like, in the eyes of the 18-year-old, an eternity.

At the freshman’s introductory press conference in October, Wilson said watching North Carolina beat Duke in Chapel Hill in 2024 was “what made me come here.”

“Everybody was really excited, pouring water on Coach Davis,” Wilson said, recalling the moment again on Thursday. “And then just going out on Franklin (Street) — I couldn’t do anything because I was a kid — but just seeing that atmosphere, seeing everyone out was definitely a lot of fun. It was just exhilarating, honestly.”

Immersed in the rivalry’s history

Wilson said he “loves” watching old UNC-Duke games, especially since he committed to North Carolina. He admitted he used to watch them in his high school classes. He remembers watching live, too, like when former Duke star Zion Williamson “blew his shoe out” at Cameron Indoor Stadium in 2019.

It’s also clear to Wilson how much his head coach remembers of the old UNC-Duke games. He said Davis has been “serious” this week and has shared many stories from his playing days.

“He was talking about how he remembers all of his 11 matchups with Duke,” Wilson said, later adding, “I can almost see him thinking back in his head when he’s talking about these stories... especially these stories he’s been telling us as of late about Duke, I can see him in his head thinking and envisioning exactly what was going on.”

Those memories are still fresh for Davis, but only one player on North Carolina’s roster, senior Seth Trimble, has logged meaningful minutes in this rivalry. The rest will be experiencing it for the first time on Saturday — circus and all.

Even new players know the importance

That reality can feel jarring in an era when roster continuity is no longer a given, but an outlier. And yet, the idea that the rivalry has somehow lost some luster — diluted by NIL, transfers and one-year pit stops — doesn’t hold much weight. Not in the UNC locker room. Not over at Duke, either.

“I don’t pay that any mind,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said with a laugh Thursday. “There’s no denying ... what this game stands for college basketball. I think people can be jealous of how much this game means.”

Trimble said, just hours later in Chapel Hill, “there’s a lot of people in this world that would die to be in my position.”

“It’s my last home game with the Duke-UNC matchup, so I’mma just make it the best that I can,” Trimble said Thursday. “But I’m doing a pretty good job of letting the guys know how much tension there is during this matchup. You know what the stakes are. You know the history.”

And, perhaps most importantly to this group of players, Trimble added, “you know how they beat us three times last year.”

Wilson echoed his captain’s message, saying “we haven’t beat them in a long time... like we haven’t beat them in probably, over 340 days, maybe more than that. And we lost to them in football this year. So for me, personally, we gotta get a win.”

While his sentiment was pure at heart, Wilson was a bit off in his estimation. Saturday will mark 700 days since the UNC men’s basketball team bested Duke. And, in all fairness, that can feel like “a long time” to a teenager — regardless of how remarkably tight this matchup has been.

That history is part of what makes this rivalry so special. It’s what Wilson is still learning, relishing in the chance to meet legends like Charlie Scott, as he did after North Carolina’s win at Georgia Tech. It’s what Trimble still loves to hear about in all the “Coach Davis” stories over the years. He still doesn’t tire of feeling his coach’s passion and said he’s “pretty confident” Davis will deliver a rousing pregame speech on Saturday.

For Davis, it comes from the heart. But it’s also routine. This week, to him, is no different. The circus is extra loud this time of year, but Davis said some form of it is “always here,” at North Carolina.

“I mean, if you can’t put on that uniform and be in that locker room and run out of that tunnel and play on that floor... then there’s a problem here,” Davis said. “I have nothing cooked up for Saturday, other than to be here.”

This story was originally published February 5, 2026 at 4:58 PM.