Duke v. UNC Rivalry Edition 2023

BURNING BLUE

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE: GISELLE PRESENTS

THU, MAR 16 7:30PM

FRI, MAR 17 8PM

SAT, MAR 18 2PM

SAT, MAR 18 8PM

SUN, MAR 19 1PM

PHOTO BY ROSALIE O’CONNOR

Duke’s Young, UNC’s Nance to reunite as foes

By Andrew Long Blue Zone Editor

In a game and on a team stacked with the dynamism and exuberance of youth, the calming, steady presence of a veteran cannot be overstated. In the turbulent season Duke is enduring, that has been further proven.

Ryan Young has had to work for his place in head coach Jon Scheyer’s rotation. The 23-yearold graduate transfer from Northwestern, though lacking the five-star label of many of his fresh-faced teammates, has been an integral piece to the better parts of the Blue Devils’ campaign so far. His nowfamous pump fakes have yet to be consistently or effectively shut down and his place in Scheyer’s starting five is, while far from guaranteed, regular. He has been a stable, reliable piece of a Duke team which has by and large been neither.

Come Saturday, come ESPN College GameDay, come the rival Tar Heels, the Blue Devils need stability and reliability now more than ever.

The same can be said for North Carolina. Hoping to spark a return to form, head coach Hubert Davis is also relying on the steadied shoulders of a former Northwestern standout— Pete Nance—to rebuild.

For Young and Nance, this game is not just the chance for bragging rights, but the chance to play against a former teammate and longtime friend on the biggest stage college basketball has to offer.

Purple pride to blue blood

Throughout their time at Northwestern, Young and Nance struggled, studied and grew in tandem.

Young waited until year two to suit up for head coach Chris Collins—a former Blue Devil himself—and made an instant impact when he did, leading the team in rebounds and starting every game that year. On the flip side, Nance took a couple of years to grow into his role, eventually blossoming into a highly effective rebounder and scorer, up there with the Big Ten’s best during his senior season. During their four years together, however, Northwestern struggled to stay afloat as the small fish in the Big Ten’s Great Lakes, posting an aggregate record of 45-73.

“I really did love my experience at Northwestern,” Young said at Duke’s preseason media day. “I love the coaching staff and my teammates there, and I love the school. But through four years, we just really didn’t hit the goals that we wanted to in terms of winning and losing.”

In spite of difficulties on the court, Young and Nance’s relationship continued to develop off it. They were roommates for various stretches and became close friends by their graduation, training together over the summer and staying in touch despite no longer sharing a campus, much less a dorm.

“We’ve definitely kept in touch and grabbed food a few times together while we’ve been down here,” Young told The Chronicle. “I’ve been following him, watching all [North Carolina] games, hoping for the best for him. We trained a lot in the offseason as well. So [I’m] excited to see him staying successful.”

“We’ve been through thick and thin,” Young added. “Some losing streaks, some winning times, right together for the third year. But overall, just growing together for four years, it’s hard to put it into words, because I feel like I’ve known him for a long time.”

A different type of rivalry

Young’s transfer to Duke and Nance’s transition to life in Chapel Hill have in many ways been parallel experiences.

The former’s improvement, especially on the offensive front, in a stacked Blue Devil frontcourt has been astounding, and the latter continues to flaunt his NBA potential with a Swiss army knife of skills inside and outside the post.

At ACC Tipoff in October 2022, one reporter asked Davis what surprised him about Nance’s game. His assessment was brief but powerful.

“I’m surprised that he’s not in the NBA,” Davis said. “With where the NBA and the game of basketball has gone, with mobile bigs, I’m surprised he’s not in the NBA.”

While Young likely doesn’t possess the same professional ceiling as his longtime friend, as we have seen time and again with DukeNorth Carolina games, the good, the bad, the spectacular and the ugly get thrown out the window as soon as the clock starts rolling. It’s a game about then and there—nothing else and no one else.

At least it usually is. Nance and Young are individually, in many ways, outsiders to a

rivalry with longstanding, deep, personal roots. This game, which perennially carries tons of expectation and hope by longtime fans of either program, now features two players whose principal experience with the other team is four years on the same.

In part due to proximity, another part to history and an even bigger part to basketball prestige, every minute detail of this game will be tactfully planned and highly scrutinized. Plays will be carefully drawn up and hastily erased and matchups will be made, remade and shifted as the flow of play requires. Coincidentally for Young and Nance, there is a decent to good chance their tactical instructions will place them directly opposite one another Saturday evening.

“If we’re matched up against each other, one would think we’d go into a bit of gridlock,” Young said. “To guard each other for four years, he knows all my moves. I know his moves.”

Their time at Northwestern gave Young and Nance plenty of exposure to each other, but as we have seen with Young’s immense offensive uptick—including a perfect 20-point doubledouble against Florida State—and Nance starting every game this season, both players have leveled up in year five.

“It’ll be interesting to see how we change as players after spending a very similar four years together,” Young said. “It’s just exciting.”

Friends to rivals to friends again

Without hyperbole, Saturday’s game has the potential to define both Duke and North Carolina’s seasons. Key to the success of both teams are two Northwestern transfers with a point to prove, a fanbase to appease and a ship to right.

Despite the stakes, despite the inferno of fandom that encircles the Triangle this time of year, after a brief 40-minute anomaly and the subsequent buzzer Saturday, Young and Nance will resume their positions as friends first and rivals second.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep a straight face the whole time,” Young said.

“I’m excited to see [Nance] staying successful,” he added, chuckling. “Hopefully, he’s not too successful.”

Holly Zhuang | Staff Photographer

The addition of graduate center Ryan Young has given Duke a reliable frontcourt veteran.

THROUGH THE YEARS

An oral history of Scheyer’s rivalry days as a player

By Max Rego

Associate Sports Editor

On Saturday, Duke and North Carolina need a win for similar reasons: To keep pace in the battle for a double bye in the ACC tournament, and to add to their respective NCAA tournament resumes.

But for the Blue Devils, offsetting the Tar Heels’ recent mojo in the series might be even more essential. After all, North Carolina not only won in the final home game for Mike Krzyzewski last March, it ended his career (and the thrilling Duke postseason run) in the Final Four in New Orleans last April. Plus, of the last five meetings between the two programs, last season’s commanding win in Chapel Hill represents the Blue Devils’ only victory.

The rivalry has not been quite this lopsided, in fact, since the mid-to-late 2000s, when the Tar Heels won six of seven against Duke— including four straight in Cameron Indoor Stadium, a feat only matched by Tim Duncan and Wake Forest in the 1990s. During those few years, North Carolina reached two Final Fours and won a national title in 2009, while Duke could only reach the Sweet 16 once during that span. But Krzyzewski would eventually capture his fourth national title in 2010, as the core of Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith made their mark.

With Scheyer coaching in his first Duke-North Carolina game this weekend, a look back at his playing career, in the context of the rivalry, felt appropriate. The Chronicle spoke with former Duke players, college basketball analysts and a former staff member on those few years, and what they had to say (edited for length and clarity) is below. Here is an oral history of a fascinating time in Duke-North Carolina lore.

March 4, 2006: No. 15 North Carolina 83, No. 1 Duke 76: A stunner. On Senior Night for Duke greats JJ Redick and Shelden Williams, the Tar Heels played spoiler. The spring prior, North Carolina won its fourth national title, and first under Roy Williams, who returned to Chapel Hill in April 2003 after a decade-plus at Kansas. In the wake of that title, North Carolina lost its top seven scorers to the pros, but help was on the way. Williams brought in one of the top freshman classes in the country, featuring four-stars Bobby Frasor, Danny Green and Marcus Ginyard. And Tyler Hansbrough.

In his first trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium, Hansbrough (27 points, 10 rebounds) helped the Tar Heels seize control midway through the second half. Add in a cold-as-ice night from Redick (5-of21 from the field), and North Carolina snagged its first win in Cameron Indoor since 2001.

It was a gut-punch for Duke, and an early sign of what Hansbrough brought to the table.

Greg Paulus, former Duke point guard from 2005-09: It was emotional, and I know how much we wanted to send those seniors out [with a win].

Seth Davis, Trinity ‘92 and CBS Sports college basketball analyst: I remember seeing [Hansbrough] at the Peach Jam, and he had a big reputation and I wanted to watch him play. And I saw his first game, and I said, “Is this what everyone’s like making a big fuss about? Like, I don’t get it?” And then I watched him play a second game, and I’m like, “I mean, he’s pretty good, yeah maybe a little better than I thought but I don’t understand why everyone’s talking about, like he’s so great.” The third or fourth game, I’m like, “Alright, I got it.”

Jay Bilas, former Duke forward and ESPN analyst: He’s one of the relative few players where you could use the word relentless, and it applied. He was truly a relentless player. But I saw that in him in high school, where you go, “Okay, they’re going to the Final Four with this guy.”

Davis: It was the way, when I’m talking about playing hard, but he played consistently hard. I mean, even in high school, it was just like, he played so hard, every possession, that he just wore people out with his level of concentration.

February 7, 2007: No. 5 North Carolina 79, No. 16 Duke 73: With Redick and Williams off to the pros, a new era was underway in Durham. A fourman freshman class consisting of Scheyer, forwards Gerald Henderson Jr. and Lance Thomas and center Brian Zoubek entered the picture.

In his Duke-North Carolina debut, Scheyer showed just how much fight he had in him, dropping 26 points in 38 minutes, including four triples. The Blue Devils came up short, but their freshman guard had arrived.

Bilas: Jon may be the most underrated superstar that Duke’s had. He was a fabulous player, and had four just fantastic years where, he was an outstanding all-around player. At 6-5 or so, he could handle it, he could pass it, he was an excellent 3-point shooter.

Spatola: There’s no player I’ve ever been around in my career who is a better winner than Jon. And I don’t mean that sort of vaguely, like the dude figured out how to win. And I think you know, he was a good player, he was not the most gifted, he was certainly not the most gifted athlete. But Jon Scheyer figured out how to win, like he was going to figure out how to win in practice, he was going to figure out how to win games.

Davis: He had a very cerebral approach to the game, he just had a consistent level of effort, he had a real toughness about him, it was a competitive [approach]. He was locked in, he wasn’t gonna give you like a 3-for-13 from three type of game. If he wasn’t making threes, he found other ways to beat you.

08 represented a rebound year for the program, as the Blue Devils ended 13-3 in the ACC and were a No. 2 seed in the Big Dance (before losing to West Virginia in the second round).

Part of that rebound was a long-awaited win in Chapel Hill, the first double-digit road victory for Duke in the series since 2002. Thanks to 13 triples and six double-figure scorers— including Scheyer, who had 17 off the bench— Duke proved that, with the core of Scheyer, Henderson, Thomas and freshmen Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith, it could hold its own against the Tar Heels.

Paulus: I remember us sharing the ball and shooting the ball really well.

Spatola: There were two times where we beat them, and happened to beat them over there, it could have been at our place, but we beat them over there, and I was like, “Oh, my God, like, how in the world did we do this?” Because I felt going into the game that they were much better than us. And that was one of those years and then the other was 2012, the year Austin [Rivers] hit that shot.

Paulus: We grew up together. When those guys came in as freshmen, we had one of the youngest teams in the country at that point. You’re learning together, you’re working together, you’re growing together.

Spatola: I vaguely remember Jon having a night, and it was very typical Jon. It was just kind of who he was. But I do remember that being a year that I didn’t think we were gonna be able to win, certainly over there.

Paulus: You try to work hard enough to be in that game and be in those moments.

Couresty of Duke Athletics

Jon Scheyer averaged 22 points his senior year against the Tar Heels.

