SPRING 2023 SEASON

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NELLA

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

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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.”

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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.” 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.

“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.

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