In years when power dynamic is out of whack, UNC-Duke rivalry reigns above all else
Mike Krzyzewski has been through enough of these games — four decades of them, as he’s quick to point out — that he has very little uncertainty about what to expect from North Carolina. The Tar Heels may be below .500, and Duke may be a top-10 team, but that disparity will mean less Saturday than it would in other circumstances.
And everyone knows why.
“We’re going to get an amazing effort from them,” Krzyzewski said. “They do some things better than we do.”
Such is the rivalry between UNC and Duke, especially in a year like this when the usual power dynamic — so often a clash of titans on relatively equal footing — tilts out of whack
Only a lunatic would argue that the games aren’t quite as good when both teams are elite, because the continually exceptional talent has been a key ingredient in the stew that is this rivalry, along with proximity and the differing nature of the two schools and everything else.
But there is a little something extra when one team is the hunter and the other is the hunted. When both teams have their eyes on a national title, this game is just one stepping stone toward that goal — an important one, to be sure, but it’s along the way, not the destination.
Some years, it’s almost like the starpower of the players (Zion Williamson’s introduction to the rivalry, Tyler Hansbrough’s streak in Cameron) overwhelms everything else.
This year, for one team, at least, these two games are about all it has left to salvage its season.
This year, the rivalry reigns above all else.
North Carolina’s run-in is so difficult, it’s going to take a miracle for the Tar Heels just to get to .500, let alone into position for a postseason tournament. Of their nine remaining regular-season games, five are against some combination of Duke, Virginia, Louisville and Syracuse, currently your top-four in the ACC. Three of the others are against N.C. State and Wake Forest, which both will be looking for blood. (The ninth is at Notre Dame, no pushover either.)
Whatever is still out there for North Carolina starts and ends Saturday against Duke. This is what the Tar Heels have left.
The most evocative moment of that notion came in the midst of Duke’s dismal 1995 season, which gave us, at the least, a glorious overtime game in Cameron thanks to Jeff Capel’s halfcourt heave. It turns out that’s the exception. For the most part, the years when there’s a serious talent disparity, that has been duly reflected on the court. (And, it should be noted, Capel’s shot forced overtime in a game UNC won.)
In terms of meaning, though, those are the years when these games matter most, when the pressure is highest on the team expected to win, the one that can’t fathom losing. The 24-point home loss in 2009 prompted Krzyzewski’s admission that “they’re better than us,” with UNC near the top of a dominant cycle against Duke, one that would crest with a national title only for Duke to return the favor a year later and win a second other before North Carolina got back to the Final Four. The Tar Heels would announce their ascension with a win at Duke to close out the 2016 regular season on their way.
For all the times both teams have been ranked in the top 10, it’s the years when they’re less than peers on the court that the rivalry truly makes itself felt. Those are the years when the talent doesn’t wash over everything, when there’s nothing bigger than these games. Those are the years when the celebrities leave the rituals to the true believers. Those are the years when it means more.
No one — no player, no fan — is looking ahead to Greensboro or Atlanta. There’s just this. College basketball proceeds on apace, but in this little world, for the moment, there’s only Duke and North Carolina.