Chris Spatola, former Duke director of basketball operations: In my five years there, there was no player who consumed one of our scouting reports more than Tyler Hansbrough. He was the toughest guy, in my estimation, and you can ask the other guys, but in my estimation, he was the toughest guy to prepare for.

Paulus: He’s so cerebral … you can see him making those coach-type plays. He had such a feel for those types of moments.

February 6, 2008: No. 2 Duke 89, No. 3 North Carolina 78: Going into this one, Duke had lost three straight to the Tar Heels. However, 2007-

Spatola: When you’re going over there, there’s nothing extraneous. Families didn’t travel over there, we were a very limited travel party, we were in our own little camp and the home team had a lot to deal with. The second game of the year, College Gameday was usually there, there was a lot of home distraction that, when you went on the road, you could kind of circle the wagons and then use their crowd as a little bit of a motivating factor.

Bilas: [Scheyer was] just a fantastic player that I don’t think has gotten near the credit he deserves for being one of the all time greats at Duke. There

See ORAL HISTORY on Page 10

Pre-K: Inside the early days and origins of the rivalry

By Rachael Kaplan Assistant Blue Zone Editor

For 42 years, “Coach K” and “the rivalry” were intrinsically linked. Mike Krzyzewski dominated the Duke-North Carolina narrative, driving the competition and fueling the fire. Without his familiar face as the front man, many have questioned the future of the rivalry. The 1,560 Duke students camped out in Krzyzewskiville, and the hundreds more who fell short in their hunt for that coveted real estate, disagree.

Just as the rivalry didn’t die with Krzyzewski, it was not born with him, either. Duke and North Carolina have been facing off on the hardcourt since 1920, and those first 60 years set the stage for the modern landscape of Triangle college basketball.

The two programs’ first matchup took place January 24, 1920. Both true football schools at the time, basketball took a backseat in priority, funding and publicity for the first few years. The Tar Heels dominated the first decade, winning all but four 1920s matchups. Duke football head coach Eddie Cameron took over the program in 1929, guiding it into Southern Conference contention and the national spotlight. Cameron kept the rivalry competitive throughout his tenure, though he transitioned to the athletic director position following World War II. The early days of the rivalry were still heated and competitive, but not quite up to modern standards. It would be a few decades until that present-day hostility revealed itself.

A coach scorned

While Duke and North Carolina, fueled by their eight-mile proximity and perennial success, have always had an antagonistic athletic relationship, it was exacerbated in 1959. Tar Heel head coach Frank McGuire had firmly cemented his program atop the college basketball ranks, winning the 1957 national championship to cap off an undefeated season. The New York native dominated the Northeast recruiting scene,

and Art Heyman was the player to get in the 1959 class. He had signed his national letter of intent to play for McGuire in Chapel Hill, but his family visit went sour. Heyman’s stepfather and McGuire got into an argument and Heyman decommitted from North Carolina.

“I had to step in between them,” Heyman said about the incident, per GoDuke.com. “My stepfather called Carolina a basketball factory and McGuire didn’t like that. They were about to start swinging at each other.”

Shortly after Heyman’s initial recruitment, Duke brought in Vic Bubas as its next head coach. Bubas was hired off of N.C. State’s staff where he had worked under head coach Everett Case for eight years. The Gary, Ind., native was an expert recruiter and continued to pursue Heyman despite his commitment, specifically targeting his family. His persistence paid off.

“He charmed my mother and stepfather,” Heyman said. “They made me go to Duke.”

McGuire’s failure to maintain one of the top players in the country, and the fact that he lost Heyman to his rival, drove the rivalry to new heights. When the Blue Devil and Tar Heel freshmen teams met in 1960, Heyman was punched in the mouth, an injury that required five stitches. The violence was indicative of what was to come, as the forward was soon to set the rivalry ablaze.

In the 1960-61 season, Heyman was starting for the Blue Devils as a sophomore. Duke had just won the ACC tournament before losing in the East Regional final of the 1960 NCAA tournament to NYU. The first Tobacco Road matchup of the season resulted in a 76-71 Duke loss. North Carolina’s Doug Moe shut down Heyman through the final 35 minutes. The Blue Devils took the loss personally, winning six straight and climbing to fourth in the AP Poll with a 15-1 record entering the rematch. The Tar Heels were ranked fifth at 14-2.

The game was ugly. With 15 seconds remaining, Duke led 80-75 after two Heyman free throws. North Carolina guard Larry

Brown drove to the basket and was fouled by Heyman. That hard, likely unnecessary foul was enough to cause the tension to boil over. Brown threw the ball at Heyman and the two began exchanging blows. Both benches quickly cleared as policemen rushed onto the court to break up the brawl.

While the on-court violence is exemplary of both school’s feelings towards each other, the events that followed feel familiar to anyone involved in the rivalry. Debate immediately ensued regarding the first punch, with much of the media claiming Heyman dealt the initial blow. Bubas’ response? The coach called a press conference the next day to play the footage of the fight for every media member in attendance, clearly showing Brown striking Heyman first.

“I think at that point Duke replaced [N.C.] State as Carolina’s arch rival, and basically that’s been the case ever since,” journalist and longtime Duke expert Jim Sumner told The Chronicle.

“The Fight,” as it was coined, proved disastrous for both programs’ seasons. Heyman,

Brown and Tar Heel Donnie Walsh were suspended for the remainder of the season. That season was McGuire’s last with North Carolina, as his recruiting tactics had gotten him into trouble with league administrators, resulting in NCAA probation for the Tar Heels. He resigned and was replaced with eventual North Carolina legend Dean Smith.

Back and forth

Though the Tar Heels would win the regular-season finale, defeating the Blue Devils 69-66 in overtime, McGuire’s departure set Duke off on a winning spree it would maintain for most of the 1960s. Through the 1965-66 season, the Blue Devils had won nine of the last 11 matchups, two of which came in the ACC tournament. Those two losses, though, were crucial for Smith’s career with North Carolina.

On January 6, 1965, the Tar Heels fell hard to Wake Forest, their fourth-consecutive loss. Frustration with Smith had reached a breaking

See ORIGINS on Page 12

Courtesy of Duke Athletics

Art Heyman, who helped Duke reach its first Final Four in 1963, played a key role in defining the Tobacco Road Rivalry as fans have come to see it today.

Scheyer, Davis and a rivalry at a crossroads

By Jonathan Levitan Sports Editor

On a rainy December night in New York, Duke waltzed into Madison Square Garden for a nationally televised matchup against Iowa. The win that followed was relatively unremarkable; the Blue Devils shut down Hawkeye star Kris Murray and cruised to a 74-62 victory behind their defense.

But there was something undeniably remarkable about the calm with which Duke, with its brand new roster and firstyear head coach, conducted its business under the spotlight at the World’s Most Famous Arena.

“The Garden’s special. It’s a special place, and one of my guys [team spokesperson] Mike DeGeorge told me earlier that between playing and coaching at Duke, I’ve been here 24 times,” head coach Jon Scheyer said after the win. “And I actually couldn’t believe that. We’ve been here a lot through the years, but it was a different experience walking out.”

Among the factors that helped Scheyer and the Blue Devils successfully navigate one of the nation’s tougher nonconference schedules, one punctuated that night in New York, is this underlying sense that the 35-year-old has been here, done that at nearly every turn. For the youngest head coach in the Power Five, that is not to be taken for granted.

That experience is something that makes Scheyer unique as he looks to fill some impossibly large expectations in Durham. One thing that he does have on his predecessor is the knowledge of what it’s like to lace up for the Blue Devils, having once lived through the expectations that so often come with superstar status inside Cameron Indoor Stadium.

“I think it’s just a surreal feeling, right?” Scheyer said of coaching his alma mater at ACC Tipoff in October 2022, echoing a sentiment shared by Louisville head coach Kenny Payne. “The decision you make when you’re 16, 17 or 18 where you go to that school, never once did

it cross my mind … I feel that responsibility, not just being the head coach to be successful, but to carry the culture forward.”

A few miles down Tobacco Road, North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis—now in his second year on the job—is in a similar position as a former Tar Heel himself. When the two teams meet Saturday evening for the first matchup since 2003 without one of Mike Krzyzewski or Davis’ predecessor Roy Williams, the once-parallel paths of Scheyer and Davis will cross at last.

I think it’s just a surreal feeling, right? The decision you make when you’re 16, 17 or 18 where you go to that school, never once did it cross my mind … I feel that responsibility, not just being the head coach to be successful, but to carry the culture forward.

When they do, the culture that Scheyer speaks of—at least that piece of it belonging to the infamous Tobacco Road rivalry—will come to a crossroads. Which way does it go next?

‘The foundation will never change’

Both Davis and Scheyer have already made their own marks on their respective programs within the infrastructure left behind for them at North Carolina and Duke.

“I think the stamp is me personally, my personality,” Davis said when asked about his personal stamp on North Carolina at ACC Tipoff. “… The foundation will never change as long as I’m here. It’s been tried and tested and proven successful in some place that I’m not going to veer or go away from. I’m just not. I believe in it. Carolina will always be and always look like Carolina. … I’m walking the same path, but I got to do it in my shoes with my own personality.”

The question of whether the crosstown rivalry will feel or be different with new

leaders, though, is a fair one, considering the stability that figures like Krzyzewski, Williams and longtime Tar Heel head coach Dean Smith have brought to the sidelines over the years. Before the February 2022 installment of the rivalry, an 87-67 Duke win in Chapel Hill, those three were the only head coaches involved for more than three seasons dating back to 1980. Bill Guthridge and Matt Doherty bridged the gap between Smith’s retirement in 1997 and Williams’ arrival in 2003.

Now, more than ever, the reality that the rivalry in question goes deeper than its head coaches is apparent.

Take March 5, 2022, when the unranked Tar Heels stunned Duke, the Cameron Indoor crowd and the wider college basketball world by shredding the Blue Devils 94-81 in Krzyzewski’s final game on Coach K Court. For one celebratory, then disastrous night in Durham, everybody seemed to forget the anything-can-happen nature between the historic rivals.

One month later, the two met again for an unprecedented Final Four matchup and turned in

an instant classic. The Tar Heels overcame the odds again, closing the final chapter of Krzyzewski’s storied career with an 81-77 win in New Orleans after Caleb Love, now in his junior season, buried a pivotal three in the closing minutes to send North Carolina to the title game.

The point? Even with a first-year head coach going up against the winningest head coach in the history of the sport, the Tobacco Road rivalry not only delivered, but proved its unpredictability once again.

Duke-North Carolina has become a self sustaining rivalry, with its former standouts now roaming the sidelines. No matter the stamp these two coaches choose for their respective programs, that never-ending conflict and friction between the schools does not seem to be going anywhere.

‘Mutual respect’

The one thing that might threaten the gravity of Saturday’s meeting at Cameron Indoor is the fact that both teams are on the outside looking in at the AP Top 25. Both debuted inside the top 10, with the Tar Heels as the preseason No. 1

See COACHES on Page 12

Morgan Chu | Staff Photographer

Head coach Jon Scheyer is in the midst of his first season at the helm for the Blue Devils.

JON SCHEYER

Duke men’s basketball head coach

The rivalry, as seen through students’ eyes

By Alex Jackson Associate Sports Editor

The Duke-North Carolina rivalry is in its own realm of competition. Just about any list of top sports foes will have the two schools in the top five—Bleacher Report even has it ranked as the No. 1 American sports rivalry, beating all of the great professional rivalries like Yankees-Red Sox and Celtics-Lakers. The hate between the two schools is legendary, and when they share a court, field or any other playing space, things can tend to get ugly.

