It’s finally time for one of the most anticipated rivalries in sports to return to the big stage. After the Duke Blue Devils traveled to UNC in February, it’s the UNC Tar Heels’ turn to go on the road into one of the most hostile environments in college basketball.
Origins of the Duke and UNC Rivalry
Duke and UNC hate each other. Located just eight miles apart from each other on Tobacco Road, the Blue Devils and the Tar Heels are in each other’s backyards. While the campuses are just a short car ride away, these schools mark their allegiances, stick to them, and hate one another.
The rivalry began on Jan. 24, 1920, when the Tar Heels hosted the Blue Devils. UNC won that game and was the origin of the long-standing rivalry between the two squads. The rivalry started out as a rather tame rivalry between two teams down the road until the 1960s.
Highly-touted recruit Art Heyman was set to attend UNC before eventually flipping his commitment to Duke after an apparent disagreement with the UNC coach at the time. This marked the start of the heated rivalry between the two schools.
When they met in Heyman’s first season, Heyman got into a brawl with UNC’s Dieter Krause. In the following season (1961), Heyman initiated a brawl with UNC’s Larry Brown, involving many Tar Heels and Blue Devils.
Between the eight miles separating the schools, immense tension and animosity were building. Once former Duke HC Mike Krzyzewski entered the fray in 1980 and former UNC HC Dean Smith had joined in 1961, this rivalry reached a new level and never looked back.
This clash turned from a local rivalry into a national rivalry rooted in hatred between two of the best teams in the nation every year.
This year, it’s more of the same. Two top-20 teams in the nation, including No. 1 Duke, set to renew their rivalry one more time before the postseason begins. The Duke fans have been preparing for months to make the environment as tough as possible on the Tar Heels.
This rivalry has created hero status for players in both programs that only the nature of Duke-UNC can confer. Seth Trimble put his name in UNC folklore after hitting the game-winner to sink Duke in February, and only time will tell which player will etch his name in the history of this rivalry tonight.
Unfortunately for the Tar Heels, it won’t be Caleb Wilson, their star player, set to miss the rest of the season with a right thumb injury.
