NCAA Final Four – The Greatest Rivalry in US Sports? Duke – North Carolina, they love to hate each other so much

It takes less than a quarter of an hour by car to cover the 12 kilometers that separate the two universities based in Durham and Chapel Hill, connected by the “Tobacco Road”, the small name of the 15-501 highway. Duke and North Carolina, so close and yet everything separates. Private Duke. North Carolina the public. Two statuses, two structures, two cultures. A geographical proximity but an eternal antagonism. Especially when it comes to basketball. In this area, it is a centuries-old rivalry that opposes these two, since their very first confrontation, January 24, 1920, for a victory of UNC, 38 to 25.

256 other duels followed, but the one scheduled for Saturday at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans will have an even more special flavor: for the very first time, the Blue Devils and the Tar Heels will do battle in the Final Four NCAA, in a semi-final which put the whole country in turmoil. Because the “Tobacco Road Rivalry” is not only the biggest in college basketball, but one of the most famous and intense in all of American sport.

Neither has reason to envy the other. North Carolina has won the university title six times. Duke five. But over the last thirty years, the Blue Devils have the advantage: 5-4. UNC will play its 21st Final Four this weekend, Duke its 17th. And if the Tar Heels lead the dance in direct confrontations, it is largely thanks to their dominance in the first years, like those 16 consecutive victories between 1921 and 1928. In reality, the two facies stand in a handkerchief of pocket, evidenced by this barely believable statistic: over 70 seasons, from 1950 to 2019, UNC scored 13,581 points against Duke and conceded 13,559. A difference of 22 points over 180 matches.

Art Heyman, the point of no return

If the year 1920 therefore marks the starting point of this relationship tinged with cordial hatred, it was not until the dawn of the 1960s that it really took off on the sporting level. She owes a lot to one man: Art Heyman. When he left high school, he was the most sought-after player by the biggest universities in the country. Heyman first signs a letter of intent to join North Carolina, before changing his mind at the last moment. He will finally wear the colors of Duke. On the side of Chapel Hill, the grand pardon is unthinkable.

Duke has yet to earn its present place in the college sports landscape. But Heyman instantly becomes Durham’s hero, and USC’s sworn enemy. “More than any other human being, Art helped Duke become a powerhouse in college basketball.“, wrote the former Blue Devils coach, Vic Bubas, on his death in 1992. From then on, each confrontation between the two teams would take an explosive, sometimes unhealthy turn.

Art Heyman establishes himself as the best player in the country (he will be the number one in the NBA draft when he leaves university in 1963) and becomes a target on the other side of Tobacco Road, which is far from displeasing to this sulphurous provocateur. In one of four games against UNC in his first season, Heyman was assaulted by Dieter Krause during a game. He got away with five stitches. Even the two coaches must be separated before coming to blows.

Blows are raining, blood is flowing

But the true founding act in the form of the rivalry’s point of no return can be set for the following season. On February 4, 1961, precisely. That day, Heyman first came to notice by shoving a UNC supporter who he believed wanted to pick on him. Then, while Duke leads by one point at the end of the game, he commits a big foul on Larry Brown, the star of the Tar Heels, under the circle. The future legendary NBA coach swings the ball and immediately responds by throwing himself at the Devils scorer. The collective rivalry is doubled here by a personal enmity. These two are settling scores that are several years old. They grew up together, crossed paths on the playgrounds and, already, hardly liked each other.

Then follows a gigantic melee of more than ten minutes, involving the players but also the staff and supporters of both camps. Another future celebrity, Donnie Walsh (general manager then president of the Indiana Pacers in the 2000s), attacks Heyman in turn. The latter is excluded and then suspended for a large part of the season, just like Brown and Walsh. It doesn’t matter: Duke won this match. “When I was on the floor, my goal was to score points and win. Not to make friends,” summed up later Art Heyman, the man who forever changed the relationship between the two universities.

Over the next six decades, blows often rained down. Sometimes blood flowed. In 1992, the image of Eric Montross lining up, a trickle of blood under his left eye, his three late shots to allow North Carolina to beat the great Duke team then at the top of their game remained ingrained. in memories. Fifteen years later, Gerald Henderson’s elbow remained anchored in the fractured nose of Tyler Hansbrough. And so on. The pans sometimes even drag themselves to the NBA. Like when, in 2014, far from the ball, the same Hansbrough tackled ex-Blue Devil Mike Dunleavy Jr to the ground during a match between Toronto and Chicago.

Les “Cameron Crazies”

But Duke – UNC is above all a garland of great basketball moments. Memorable matches, each side marrying its fair share of satisfactions and sufferings. Heels fans are still cursing Austin Rivers’ buzzer-winning three-pointer (who, like Art Heymans once, was coveted by both universities) in 2012 as North Carolina led by ten points by just over ten minutes. of the end. In 1974, eight points were scored in the final 17 seconds of regulation time for one of the most iconic endings in NCAA history in a game-winning overtime for UNC.

Ten years later, it was against Duke that Michael Jordan, legend among North Carolina legends, played his very last home game in the NCAA. MJ emerged victorious after a double overtime. Mythical, too. When UNC inaugurated its new venue, the Dean Smith Center, in 1986 later, it was still the sworn enemy who was there for that evening with great fanfare. No later than March 5, for coach Mike Krzyszewski’s farewell to the public at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Tar Heels were obviously opposite, too happy to spoil Coach K.’s ceremony by winning.

The supporters also play a capital role in the rivalry and the maintenance of its flame. Duke’s, especially. The famous “Cameron Crazies”. They explain in large part why it is so difficult to win in Durham, but are also a main reason for the hatred generated by Duke, the most hated university team in all of the United States. They are said to be insufferable and arrogant.

Blake Cockrum is a journalist for Keeping it Heel. He doesn’t like the Blue Devils, and that’s an understatement: “Everybody hates Duke fans, way beyond the Chapel Hill area. Bad faith is consubstantial with the supporter, but the Cameron Crazies go beyond all limits in this area. Others may be hated and are hated, in Kansas, Kentucky and arguably even North Carolina, but the Blue Devils deserve the top prize. This exuberance, this arrogance, this constant overconfidence… Maybe I’m too critical of them, I don’t know. But they do everything to be hated and they succeed.”

A Final Four for history

Whether they like it or not, and they do, believe it, Tar Heels and Blue Devils are inseparable. Their rivalry has taken such a place in American sport that their reunion is still an event and this will be more than ever the case this weekend, with the context of the Final Four. From CE Final Four, especially. Mike Krzyzewski will end his sumptuous career there. Perhaps with a sixth coronation. His North Carolina alter ego, Hubert Davis, wants to write the opposite story: he would be the first crowned coach in his first season on the bench in the NCAA.

We can count on them to play, if necessary, the card of relative appeasement. They are the wisdom surety in the middle of the powder keg. Mike Krzyzewski had a respectful relationship with Hubert Davis’ predecessor, Roy Williams. “Roy and I have, I think, done basketball and the NCAA a favor, recalled Coach K. last year. We measure how lucky we are to be in our place, and we also recognize the quality of the opposing coach, of the opposing team. That’s not to say there haven’t been some tense moments, but our relationship has been healthy and respectful..”

Roy Williams, he has always stressed how much he liked to rub shoulders with the Blues Devils, particularly in their den of Cameron Indoor Stadium: “The atmosphere is fantastic there and that’s what I love about college basketball. I’m flattered to be whistled there. What I don’t like is the way the game sometimes ends for us there, or the way we play. But never the atmosphere. ” There is no need to love each other to respect each other. On the contrary, one would almost be tempted to say. This reciprocal hatred is their most precious common good.