At Duke, some students spend up to six weeks in a tent for the chance to see the enemies face off on a basketball court. Students on both sides completely buy into all the hate, trash talk and passion that comes with attending either of the schools. The fire between the Blue Devils and Tar Heels is undeniably intense no matter the sport, or who staffs the competing teams. But that opens an intriguing question: Does one of the greatest rivalries in sports exist outside of sports?

After all, the two schools sit just eight miles apart and share many characteristics. Both are top-tier academic institutions and have deeprooted North Carolina heritage—they even share blue as their primary school color, although the shade matters significantly. Before picking their affiliation, many students apply to both Duke and North Carolina in high school.

“I think it’s wholly dependent on where and how you meet them. Outside of basketball, I think that most of them, most of them, are really good people that are well worth talking to,” North Carolina freshman Jared Whittington said. “They’re interesting. They have really unique perspectives.”

“Honestly, outside of basketball, they’re good people, in my opinion,” Duke freshman Kevin Fan explained.

“I think they’re nice people,” Duke junior Jameson Burmeister said. “However, they all believe in the misconception that UNC is superior to Duke and I do not understand why.”

“I think they’re just like any other students,” North Carolina sophomore Lila Wilson said. “There are some that are kind of elitist, but it is

COLUMN

a really hard school to get into, so I respect them … I think they do think they are better than us.”

“I have a lot of friends that go to Duke, so I have nothing against them outside of sports. I think they’re great.” North Carolina sophomore Elio Jooss said.

Many students, especially those who grew up in North Carolina, have friends in enemy territory. Those relationships can be complicated as they attempt to balance the fine line of loving each other and hating each other’s choice of school.

For seniors Justin Williams and Peter Deering, this has become a familiar situation. The two Charlotte, N.C., natives have been friends since middle school and while they journeyed together throughout high school, they split ways for college, with Williams ending up in Durham and Deering, along with two of their other friends, finding his way to Chapel Hill. As far as how they look at each other, there’s no bad blood:

“A lot of my best friends go to UNC,” Williams said. “No hard feelings towards UNC students as a whole.”

“I’m friends with Justin, so I think they’re more or less the same as us,” Deering said.

That’s not to say that there is not some fierce back-and-forth between the four of them.

“[It’s] very, very intense. To the point where there’s too much anxiety around the games,” Williams noted. “First out of fear of your team losing, the second [being] you just can’t get chirped like that by your friends because it’s heinous. You gotta dish out the chirps as hard as they’re coming in. It gets rowdy.”

“We definitely have our chirps here and there,” Deering explained. “Unfortunately, for the last couple years it’s been pretty one-sided. [We] usually try to keep it positive.”

When it comes to the center of the rivalry, kind words are hard to find. From everyday smack-talk to booing Duke fans off Franklin Street, Blue Devils and Tar Heels are far from friendly when basketball is involved.

“Not it. They’re just not it,” Fan said of North Carolina basketball.

“I don’t like Duke basketball at all, or Coach K or any of that,” Wilson said. “I really liked last year. We beat him twice in a row and ended his career, so that was really fun.”

“We’re not that good this year, but they’re worse,” Duke freshman Jameson DiPalma said.

“I love the rivalry, but obviously I hate Duke basketball,” Jooss said.

“They haven’t done too well this year and I think ever since they got their new head coach, the program is headed downhill,” Burmeister

explained. “I think [Duke] is starting to find its grounding under Scheyer, and when I look at UNC basketball I don’t see that same brotherhood. I don’t see that same energy that Duke basketball has.”

For a select few, the rivalry has a bit of a different meaning. Robertson Scholars attend both universities in their four collegiate years. While they have a main affiliation, students within the program link the schools on a whole different level. Duke freshman and Robertson Scholar Jonathan Walker gave some insight into the duality of his position within the rivalry:

“Outside of basketball, I love ‘em. They’re good [people],” he said on his Chapel Hill counterparts. “But when it comes to basketball, I don’t know them.”

“It’s interesting. I’m going to support Duke 100%. Like last year in the Final Four game, [or] whenever UNC won, it [wasn’t] like ‘Oh, yay, UNC won,’ no, it was like ‘Duke lost,’” Walker added. “Being on both sides is interesting because you don’t want to see either team do bad, but if [I] had to, I want to see UNC do bad. I want [Duke] to do well.”

Academically, the Robertson Scholars rise above the rivalry to get the most out of the two top-notch institutions. But as close as they get as a group, there is always a little room for trash talk.

“It’s really funny, we act like we don’t know each other,” Walker explained. “Outside of basketball we’re best friends, but when it comes to basketball, it’s just straight animosity, honestly.”

Each student at these two schools sees and feels the rivalry differently. And no matter how many friends one has on the other side or how far from a basketball fan they consider themselves, there is no escaping what the rivalry is on the court.

However, this current generation of Duke and North Carolina students have never been more connected, and the hate that was once so fierce off the court seems to have dissipated quite a bit. Today’s students see each other on a similar level, perhaps ushering in a new style to this very historic rivalry.

Duke’s questions to answer against Tar Heels

Every Duke-North Carolina game dating back to the origins of the rivalry has had a heightened level of competitive flare. But this one is different.

It’s Duke’s first chance at redemption after the Tar Heels dealt two crushing blows last season, one in former head coach Mike Kryzyzewski’s last home game and one in the Final Four. It is Jon Scheyer’s first opportunity to gain the upper hand on his North Carolina counterpart, Hubert Davis. And, maybe most importantly, this year’s game sits within a crucial five-game stretch in the Blue Devils’ schedule in which they can prove whether they have the answer to some season-long questions plaguing this team.

For starters, can Duke stop the one-stepforward, one-step-backward dance that it did almost all of January? Alternating wins and losses is a recipe for early ACC and NCAA tournament exits, but that has been the harsh reality of much of conference play for the Blue Devils.

Fortunately for Duke, it gets a crack Saturday at North Carolina, and that matchup is the perfect opportunity to rid itself of the consistently inconsistent label. Almost every season has a moment that, when all the dust settles, can be looked at as the turning point. This game is going to be looked back on as that moment, for better or worse, for the Blue Devils.

Several times over the last month, it looked like Duke had its moment. The Blue Devils had a gritty 11-point comeback win against Pittsburgh Jan. 11, but then lost to Clemson three days later. They followed that loss up with a marquee win against then-No. 17 Miami, but couldn’t keep the momentum rolling in Blacksburg, Va., and fell to Virginia Tech.

Now, Duke is riding high off back-to-back wins against Georgia Tech and Wake Forest and has a legitimate opportunity for a staple win Saturday to mark its turning point.

The calendar is getting closer to March, so if the Tobacco Road rivalry isn’t enough to motivate Duke to get a statement win and go on a run, then what will be?

On a more micro level, Duke has another important question to answer: Who is going to be the go-to No. 2 option on offense behind Kyle Filipowski?

Filipowski has been nothing short of phenomenal this year. His scoring and rebounding have largely been the reason the Blue Devils have snuck away with some of the nail-biting wins they have. But if anything has become clear in recent weeks, it is that Filipowski alone is not enough. Even with his efficient 9-of-17 clip from the field for 29 points against Virginia Tech, the Hokies still managed to come out on top.

A number of different players have made their case to fill that role, but no one has done so on a consistent enough basis. Jeremy Roach is averaging 11.6 points per game, but his toe injury forced him to miss crucial ACC matchups so I am not ready to crown him the second option, despite his 21-point clinic against Wake Forest. Freshman Dariq Whitehead has come on strong in ACC play and was on his way to his best offensive game against Virginia Tech, but his leg sprain will sideline him for an unclear amount of time.

Dereck Lively II and Mark Mitchell have both shown potential too, but the former still has some development to undergo on the offensive side and the latter has only had four double-digit scoring performances in Duke’s last 10 games.

That leaves us with Tyrese Proctor, who I think is Duke’s best option as the No. 2 scorer. He is playing his best basketball of the season right now, and while his efficiency does need to improve, Proctor has been there late in games for the Blue Devils when they were in need of points.

On a positional basis, the Tar Heels present a great, but incredibly difficult, opportunity to prove how the Blue Devils are going to handle dominant bigs. Scheyer has had a juggling act all year of trading off between Lively and graduate transfer Ryan Young at center, and North Carolina’s Armando Bacot will force him to continue doing that.

The issue so far has been that having Lively on the floor means giving up something on offense, and having Young on the floor means giving up something on defense. North Carolina has been

sitting at or close to the top of the ACC in points per game for the whole year, so Duke is going to need offense. The flip side of that, though, is that Bacot is the Tar Heels’ leading scorer, so the Blue Devils will need someone to stop him from having a massive night.

If Young and Lively can figure out the right combination of production and minutes to both stifle Bacot’s scoring and give Duke offense from the center position, the ceiling of this team changes dramatically.

A loss against North Carolina doesn’t mean the season is over. But it would once again be another failed opportunity at turning a corner and more likely than not, would mean that the same questions that lie unanswered now will remain that way when the clock expires in Duke’s final game of the season, whenever that may be.

Jake Piazza

Holly Zhuang | Staff Photographer

Duke freshmen Kyle Filipowski (30) and Dereck Lively II (1) during a win in Durham.

Samantha Owusu | Staff Photographer

Duke students and the Blue Devil cheer from Section 17 during Countdown to Craziness.

Duke Street Pediatric Dentistry

Duke Street Pediatric Dentistry

Duke Street Pediatric Dentistry

Duke Street Pediatric Dentistry

Martha Ann Keels, DDS PhD

Martha Ann Keels, DDS PhD

Martha Ann Keels, DDS PhD

919.220.1416

Fellow: American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry

919.220.1416

Fellow: American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry

Erica A. Brecher, DMD MS

Erica A. Brecher, DMD MS

Martha Ann Keels, DDS PhD

Erica A. Brecher, DMD MS

Erica A. Brecher, DMD MS

M.Gentry Byrd, DDS, MPH

M.Gentry Byrd, DDS, MPH

M.Gentry Byrd, DDS, MPH

M.Gentry Byrd, DDS, MPH

919.220.1416 www.DukeStreetSmiles.com

919.220.1416 www.DukeStreetSmiles.com

2711 N. Duke Street Durham, North Carolina 27704

Fellow: American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry

2711 N. Duke Street Durham, North Carolina 27704

2711 N. Duke Street Durham, North Carolina 27704

2711 N. Duke Street Durham, North Carolina 27704

Fellow: American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry

Certified: American Board of Pediatric Dentistry

Certified: American Board of Pediatric Dentistry

American Board Pediatric Dentistry

Certified: American Board Pediatric Dentistry

have been so many kind of NBA lottery picks that have gone to Duke that sometimes people forget a guy like Scheyer, not forget, but they don’t give the same kind of credit to a guy like Scheyer, who was a fabulous player in every regard.

Spatola: Winning over there was as good as it gets, winning over there had its own little special feeling, and I’m sure they feel the same way. Winning in Chapel Hill was different than winning anywhere else.

February 11, 2009: No. 3 North Carolina 101, No. 5 Duke 87: Simply put, these Tar Heels were loaded, and cruised to a national championship by virtue of six double-digit wins in the NCAA tournament, including an emphatic win on Championship Monday against Michigan State.

In North Carolina’s fourth-straight win in Cameron Indoor, Hansbrough, the defending consensus national player of the year, had a modest evening (by his lofty standards) with 17 points and six rebounds. But Lawson, with 25 points on 8-of-11 from the field, lifted the Tar Heels over the top. Despite a 50-45 lead at intermission, Duke could not keep pace down the stretch, and Lawson was why.

Bilas: Ty Lawson was as fast with the ball as any point guard I can remember in my time in the game.

Davis: I’m sitting on press row. Ty Lawson had an unbelievable game, totally won the game for the Tar Heels. As the buzzer sounded, I’m sitting on press row, he’s five feet from me, he turns to the crowd to like nod at the crowd, and they were like, booing him or whatever. And he goes, “Yeah, f--- you.”

Paulus: Whenever you play North Carolina, one of the first things that you think about is how quickly they push the ball up the court, and Ty was a dynamic point guard that really put a lot of pressure on defenses.

Bilas: They were an offensive juggernaut, and they scored 90 points falling out of bed every morning, with Hansbrough being the best player, but they also had Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson, Danny Green. They had a bunch of pros on that team, but they played at a pace which was really intimidating.

Paulus: Whether it’s a nonconference or an ACC game, we knew we were gonna get the other team’s best shot.

Spatola: So it was Hansbrough, what are you going to do with him inside? How are you going to scheme to get him off the glass? And then how are we going to deal with Ty Lawson in transition, and the finishers that they have?

Bilas: They had so many weapons, there was not going to be an off night, because they could, absent foul trouble or an injury, they had so many players that could score. And they had no real weak area that you could attack.

March 6, 2010: No. 4 Duke 82, North Carolina

50: The script had flipped. Hansbrough, Lawson, Green and Ellington were off to the NBA, and Scheyer, Singler, Smith and company were ready to take advantage.

Against a rebuilding Tar Heel group that sat at 16-14 going into the contest, the Blue Devils dominated from start to finish, clinching a share of the ACC regular season title. In his final game in Cameron, Scheyer racked up 20 points, seven assists and five rebounds, while Zoubek (also playing in his final home contest) reeled in 13 boards, including five on the offensive glass. The Philadelphia native’s emergence was a major reason for Duke’s eventual run to the Final Four, and subsequent national title victory against Gordon Hayward and Butler.

Spatola: There were two games that year where I said to myself, “Man, we’re gonna have a really good shot at doing well in the tournament.” I never honestly thought we would win a national title that year, but I was like, “Man, we have a really good chance of advancing.” The first was the [Mar. 3] loss at Maryland towards the end of that season, and then the Senior Night game against Carolina.

Davis: It was very unusual for all three of those guys (Scheyer, Singler and Smith) to have a really good game in the same game. It was usually like, two of them would play really well, and one of them wouldn’t give you much, or maybe one of them will play great. I feel like the only game where all three of them were just lights out was the West Virginia game, [in]the semifinals at the Final Four.

Paulus: There were some unbelievable minds [at Duke] with Johnny Dawkins, Steve Wojciechowski, Chris Collins, Nate James, Chris Spatola, Mike Schrage, those were the coaches that I had an opportunity to learn from and still have relationships with today.

Bilas: It wasn’t the most physically gifted team that Coach K’s had, but it played, they had so many good players with Singler and Smith and Scheyer and Zoubek and Thomas, those guys. It was a team that played extraordinarily well together and they could really offensive rebound, and they had great versatility.

Davis: Brian Zoubek was the guy who for most of his career at Duke was kind of the butt of a lot of jokes, because he was this big, gangly player who was supposed to be really good and didn’t seem to be able to contribute much of anything. And his

dramatic improvement, really, I think it was just over the second half of the season, gave that team a dimension that not many teams had.

Spatola: We were so battle hardened. I mean, that group had been through so much, and that was kind of what typified that final season, that it wasn’t even so much about Carolina in that final game, although you wanted to obviously beat them and you wanted that senior class to go out with a bang. But it was more about “we are built for this game,” it was more about us in that final game that year.

Paulus: To see those guys with the hard work and the commitment and to see how they did it too, it’s incredible.

Bilas: When Scheyer took over at the point, it sort of jump started the ending where they ultimately won a championship. It was really kind of a remarkable team in that regard.

Paulus: What a terrific career [Scheyer] had. Not just with his scoring, but his play making, being one of the leaders [when Duke won] the national championship.

Davis: Those guys kind of fed off each other and maybe deferred to each other almost too much, where if one of them got going, and the other two would, instead of saying, “Well, I’m gonna go get mine,” they would really help him get going. So, [there was] something pretty special about that team, the way those three guys worked together.

Bilas: Nolan [Smith] was a two-way player, so he could handle it like a point guard, but he was also a scoring guard, and defended at a high level. He’s such a competitor, and obviously comes from great genes, his dad Derek Smith won a national championship at Louisville and played in the NBA for a long time.

I was a huge admirer of Derek Smith…. Nolan’s one of the best people you’ve ever met. He’s evidence that you can be incredibly nice and incredibly competitive and tough at the same time. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Spatola: I think we were undefeated at home, and so that was the other element of going into that game. Obviously it was Carolina, but it was, “let’s go undefeated at home,” and Coach K had made a big deal about that, about protecting Cameron and for those seniors to not lose a game their final year in Cameron.

Epilogue

Of the six national titles won from 2005 until 2010, three were won by Duke and North Carolina. Clearly, the two were the premier programs in the country, ratcheting the rivalry up even further. Of the nine games contested between Senior Night in 2006 and Senior Night in 2010, both teams were

ranked seven times, and both teams were ranked in the top 10 four times.

After the battles in the 1980s and 1990s between the Blue Devils and Tar Heels under Krzyzewski and Dean Smith, the mid-to-late 2000s represented a second Golden Age for the rivalry.

Can Scheyer and Hubert Davis usher in another memorable era?

Bilas: They were typical of the rivalry, that there may be a period of time where one team is objectively better than the other, but the competition was ridiculous. And that’s always been true of that rivalry. I just remember going into those games going, “Either team can win this, it just depends on who plays better this night.”

Paulus: Being a part of the rivalry, to me it’s the best rivalry in college basketball. The moments you watch on TV as a kid, and you see the Jeff Capel buzzer beater…

Davis: The reason why Duke and Carolina is such a great rivalry, there’s a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is that they’re always really good. So they’re always ranked, and oftentimes top 10 and many times top five. So that always adds to it. There are a lot of rivalries. Arizona-Arizona State’s a big rivalry, New Mexico-New Mexico State’s a big rivalry, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State. Even last night, Kansas-Kansas State was a huge game, because Kansas State was finally good.

Bilas: It was a wonderful period of time for the rivalry because there’s just two amazing teams that let it rip. And thankfully, in those games, they weren’t into these 52-50 rock fights that you tend to see because of the physicality of the game now, but they were beautiful to watch.

Paulus: You knew that there was gonna be even more attention from the national media, [and] you knew you were part of something that was bigger than yourself.

Davis: Ultimately, it’s going to depend on whether or not Hubert Davis and Jon Scheyer can sustain what’s gone on before. Hubert had a rough time last year, now it finished amazing, obviously, but, what made Coach K, Coach K was the fact that he didn’t just have one run in him. He did it over a very long period of time, everybody will tell you sustained excellence is the hardest thing. So, the jury’s out on Hubert about whether he can produce that, and it’s been a rough start for Jon, he knows that better than anybody. I have full confidence in him, I think he was the absolute right choice, but at the end of the day, the quality of this rivalry is going to depend on the quality of the teams.

Paulus: You dream of having an opportunity to be a part of the best rivalry in college basketball.

SPRING 2023 SEASON

HIGHLIGHTS

CANTUS VOCAL ENSEMBLE

FRI, FEB 10 | 8PM

AN EVENING WITH GREGORY PORTER

FRI, FEB 24 | 8PM

NELLA

SAT, MAR 4 | 8PM

YAMATO: THE DRUMMERS OF JAPAN HINOTORI: THE WINGS OF PHOENIX

THU, APR 6 | 7:30PM

VIEW FULL SEASON BUY TICKETS TODAY!

PHOTO: GREGORY PORTER

ORIGINS

FROM PAGE 5

point. The team arrived back at Woollen Gymnasium after the beatdown to an effigy of Smith hanging from a tree outside. The hateful display sparked a fire under North Carolina— it hadn’t beaten Duke since the Tar Heels’ 1961 overtime victory, and had a quick three-day turnaround before making the eight-mile trek to Duke Indoor Stadium.

There, for the first time in his career, Smith and his unranked Tar Heels beat No. 8 Duke. They would repeat the feat a few weeks later in Chapel Hill. Smith had redeemed himself in the eyes of the North Carolina faithful. Two seasons later, he took his team to the first of three straight Final Fours, and while the Blue Devils still managed to pull off an upset here and there, the Tar Heels ruled the next decade of Triangle basketball.

The Foster rebuild

Bubas transitioned into administration in 1969. Bucky Waters and Neill McGeachy, his successors, kept the team afloat but neither could manage better than a fourth-place NIT finish. In 1974, Bill Foster arrived in Durham to try his hand at righting the fallen Blue Devil ship.

Foster kicked off his tenure by beating No. 8 North Carolina in the Big Four tournament.

It was an achievement he wouldn’t repeat for three years, but a proud accomplishment, nonetheless. Foster spent his first few seasons putting together the broken pieces of Duke’s program, bringing in strong players and setting up his crowning 1977-78 run.

January 14, 1978 was the next time the Blue Devils downed the Tar Heels. Foster had perfected his squad, composed of junior Jim Spanarkel, sophomore Mike Gminski and freshman duo Gene Banks and Kenny Dennard, all future NBA players. In Cameron Indoor Stadium, Foster’s crew upset No. 2 North Carolina to cement itself in the conversation of top teams in the nation.

“1978 was, for the first time since maybe 1968, the programs were at parity,” said Sumner.

Though the then-13th-ranked Blue Devils fell to the eighth-ranked Tar Heels in the second matchup of the season, Duke then wouldn’t lose again until the national championship game against Kentucky, its first Final Four appearance since the Bubas days. The programs traded off their next five contests to close out the final two seasons with Foster at the helm for the Blue Devils. To replace him, Duke hired Army’s head coach with a long, Polish last name—and the rest is history.

COACHES

FROM PAGE 7 team and the Blue Devils at No. 7, but now face the prospect of the rare unranked Duke-North Carolina matchup.

With the exception of the two matchups in the COVID-19-altered 2021-22 season, there hasn’t been an unranked matchup between the two teams since well before Krzyzewski arrived at Duke in 1980.

The good news for both is that there is a recent precedent for Saturday’s matchup, along with its sequel March 4, to become an inflection point for one or both of these teams in what has been a relatively trying season on both sides of the U.S. 15-501. When the Tar Heels shocked Duke on Krzyzewski’s big night in March 2022, they not only set the table for their own unlikely Final Four run, but for the Blue Devils’ parallel romp to New Orleans as well.

North Carolina’s turnaround a year ago, in Davis’ first season, now serves as something of a blueprint for Scheyer to restore his team to its preseason expectations of contention in the ACC and NCAA tournament.

“I think there’s mutual respect,” Scheyer said of Davis at ACC Tipoff. “I have admiration for what he did last year.

I mean, it’s not like you’re smooth sailing, right? They went through ups and downs, and he just stuck with it. I think that’s what—really, that’s what I plan on doing no matter what.”

Davis shared his own admiration for his Blue Devil counterpart at ACC Tipoff as well, recalling a conversation on the recruiting trail while Scheyer’s wife, Marcelle, was expecting the couple’s third child.

“Because with three children you have to play zone,” Davis said. “Somebody’s always gonna be open, so how are you handling that? Becoming head coach? So, just being able to not empathize, but kind of relate—I have three children. Coach Scheyer is a fantastic person, an unbelievable coach and he’s gonna do an unbelievable job at Duke.”

For some time now, Scheyer and Davis have been inextricably linked to one another, often to an exhausting degree, as the new faces of what may be the sporting world’s premier rivalry. On Saturday, with that very rivalry—along with Duke and North Carolina’s seasons—at a crossroads, the only thing left to do for the dueling head coaches is to follow the advice of baseball great Yogi Berra:

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Holly Zhuang | Staff Photographer Freshmen Kyle Filipowski (30) and Mark Mitchell are the only Blue Devils to have started every game this season.

Courtesy of Nell Redmond/The ACC Junior captain Jeremy Roach and head coach Jon Scheyer at ACC Tipoff in October 2022.

DTH PHOTO / IRA WILDER, KENNEDY COX AND SAMANTHA LEWIS

DTH DESIGN / GABI ALLEN AND CARSON ELM-PICARD

PHOTO / IRA WILDER AND ANNA CONNORS, CHRONICLE PHOTO/MORGAN CHU AND SAMANTHA OWUSU

~LOCATIONS~

MagikCraft Swain, International Psychic Medium, plus Tom Swain, native of NC, have a mission to raise the vibration and open up the magic, encouraging people to stand in their power and follow their soul goal by utilizing the spiritual tools and magical aids in our shops.

Quantum Soul owners Lynn

by MagikCraft

Quantum Soul is an eclectic metaphysical gift shop enhance your vibration with Crystals, Jewelry, Tarot & Oracle cards, Books, Candles, Clothes, Incense, Essential Oils & Home Goods. Treat yourself to the magic or find an amazing gift for someone you care about.

Daily Tar Heel Assistant City & State Editor Ethan Horton drives toward the

The DTH came out of the gate

The second game saw the two sides traded buckets before a buzzerbeater from Chronicle Chronicle first-year Ranjan Jindal clinched a 28-26 Duke victory to tie the series. The army of Duke students broke out into raucous applause — something Rogers found to be overthe-top but not intimidating. “They were celebrating like they had just won the whole thing,” he said. “They stormed the court, basically. I was confused, because I didn’t think they won the first game, and then I remembered I hit the game-winner so I knew they didn’t.”

down definitively, winning 2-1 in a three-game thriller in Chapel Hill. In the weeks leading up to the game, DTH players were lulled into a false sense of complacency. After three years without facing each other, the DTH was unsure of what to expect from The Chronicle.

On Jan. 20, UNC shut them

@PeaceGwen

Twitter: @hamsinisiva3

“We’re proud of our newsroom and to be out here celebrating and fighting for student journalism with a great paper like the DTH.” The Chapel Hill newsroom may have won out on the court, but it’s up to the donors at home to push the DTH over the top in the Rivalry Challenge. To donate, go to bit.ly/beatdook. The donation period ends at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 6.

“There’s no Duke without UNC, no UNC without Duke,” he said.

Junior Chronicle Sports Editor

That’s what we’re here for.”

“From a standpoint of: the passion for the game, the intensity, the rivalry, the rivalry edition,” he said. “Donate at dailytarheel.com.

The Chronicle never again got close, and the DTH ultimately won 26-18. The last game required all the basketball skill gained from covering the sport, and the DTH called on their most experienced players. Nelson was playing for his legacy in his last year of eligibility, and he scored eight points in the third game, clinching his spot as the DTH’s top scorer of the series.

rivalry basketball game against The Duke Chronicle in Rams Head Recreation Center on Friday, Jan. 20. DTH beat The Chronicle 2-1. hot in the final game, earning a substantial 13-3 lead, helped by the the exit of Jindal, who left mid-game due to leg cramping. However, other players stepped up in his place, like sophomore Franck Djidjeu, whose dangerous shooting ability kept the Durham side competitive. But The Chronicle was not the only team that saw players clutch up down the stretch. The DTH had a last-minute appearance from sophomore Senior Writer Daniel Wei, which spelled doom for the players from Durham. Battling a long-standing knee injury and a scheduled rest day, it was unclear if Wei would play. But when he heard the news that Duke had won the second game, he knew he had no choice.

After checking in, he sank two threepointers in his brief time on the court.

Jonathan Levitan said he was proud of his team’s effort in a tough conference matchup, and was looking forward to continuing the tradition in the future.

Despite being outnumbered on their own stomping grounds, DTH sophomore senior writer Evan Rogers said the extra support didn’t bother him. “It was honestly cool, I didn’t mind them having a lot of bodies,” Rogers said. “A lot of their bodies just weren’t very good.” However, the extra bodies proved useful, and The Chronicle put up a fight in the first game, holding a four-point lead early on and staying close throughout. It was ultimately unsuccessful, and Rogers scored the game-winning points on an assist from DTH senior Sports Editor Hunter Nelson to give the DTH an early 1-0 lead in the series with a 25-21 win.

The UNC-Duke rivalry hasn’t been the same in three years. Since 2020, The Daily Tar Heel and The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper, have been unable to take to the court to compete in the Battle of the Blues: Newspaper Edition — a basketball game that holds both schools hostage. Doubts rose over which newsroom had the puresthooping sports desk. The two newsrooms came together to restart the annual tradition of a pickup game between the two sides to increase awareness for their Rivalry Challenge — an eight-day fundraising campaign to raise money for their newsrooms.

Sivakumar Staff Writer sports@dailytarheel.com

and Hamsini

By Gwen Peace Senior Writer

So when they entered the Rams Head Recreation Center, the DTH team was shocked to find a swarm of people — at least 25 deep — dressed in dark blue, drilling layup lines before the game.

Newsrooms’ sports desks go head-to-head in annual basketball game

DTH defeats Duke Chronicle 2-1 in rivalry game

PURE HOOPERS

DTH/KENNEDY COX

basket during the

“From a standpoint of: the passion for the game, the intensity, the rivalry, the rivalry edition — Donate at dailytarheel.com. That’s what we’re here for.”

Hunter Nelson

Sports Editor

As for this Saturday, Kiger said he’ll be keeping an eye on the number of touches Bacot gets and what he does with the ball. Duke’s offensive rebounding and bench usage and UNC’s points off turnovers are a few of the specialty stats that Kiger predicts will be important. His stats pages this weekend will also be littered with notes from his preparation, decorated with season highs and season lows in points and shooting percentages. And even though he’s nearing game 100, Kiger still gets just as excited. as when he worked his first UNC-Duke game back in 1974.

“We’d always say (to Fred) ‘Great job, that was terrific,’ and we meant it. But how do you exceed virtual perfection? That’s what I always got.”

“When you’re always doing an exceptional job, that’s what people always expect from you,” Patrick said.

The work of Kiger, while often overlooked by viewers at home, doesn’t go unrecognized by the announcers he works with. Both Wes Durham and Mike Patrick complimented Kiger’s preparation, saying that he makes their jobs easier and less stressful to complete on the air.

“We’ve established our credibility, so people look to us,” John Maddrey, a longtime statistician and partner of Kiger’s, said. “When an announcer starts a sentence and looks to (us) to provide them the data or the number to complete the sentence, having that working relationship and being able to provide that is very invigorating.”

In J.J. Redick’s final home game in Cameron, an 83-76 UNC win, a producer gave Kiger the unofficial title for ‘stat of the game’ for his work documenting a Redick scoring drought.

IT COMES TO HOUSING THERE is NO COMPETITION

through like a crashing symbol.

basketball broadcast, every now and then, he gets the chance to shine

While Kiger likes to think of himself as a mere percussionist to the symphony orchestra that is a

“There’s something about that game that you want to bring your best to,” Kiger said. “In preparation for the upcoming game, I’ll probably do three or five hours of research before I even get to Cameron Indoor.”

In many ways, that’s the same approach that Kiger brings to his work as a statistician. The UNC-Duke game, with its storied history and countless specialty stats, is no exception. This weekend, Kiger will be focused on the details.

“That’s where his head was. He was always thinking, always exploring to see how he might make the game more of a known commodity — more of something he may be able to be more aware of and control.”

“(Smith) came to me in that Midwestern, nasal twang of his, and said ‘Fred, there just doesn’t seem to be any trends whatsoever,’ Kiger said.

Kiger was tasked with recording the assist-to-turnover ratio before former UNC men’s basketball coach Dean Smith put him in charge of a larger project — charting basketball officials. Every time there was a whistle blow in a UNC game, Kiger charted everything from the call, score and name of the official, to the reaction on the court. He said he averaged nearly 100 entries per game for two years when Smith finally called the investigation off.

“Who wouldn’t want to have a chance to be associated with Coach Smith and the Carolina basketball program?” Kiger said. “It was a chance for me to be a part of something special.”

Although his love for statistics began in high school, Kiger truly got his foot in the door as a student at North Carolina. Kiger lived in Teague Residence Hall with UNC women’s soccer coach and former intramural teammate Anson Dorrance in the early 1970s. He said he was encouraged at the time to apply for a statistics position for the men’s basketball team. Former UNC men’s basketball coach Roy Williams, who worked with Kiger in the intramural sports office on campus, assisted Kiger in his application.

“He knows every person around these games,” ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said. “He is a joy of the league. Every time you walk into an arena, Fred is there.”

Fred W. Kiger, or ‘Freddie,” is known by his colleagues as a walking encyclopedia of ACC basketball knowledge. He’s not sure how many UNC-Duke basketball games he’s worked at this point, but he said the count is nearing 100. And, while the past few years have marked a transition period for the ACC in terms of coaching turnover, Kiger is proudly surviving the generational spans as a veteran statistician for countless broadcast outlets. He has won three Sports Emmys for his work as an assistant producer on ESPN’s SportsCentury series.

Numbers matter in basketball. Percentages, raw figures and streaks are all pivotal in describing the flow of a game. If you’ve tuned into a UNC-Duke men’s basketball game in the last five decades and been hit by a startling statistic, you’ve probably benefited from the work of one American Civil War lecturer.

By Shelby Swanson Assistant Sports Editor sports@dailytarheel.com

The lecturer began keeping stats as a UNC student

Meet the stat keeper of nearly 100 UNC-Duke games

OUR TEAMS MAY BE RIVALs WHEN

Twitter: shelbymswanson@

DTH/SHELBY SWANSON American Civil War lecturer Fred Kiger sits outside of The Purple Bowl on Franklin Street on Wednesday, Jan. 25.

Kiger has kept stats for nearly 100 UNC-Duke games.

No wonder PreLaw Magazine consistently ranks us among the nation’s top schools for practical training.

Court hears cases, and where our moot court and mock trial teams compete.

UNC and Duke graduates have excelled in our 2 1/2-year, highly experiential program of legal education. Learn more about Elon University School of Law, including our Robert E. Long Courtroom where the North Carolina Business

CHEER ON YOUR COURTS. THEN LEARN IN OURS.

Montross said. “Because it does make it more fun when you’re competing against the very best.”

“Thank goodness they’ve been as good as they’ve been while we’ve been as good as we’ve been,”

Hearing the players share their side of the tale, the effects will likely never fade away.

“If he caught us looking at individual stats, we ran,” Montross said. “You could recognize as a player if you shot or rebounded well, but he preached to us to play as we practiced. And I think that in the resulting victories that we had, we were focused on those components and getting better individually.” Following a two-game losing skid in early February that included an 81-67 shellacking to the Blue Devils in Durham, the win marked the Tar Heels’ ninth consecutive victory before two more came in the opening rounds of the ACC Tournament. The team had title hopes in mind, but in the grander stage of the rivalry, a line was drawn in the figurative sand.

Williams became a Chapel Hill folk hero in his own right after a 25-point performance helped him win the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player Award. “We got the ball inside better than any team in Carolina history,” Hanners said. “In that game, we had specific plays where it looked like we were going inside, but Donald would come off a secondary double (screen) and he made two threes off that play.” Just a year removed from his career-defining role in the Tar

Heels’ 75-73 win over No. 1 Duke, Montross had another standout outing that included a personal 10-point scoring spurt that helped North Carolina balloon its lead to 25 early in the second half. The then-junior big man, who combined to score 30 points and grab 18 rebounds with his frontcourt running mate George Lynch, knew he did all that was needed to help the team pull off the win. But as he later mentioned, a quick glance at a stat sheet would have warranted a punishment from notoriously team oriented head coach Dean Smith, who forced the group to play as a cohesive unit.

All-American senior guard Bobby Hurley, who finished with just two makes in 12 attempts. While Phelps’ versatile offensive skillset — he finished with eight points, nine rebounds and seven assists — and defensive tenacity helped slow down the Duke’s production, another Tar Heel guard flashed signs of what was to come. Despite coming off the bench for most of the season, sophomore guard Donald Williams lit it up from the perimeter with five 3-pointers to lead all scorers with 27 points. In the national championship game a month later, a game where Chris Webber’s infamous timeout stole the national spotlight,

With Duke star Grant Hill sidelined with a toe injury, Phelps played a decisive role in slowing down the Blue Devils’

Twitter: hunternelson_1@ course en route to competing for a national championship. But in the moment, the capacity crowd inside the Dean Smith Center — which even featured a small sect that rushed the floor in a rare rivalry court storming — highlighted a magnitude that existed in that particular moment. “It feels more intense here than against anybody else,” then-junior guard Derrick Phelps told The New York Times after the game. “It’s a different type of atmosphere when Duke plays here.”

With hindsight at their disposal, Montross and former assistant coach Dave Hanners might be the first to admit that despite the outing’s billing as a top-10 matchup against an archrival, the contest was no different than the competitive ACC gauntlet the team had faced all year. Rather than worrying about bragging rights, the main priority was staying the

Eric Montross, a center for the Tar Heels from 1990 to 1994, said. “But it was also important for us to share these victories to prove we were making strides.”

“It was important for us to take some lumps and bumps throughout the season to refocus on our goals,”

Not only did the win give the Tar Heels a boost of momentum, putting the finishing touches on a regular season that eventually led to the program’s third national title, it also sparked a string of seven consecutive rivalry victories to give UNC bragging rights it could boast for the rest of the decade.

With a seemingly firm grip on the Tobacco Road rivalry following three straight rivalry game wins and back-to-back national titles, Duke arrived to Chapel Hill with the hopes of delivering another blow to the Tar Heels’ side. But as North Carolina left the floor in a convincing 83-69 triumph, a new gate had been opened.

Thirty years ago, a line was drawn.

By Hunter Nelson Sports Editor sports@dailytarheel.com

When the Tar Heels reclaimed the rivalry

DTH GRAPHIC/KENNEDY COX

After beating UNC three times in a row, the Blue Devils fell in 1993

~ Established in 1974

OPENING SOON ON FRANKLIN ST.

For more information or to apply, visit https://rsiinc.applicantpro.com/jobs/

Our entry level jobs are a great way to gain hands-on health care and human services experience! We provide the training and have various shifts availabledaytime, evening, overnights... We even pay employees to sleep!

Start ASAP!

$500 Hiring Bonus!! Positions available immediately!

→ Entry-level, paid training

→ Paid Internship opportunities

→ Great for Psychology, Sociology, Nursing, Pre-Med, and other Human Services majors/degrees

→ Gain experience related to your major

STUDENT BENEFITS

We are hiring students, entry level and experienced individuals!

RSI provides living options and related supports to people of all ages with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We promote quality of life by maximizing self-determination, development of independent living skills, community involvement, meaningful social roles, and socially responsible behavior. RSI’s vision is to help children and adults to live lives characterized by happiness, dignity, health, and the highest possible degree of social responsibility and productivity.

Whether you need dessert delivery, curbside pickup, or something else, we make it easy to order cookies online and through the app.

Twitter: lucasthomae@

court press, and his team is exceptionally good at forcing their opponents to take tough shots. While the Blue Devils don’t force a remarkable amount of turnovers, they lock down the perimeter and crash the defensive glass hard. Against a team like UNC that also grabs a lot of rebounds and struggles to consistently make 3-pointers, winning the battle for the boards and running a patient offense could be the key to coming out on top on Saturday.

Duke junior guard Jeremy Roach (3) is pictured handling the ball in the graphic. Photo taken by Ira Wilder.

DTH DESIGN/CARSON ELM-PICARD

C+ Offense A Defense A Frontcourt B Backcourt B+ Starters ABench

Overall Grade

TEAM GRADES B+

By Lucas Thomae Assistant Sports Editor sports@dailytarheel.com

While boasting a strong defense, the team lacks offensive cohesion

Like North Carolina, Duke came into this season fresh off a Final Four appearance with aspirations of making it back to college basketball’s biggest stage. And like their Tobacco Road counterpart, this Duke team hasn’t quite lived up to the preseason hype, sliding down the AP poll until dropping out altogether earlier this month. This iteration of the Blue Devils has a prototypical one-and-done build, with four first-years in the starting lineup led by one veteran floor general in junior guard Jeremy Roach. With first-year head coach Jon Scheyer at the helm, Duke has struggled to string together wins in conference play, losing four of its last 10 ACC matchups. Duke boasts one of the tallest rosters in college basketball, and it has influenced the team’s style of play. While Roach and first-year Tyrese Proctor share ball-handling duties, the offense runs through first-year center Kyle Filipowski. The seven-footer from Westtown, N.Y., is agile for his size, being able to space the floor, slash to the basket and distribute the ball. Plus, he’s only elevated his game as the season’s gone on, averaging 18 points and 11.8 rebounds over his last six games. Few ACC teams rely on one player as much as Duke relies on Filipowski — when he’s on the court, 29 percent of Duke’s possessions result in a Filipowski make, miss or turnover. Several talented big men complement Filipowski in the frontcourt. Dereck Lively II, a 7-foot-1 first-year, has blossomed into an elite rim protector while Ryan Young, a graduate transfer from Northwestern, is one of the most efficient offensive rebounders and low-post scorers in the country. Two talented first-years in Mark Mitchell and Dariq Whitehead are significant contributors as stretch forwards. Mitchell is a solid defender and converts his 1.5 3-point attempts per game at a 39.4 percent clip. Whitehead, a consensus 5-star recruit, possesses big-time potential but has been hindered by nagging injuries throughout the season, most recently spraining his lower left leg in a loss to Virginia Tech on Jan. 23. While most players in the Blue Devils’ rotation aren’t afraid to shoot the ball, they don’t rely too heavily on 3-pointers. In fact, only 32.5 percent of Duke’s total points come from 3-pointers, which is in the bottom third of all Division I teams. Part of this could be the team’s subpar 3-point shooting percentage of 32.4 percent. Another factor dragging down Duke’s offense is their ability to take care of the ball. The Blue Devils have a negative turnover margin, and that issue has been especially apparent in losses — they committed 21 turnovers in a 24-point loss to N.C. State on Jan. 4. But for what Duke lacks in offensive cohesion, they make up for in stifling defense. The Blue Devils allow an average of only 63.7 points per game, the program’s lowest mark since 2010. Scheyer likes to utilize a full-

How Duke’s basketball season has gone so far

Study

UNC Chapel Hill

B+ Offense B Defense AFrontcourt BBackcourt B Starters B+ Bench

Overall Grade

Twitter: j_kidd03@ TEAM GRADES B

UNC’s play has been better as of late, but the team must improve its ball movement, continue to use its

Head coach Hubert Davis isn’t known to reach deep into his bench, but several reserve players have proven their worth when stepping in for injured starters this season. Firstyear forward Jalen Washington, sophomore guard D’Marco Dunn, and junior forward Puff Johnson have all had breakthrough games. All three players are shooting higher than 43 percent from the field and were crucial in games where Bacot and Nance were unavailable. The Tar Heels are undefeated thus far in the Dean E. Smith Center, but they’ve had trouble securing victories on the road. UNC is 5-6 away from Chapel Hill, including victories in the Jumpman Invitational, the CBS Sports Classic and one win in the Phil Knight Invitational. Looking ahead through the remaining conference schedule, the Tar Heels will aim to secure tough victories at Duke, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Florida State and Notre Dame.

By Jarrett Kidd Staff Writer sports@dailytarheel.com

UNC’s frontcourt has shined, but backcourt still has room for growth

UNC stats are accurate as of Tuesday, Jan. 31, due to our print deadline. Entering the season as the nation’s top-ranked team, the North Carolina men’s basketball squad faced high expectations. But, to this point, the Tar Heels have struggled to live up to them. After last season’s team made a run to the Final Four, UNC fans had a lot to look forward to, especially with four of five starters returning. The Tar Heels, however, lost four games in a row in an early stretch — knocking the preseason No. 1 team out of the AP poll altogether. UNC has figured out some of its problems since then. The Tar Heels have gone 10-2 since that early skid, dropping games to Pitt and Virginia by a combined margin of less than 10 points. Still, some numbers remain concerning. Caleb Love has taken nearly 25 percent of the team’s shots – more than any other player on the roster – but he only makes his attempts at a 38 percent rate. The junior guard leads the team in 3-point attempts by a sizable margin, but he has been making just 28 percent of his shots from behind the arc this year. Love’s shot selection might be to blame for his poor form from the field, as he often settles for contested jump shots in tight coverage and quick, off-balanced 3-point attempts. The Tar Heels’ frontcourt, consisting of senior center Armando Bacot, graduate forward Pete Nance and graduate wing Leaky Black, has been essential for UNC’s recent success. Bacot is averaging just under 18 points per game alongside 11.4 rebounds, and Nance is averaging 10.9 points per game. Nance’s versatility has come up big for the Tar Heels, and he can provide some spacing with a 3-point percentage of 35.5 percent. The North Carolina basketball program has built a foundation on strong ball movement, and in the team’s recent string of success, the Tar Heels have done a better job sharing the ball. But the team still has a long way to go before it can reach its ceiling on the offensive end. Currently, the Tar Heels rank 214th in Division I in assists per game at 12.8. If UNC wants to excel in their remaining conference schedule and postseason play, they must find ways to generate playmaking.

How North Carolina has fared this season

DTH DESIGN/ALAN CHEN

UNC junior guard Caleb Love (2) is pictured in the graphic. Photo taken by Ira Wilder.

year round discount: students, faculty & military

off%10

THE ULTIMATE TAR HEEL SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

CATERING WORKERS

CASHIERS

FOOD SERVICE LEADS

UNC 76 – 74 DUKE

Remember Coach K’s last game in Cameron? Remember the Final Four? UNC may have had an up-and-down season, but this team knows how to handle the pressure against its arch-rival. Expect Armando Bacot to eat Filipowski’s lunch.

DUKE 72 – 64 UNC

In a game between two inconsistent teams, Duke has the more impressive record in Quad 1 contests, with a 3-6 record compared to UNC’s 1-6 record. While UNC’s Armando Bacot is undeniably one of the best rebounders in college basketball, he’ll be put to the test against a Blue Devil squad that ranks first in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage.

UNC 80 – 71 DUKE

determining Saturday’s outcome. The Tar Heels haven’t been particularly impressive on the road, but the veterans will make enough plays down the stretch to sink the Blue Devils for the third consecutive time.

In a test of old vs. new, experience will go a long way in

Guillermo Molero Editor-in-Chief

DUKE 73 – 69 UNC

North Carolina and Duke are both coming into their matchup on Saturday with identical records — and identical home/road splits. Duke is 11-0 at home so far and the Tar Heels haven’t look convincing on the road. It was a rough January for the Blue Devils. But if the second-best defense in the ACC can further clamp down on UNC’s already streaky shooting, the Blue Devils may be looking at their 12th home win.

DTH editor game predictions

Betting on the blues

FOOD SERVICE WORKERS

BAKERS

LEAD COOKS & COOKS

BARISTAS

& MORE! OPEN

FULL

SIGN UP FOR SUMMER SESSION AT WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY!

DON'T MISS OUT!

START NEXT YEAR'S CURRICULUM EARLY.

CATCH UP ON YOUR ACADEMIC PATH.

EARN CREDITS THAT YOU CAN TRANSFER.

THIS SUMMER!

GET AHEAD

WAKE FOREST

YMCATriangle.org/jobs

YMCA employees enjoy competitive wages, flexible hours, leadership opportunities and a free Y membership!

Lead children in recreational skill development and help support their academic success and in an after-school or day camp setting. Direct fun activities, games and sports.

AFTER SCHOOL AND DAY CAMP POSITIONS

LOVE WORKING WITH KIDS?

Are you searching for a FUN, ENERGETIC work environment?

NOW HIRING! JOIN OUR TEAM

Participating

kenanscholars.unc.edu/ESG

An interactive event with leading industry experts who will discuss career paths in sustainability along with the opportunities and risks of an ESG-centered approach to decision-making.

Twitter: hunternelson_1@

DTH/SAMANTHA LEWIS

When Caleb Love’s dagger dropped through the New Orleans night to send the winningest coach in the history of the sport into retirement at last year’s Final Four, a line was etched in the history books. After Armando Bacot dubbed the outing as the “greatest college basketball game of all time,” decades of memorable moments and verbal battles between the two sides came to a screeching halt, as it immediately became clear that no moment could ever reach the magnitude of what transpired that evening.

UNC stats are accurate as of Tuesday, Jan. 31, due to our print deadline. Fans have long yearned for a postseason matchup between college basketball’s two largest rivals, but 307 days after that dream finally became a reality, I’m beginning to wonder if the hoop gods surrendered their souls to give the Tobacco Road faithful the closing act it deserved.

By Hunter Nelson Sports Editor sports@dailytarheel.com

Hype-induced offseasons might have tricked us into believing that chapter one of the new era would be exciting enough to provide an admirable sequel to all the events that happened last April. However, with both teams struggling to maintain national relevance midway through the season, such hopeful ambitions haven’t been fulfilled, sadly. For a team that entered the new season as the consensus favorite to cut down the nets, the Tar Heels have spent more time sitting outside the top 25 than playing as a group that was supposedly hungry to complete its unfinished business. Similarly, the Blue Devils, under first-year head coach Jon Scheyer, have supplied ample evidence that nabbing three top-five recruits does not make a team immune to falling by 24 points to N.C. State or narrowly escaping a Boston College side that boasts a losing record. In terms of basketball watchability, it is encouraging to note that both programs have shown signs of promise in recent weeks. Although both teams will enter the game unranked, the Tar Heels – winners of 10 of their past 12 – have started to share the ball more en route to inching their way out of an early hole to slide into fourth place in the ACC. Last Saturday, Duke upped the ante by earning its most impressive win of the year in a 43-point drubbing over Georgia Tech. But still, maybe I’m just spoiled from the gifts of the past, but doesn’t it feel like there’s something… missing? Last year’s Cameron curtain call to Coach K featured the likes of Ken Jeong, Jerry Seinfeld and a cheering section of 96 ‘who’s whos’ from the NBA. This time around, the primary viewers of the opening clash will likely be the more common crowd of students anxiously waiting for the buzzer to sound to spark the late-Saturday cramming of the physics exam that awaits them two days later. I’ve been around the rivalry long enough to hear all the noise about how the names on the front of the jersey will always be enough to make the game must-see TV. ESPN analyst — and friend of the DTH program — Jay Bilas, routinely emphasizes that the rivalry “always delivers”, and there are enough objective facts to supplement that claim. Over the years, I’ve seen Tre Jones and Wendell Moore Jr. make students punch chairs as they stymied a historically bad UNC team from improving to 11-12 in a lost season. I was also an impartial bystander hundreds of miles away a season earlier when I watched Zion Williamson’s shoe explode in the early stages of a convincing North Carolina triumph. With a clean slate in play, who knows what can happen when both teams take the court. Maybe Pete Nance and Jacob Grandison drop 20-point showings to show who is the more impactful transfer from the state of Illinois. Perhaps Love and Duke’s Jeremy Roach — now the chiseled veterans of their respective squads — turn back the clock and deliver a performance that reminds fans of the rivalry’s glory days. With each program looking to find its way, it is unclear whether the upcoming matchup can align with the lore of the past, but if both blue bloods can come together to share a single hope, it would be this. For UNC-Duke, please, basketball divinity, the only thing we ask for is amazing.

is great, but where do we go from here?

‘Please, basketball divinity, the only thing we ask for is amazing’

A graduate transfer from Illinois, Grandison brings veteran presence to the inexperienced Blue Devils team. He is known for being a 3-point specialist, particularly from the corners. His minutes usually vary depending on matchup, but Whitehead’s recent injury may force head coach Jon Scheyer to give him more.

Jacob Grandison

Against a UNC defense that frequently allows shooters to get hot, Mitchell could be an intriguing factor on Saturday.

able to put the ball on the floor and slash to the basket. He has been an effective scorer for Duke off the bounce with an ability to finish around a crowd of defenders in the paint, averaging 9.1 points per game through 22 outings. Despite shooting 39.4 percent from three, the team’s best 3-point percentage, Mitchell seldom shoots the long ball, having attempted only 33 threes this season and making 13.

Mark Mitchell Mitchell is a lanky 6-foot-8 forward,

Whitehead came into Duke with lofty expectations, tabbed as the No. 2 overall player in the class of 2022 according to 247Sports’ composite rankings. His time at Duke, however, has been plagued by injuries. Whitehead had surgery after fracturing his right foot in practice during the preseason, causing him to miss Duke’s first three games. Recently, he sustained a lower leg injury during Duke’s Jan. 23 game at Virginia Tech. Before his latest injury, Whitehead had assumed a starting position for the Blue Devils and began working toward the level of play expected from him in the preseason. Whitehead showed that he can be a marksman from deep by posting a season-high 18 points in Duke’s win over Boston College. While he still struggles from beyond the arc, Whitehead’s ability to score is one of Duke’s biggest offensive assets when healthy.

DTH FILE/AAYAS JOSHI

Duke Dariq Whitehead

While playing 12 minutes in UNC’s recent win over Syracuse on Jan. 24, Nickel drilled a triple and emphatically blocked a shot off the glass. As Virginia’s all-time leading high school scorer with 2,909 career points, Nickel has the ability to be a high-volume scorer when given the opportunity.

Tyler Nickel

The Tar Heels’ sixth man is not relied upon to shoulder the offense, but he has proven an effective scorer, particularly from deep in his best showings. After bursting onto the scene in the national championship by scoring 11 points, Johnson has been productive on the floor this season. Despite battling knee soreness for most of the year, the junior has been clinical from deep and scored in double digits three times.

North Carolina

Twitter: brendan_lunga18@

Both graduate transfer Jacob Grandison and sophomore Jaylen Blakes have made significant contributions off-bench this year for the Blue Devils. Both could get their first real experience in the rivalry, with Blakes only playing three minutes during Duke’s win in Chapel Hill last year and Grandison coming in as a transfer from Illinois. Both players average about 17 minutes per game but hold different roles. Grandison, at 6-foot-6, can pass and shoot like a guard but also rebounds like a forward. Blakes is quicker when driving to the basket and shoots at a 36.8 percent clip from deep.

Bench guards

The 6-foot-7 first-year hasn’t seen much time for the Tar Heels this season — averaging 6.6 minutes per game — but he’s made an immediate impact when he has taken the floor.

Puff Johnson

UNC graduate Leaky Black (1) dribbles the ball during the men’s basketball game against Boston College at the Dean E. Smith Center on Jan. 17, 2023. Although the North Carolina and Duke men’s basketball teams boast strong play at the guard and frontcourt positions, both sides find production from a talented group of wings. A position group known for its versatile skillset, here is a look at how the wings will impact Saturday’s rivalry matchup. UNC stats are accurate as of Tuesday, Jan. 31, due to our print deadline.

By Ben McCormick Staff Writer sports@dailytarheel.com

Lineup of versatile players includes Black, Johnson and Whitehead

Leaky Black Black is the backbone of the Tar Heels’ defense and often the player who is given the toughest defensive assignments. Although senior big man Armando Bacot will likely be tasked with slowing down center Kyle Filipowski, Duke’s leading scorer, Filipowski’s perimeteroriented style of play will likely enable Black to draw some defensive work for North Carolina. While Black is much more known for his defensive prowess — averaging 1.6 steals per game — he is in the midst of the best offensive season of his career. Though only averaging seven points a night, his playmaking and knowledge of offense has helped the team remain productive on that end of the floor.

Talented group of wings headline Saturday’s matchup

Proctor’s playmaking ability is his most impressive skill. Like Roach, he can also play the role of a point guard, as his 61 assists lead the team. Containing Proctor on the 3-point arc will be the key to slowing him down. While he’s made the second-most 3-pointers on the team this season, he has taken 94 attempts, the most on the squad. He holds a well-below-average 3-point percentage at 27.7 percent, but will be forced to shoot if the Tar Heels can stop him from penetrating.

Twitter: emorylyda41@

Lively was a highly-touted recruit in the class of ‘22, but so far has struggled being as impactful as that rank suggests. Lively is averaging roughly 15 minutes per game for Duke but has only averaged 4.0 points and 3.7 rebounds per game. He offers a lot of promise defensively as a rim protector, but his tendency to foul – he is currently averaging well over six fouls per 40 minutes – is an issue that has limited his minutes.

Dereck Lively II

The graduate transfer played at Northwestern alongside Nance, and though not as coveted as his former teammate, his impact on the Blue Devils has been substantial. Young is a 6-foot-10 big who rebounds at an extremely high level. His offensive rebounding percentage is third in the ACC behind only Miami’s Norchad Omier and Bacot. He has been able to turn those rebounds into efficient scoring opportunities, as he is converting 2-point field goal attempts at a 72 percent clip. Young is not much of a shot-blocker or shooter, but his rebounding and finishing have been critical for the Blue Devils.

Ryan Young

Tyrese Proctor

Roach, they need to prevent turnovers on offense and keep him from getting to the basket. Roach is also second on the team in steals, using them to create easy fastbreak buckets. North Carolina has a tendency to be sloppy with the ball and will need to clean up that part of their game against the Blue Devils.

D’Marco Dunn and Seth Trimble will be the keys to having a productive bench unit for the Tar Heels. While Grandison and Blakes generally get more minutes, Trimble’s defensive effort that he’s flaunted all year will be needed to shut down the shifty guards and keep UNC in the game when Davis and Love are on the bench.

Bench guards

Though his contributions are often overshadowed by Armando Bacot’s standout play, Davis has been arguably the most valuable player for UNC’s squad. His numbers are up in almost every category from last season, and he has stepped up when his backcourt mate has struggled shooting the ball. Davis has also fared well against Duke, accumulating 18 points and seven rebounds in the Final Four contest.

RJ Davis

Duke Jeremy Roach Roach was the only starting member of last year’s squad to return to Durham with unfinished business. Playing in all three matchups against UNC last year, he averaged over 10 points per game in those outings and was a large part of Duke’s success during the season. Roach makes his presence felt inside the 3-point arc. His ability to drive to the basket and dish the ball is where he finds the most success. Despite missing four games, Roach still ranks second on the team in total assists. For the Tar Heels to shut down

Caleb Love Love cemented his name in UNC basketball lore with his game-winning shot against Duke in the trilogy bout at the 2022 Final Four. Love is averaging 20 points per game against the Blue Devils. His 3-point proficiency is down eight percentage points from last season, but shooting the ball well against his favorite opponent will be a key to victory for UNC.

North Carolina

Paolo Banchero, Wendell Moore Jr. and AJ Griffin to the NBA draft, guards have taken a larger role in head coach Jon Scheyer’s rotation this year. Here is a look at the guards who will make an impact on the next chapter of the Tobacco Road rivalry. UNC stats are accurate as of Tuesday, Jan. 31, due to our print deadline.

Following the loss of forwards

From Bobby Hurley to RJ Barrett, the backcourt from Durham has caused problems in the rivalry for decades.

By Brendan Lunga Senior Writer sports@dailytarheel.com

Playmakers looking to make an impact in UNC-Duke battle

The consensus five-star recruit has enjoyed a strong first season for the Blue Devils, averaging 15.8 points per game and 9.5 rebounds per game. Offensively, Filipowski has a variety of moves at his disposal in the post, and his shooting splits — 28.8 percent on 3.6 attempts from deep per game — have been streaky on high volume. Defensively, Filipowski can switch well for his size and has decent lateral quickness, although his shot-blocking is not great. Still, Filipowski has arguably been the best player on Duke’s roster, and his versatility is a scary proposition for opposing defenses.

DTH FILE/DYLAN THESSIEN

Kyle Filipowski

Duke

Jalen Washington Washington missed much of the nonconference schedule while recovering from a knee injury, but the first-year big has slowly come on as a rotation piece for head coach Hubert Davis. Washington’s most notable feat this season was scoring 13 points in 27 minutes against Virginia after Bacot went down. An ankle injury before the Boston College game has limited him, but Washington may see minutes against Duke if healthy by gameday.

UNC graduate forward Pete Nance (32) shoots the ball during UNC’s game against Boston College on Jan. 17, 2022. UNC won 72-64.

Pete Nance Nance was a prized catch for North Carolina this off-season, as the Northwestern graduate transfer replaced Manek in the starting lineup. Although Nance is not the pure shooter that Manek was, his ability to self-create off the dribble at times and be somewhat of a post-up threat has added another dimension to the Tar Heel offense. Nance has battled a back injury throughout ACC play, but his 21-point output against Syracuse was his best showing since November, a sign that he is starting to regain rhythm.

Bacot is responsible for a lot of the Tar Heels’ offense in the low-post, so finding a way to stop him will be critical for the Blue Devils. Last season, Bacot averaged 15.3 points per game in the three Duke games, and his 23 points on 10-11 shooting in the regular season finale in Durham was critical in the Tar Heels pulling off the upset victory.

To this point, UNC’s recently crowned, all-time leading rebounder has just added to his standout career.

Armando Bacot

North Carolina

UNC stats are accurate as of Tuesday, Jan. 31, due to our print deadline.

Here’s a breakdown of the newest class of big men to battle it out in college basketball’s greatest rivalry.

Last year’s games between North Carolina and Duke featured two dominant bigs in Armando Bacot and Paolo Banchero, with Brady Manek providing valuable shooting for UNC and Mark Williams giving Duke elite rim protection. Three of those four bigs are gone, with Bacot being the only frontcourt starter from those games still on his respective team.

By Emory Lyda Staff Writer sports@dailytarheel.com

Bacot, Filipowski to highlight frontcourt battles in Saturday’s match

Bacot is averaging 17.9 points per game and 11.4 rebounds while shooting nearly 58 percent from the field, and his playmaking has also improved en route to recording a career-high 1.8 assists per game as of Jan. 27.

A look at Tobacco Road’s new class of big men

After losing valuable forwards, Duke’s guards are on the forefront

DTH FILE/SAMANTHA LEWIS

UNC junior guard RJ Davis (4) passes in the Dean E. Smith Center on Nov. 7, 2022, against the UNC-Wilmington Seahawks.

Get ahead on gen eds Graduate on time Boost your GPA Small class sizes

REGISTRATION OPENS

Twitter: shelbymswanson@

JB: (Fans) can think whatever they want. I’m sure this time last year, Carolina fans weren’t particularly excited about their prospects, and look at what happened. With North Carolina and Duke, you have to look at the history. It delivers every time. To me, it doesn’t need to be hyped. You just have to say that they’re playing, and it immediately gets me interested. Of course, there’s going to be an added dimension when it’s No. 1 vs. No. 2, but it just adds to something that’s already at a high level.

something really good about you and no other game made you feel that way. In the 1992 season, No. 1 Duke came into the Dean Dome, and North Carolina won the game. The Carolina fans stormed the floor. I was the grad assistant that year, and was walking off the floor with one of my former teammates who was an assistant at the time, Tommy Amaker. We looked back and looked at each other like, “Can you believe that? What is this?” We’d never seen that before at North Carolina. It showed that, O.K., not only is this a fair fight, but this isn’t an expected win for their fans. That raised the stakes.

DTH: This is one of the few times that neither Duke nor North Carolina is a ranked team in the matchup. What would you say to fans who maybe aren’t as excited about this game given the relative standings of the two teams?

JB: I think the longer you’re involved in it, the more respect you have for the rivalry and for the opponent. That’s the thing that I think gets lost, is how much respect the (Duke) players had for the Carolina program. You wanted to win with everything you had. When you won, you felt good because it said

DTH: You served as an assistant coach under Coach K from 1990 to 1992, did that give you a different perspective on the rivalry?

That’s kind of the cool thing about (the rivalry), is all the great teams and all the great players, a number of which have been national player of the year, hall-of-famers and record-setters. If you sit and try to say, “Alright, give an all-time starting five for each team,” look at who you’re leaving off. You’re leaving off players that would be the greatest in another school’s history.

JB: It was nice to be there at the beginning of Coach K, and it’s nice to get a compliment about that, but the Grant Hill, Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley years were pretty important. With Shane Battier and all of these guys that continued that stuff and took it to a higher level, there’s a lot of credit that needs to be doled out.

DTH: The 1982 recruiting class that you were a part of still ranks as one of the highest-scoring classes in college basketball history. How important do you see that 1982 class in building up the rivalry between Duke and UNC?

JB: The air is heavier when that game’s around. There’s more anticipation leading up to it, there’s more attention and both buildings were oddly hotter for that one game. Cameron (Indoor Stadium) was like a sweatbox for that game. It was just a different atmosphere, and a different (level) of attention — national attention. All rivalries are big deals to the participants. But I don’t think any other, at least basketball rivalry, captures the national attention as that one does. The game always delivers. I don’t know how to explain it… it’s just got meaning beyond other rivalries and other games. There’s imagination and attention captured by it that’s hard to put into words and hard to explain — you just have to feel it.

DTH: As a player, can you describe the feeling of getting on the bus and driving to Chapel Hill?

After the game, Coach (Mike Krzyzewski) came in the locker room and we were distraught. He basically said, ‘We’re going to play them again and when we do, we’re going to win.’ In the ACC Tournament the next week, oddly, we did play them again and we did win. It signaled, O.K., this is on. At that time, I think the Duke fans had a little bit of an inferiority complex and felt like they were looked down upon by Carolina fans. From then on, the fan bases went after each other.

Jay Bilas: The programs were in different places when I got to Duke in 1982. Carolina had just won the championship, and Duke was trying to build toward competing with that. It was probably 1984 where we felt like we were competitively equal. We played three games that year, including a double-overtime loss at Carmichael (Arena) toward the end of the year.

The Daily Tar Heel: You were a four-year starter for Coach K from 1982 to 1986, what are some of your favorite memories from the UNCDuke rivalry as a player?

Jay Bilas, an ESPN analyst since 1995 and former Duke Blue Devil player and coach, has become a leading voice in the world of college basketball. Daily Tar Heel Assistant Sports Editor Shelby Swanson called Bilas in late January to discuss his fondest rivalry memories. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks rivalry experience on, off court

PHOTO COURTESY OF JAY BILAS

ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas interviews UNC senior forward/center Armando Bacot (5) inside of the Dean Smith Center.

“I don’t think any other, at least basketball rivalry, captures the national attention as that one does. The game always delivers.”

Jay

Bilas

ESPN analyst and former Blue Devil

Twitter: @mdmaynard74

drive to the basket, and could pose a big threat to the Blue Devils. If one of the guards can get early shots to fall while also facilitating the offense, the tandem could wreak havoc on the Blue Devils and help the Tar Heels add a solid road win to its resume.

This season, however, junior guard RJ Davis has been the more consistent scorer in the Tar Heels’ backcourt. Davis is a great midrange shooter that can also hit threes and

Last year against Duke, Love scored 22 points at Cameron Indoor Stadium and led the Tar Heels to a 94-81 victory. He continued to have the hot hand against Duke in the Final Four, dropping 28 points on 11-20 shooting to help UNC advance to the national title game.

Junior guard Caleb Love is no stranger to the Blue Devils, and although he has been in somewhat of a shooting slump, he may have just found his shot against Syracuse by scoring 15 points on 4-7 shooting from the field and 3-5 from behind the arc.

Guard play

Key minutes off the bench from first-year guards Seth Trimble and Tyler Nickel, as well as contributions from Dunn, Washington and junior wing Puff Johnson – who looks to return following knee soreness – will likely need to provide a spark and take some of the load off the starting five.

Get the bench involved

UNC has turned to the bench at limited times this season, but in the games against N.C. State and Syracuse, each member of the starting five – excluding Black, who was ejected against the Wolfpack for a flagrant two foul –has played over 30 minutes in each game. Sophomore guard D’Marco Dunn filled in for Black against N.C. State and played 18 minutes, six more than the rest of the bench combined. Dunn didn’t score a basket, though, and the lone bench point came from first-year forward Jalen Washington. Although his role has been inconsistent to this point in his career, Dunn has shown the ability to put the ball through the hoop when needed, evident in his season-high 14-point showing on Jan. 14 at Louisville.

First-year center Kyle Filipowski, the former No. 4 overall recruit in the nation, has been a standout for the Blue Devils this season as he leads Duke in points and rebounds per game with 15.7 and 9.5, respectively.

Contain Kyle Filipowski

UNC needs to focus on in order to leave Durham with a win:

Here are three key elements

Filipowski will have a tough test waiting for him in Armando Bacot. UNC’s senior center will look to contain Filipowski on the boards and limit second chance opportunities for the Blue Devils. Although Bacot stands as a tough test on the boards, graduate forward Leaky Black may switch to – or even start the game –defending Filipowski. Black is a lengthy and versatile defender standing at 6-foot-9 and would be a good defensive matchup for the 7-foot Filipowski.

The North Carolina men’s basketball team will face Duke for the first time this season on Saturday, Feb. 4 at Cameron Indoor Stadium, where the Tar Heels carry a two-game winning streak against the Blue Devils. Duke is 11-0 at home so far this year, boasting wins against thenNo. 25 Ohio State and then-No. 17 Miami. UNC, on the other hand, has struggled away from home this season, entering this matchup with a 2-4 away record, with its two true road victories coming against Louisville and Syracuse.

By Matthew Maynard Staff Writer sports@dailytarheel.com

Filipowski is a versatile player. He can drive to the basket off of high ball screens, is a threat from the perimeter and is strong on the offensive and defensive glass. Although he is only knocking down 28.8 percent of his triples, his 3.6 attempts from deep per game frequently force defenders away from the rim, which opens up offensive opportunities for the rest of his teammates. Regardless, his presence around the rim is his strongest trait, as he leads all firstyears in double-doubles this season with 11 total.

Keys to a UNC victory in Durham

DTH FILE/IRA WILDER Then-sophomore guard RJ Davis (4) holds eye contact with his opponent in a game against Duke on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022.

FILE/SAMANTHA LEWIS

TO THE GAME!