I think the rivalry was second to the Case/McGuire rivalry in the 50′s, got really huge in the 60′s, but then receded due to USC becoming the conference bad boys and then NC State dominating the conference and beating Carolina 9 times in a row, while Duke was in free fall for 7 years after Vic Bubas left.

Both games in 1974 were classics, but sort of meaningless, particularly the 17-second game which had no effect on anything. UNC got annihilated the next Friday by Maryland in perhaps the worst thrashing Dean Smith ever took in the ACC tournament, although 1992 was pretty ugly too.

I would say I thought about Duke sort of the way I think about State now. Don’t overlook them because they want it more than we do, but they just weren’t very good. I think even Dean Smith has said that State was the main rival at this time.

Bill Foster then restored Duke to parity with NC State as a rival but he didn’t stay long and Duke pretty much plunged the first couple of years under K, while Terry Holland and Virginia became the most hated. It was UVa, in fact, that made it to the Final Four in 1984 to our great chagrin, when we had one of our best teams ever. Tom Sheehy was the Shane Battier of the era.

In fact, my freshman year in 1984, I don’t remember the game in Durham even being televised, although it could have had to do with the later aborted pay per view scheme that Raycom had come up with. I remember being shocked at how close it was and how we had to struggle to win, as I learned the name Tommy Amaker for the first time. The second Duke game that year, that went into double overtime where Doherty hit the great shot to tie, was spring break week-end and I honestly don’t remember many people planning to shorten travel plans to stay in Chapel Hill, of course it didn’t take that many to fill up Carmichael.

By the next year, however, I remember getting up at three in the morning to do the ridiculous “line up” charade for tickets, which I got, for the last Duke-Carolina game in Carmichael. I am sure it seemed easy by current Duke standards, one morning of lost sleep on a Saturday night, but that was the hardest I ever had to work for seats, (since I was not particular about location because they were all pretty good in Carmichael) but, hey Duke had not even been selling out during the early 80′s so they can’t feel too smug.

I think the rivalry really went up another notch in 1988 with SAT-gate and K’s Final 4 string and pretty much put all the others behind it, once and for all, particularly with the demise of Valvano, and Driesell and Holland leaving, who had also each been spirited opposition. I also think that students who had been a bit lackadaisical in the early and mid-80′s because UNC had recently won a title, were shocked back into competitive mode by Duke’s successes in the late 80′s. I thought 1986 was a lucky blip but by 1992, we were being eclipsed as top ACC program and danger always makes a rivalry even more bitter. Smith beat back the first challenge, but by 2004, we obviously had been eclipsed, which led to the greatest game in the history of the series in March 2005, at least for UNC.

I also take exception to his dook has the “better gym” statement. Based on what? Sweltering temperatures, limited seating, outdated facilities? Sure it’s louder and it’s cool that the students get to sit by the court, but the Dean Dome is still one of the nicest places to play basketball, and it is over 20 years old. He mentions better fans too, so I assume that he means in Cameron. The # of UNC fans dwarfs that of dook, and I’d bet that the average Tar Heel fan is more rabid than the average dook fan, based on demographics alone.

It’s hard to argue that Coach K’s ascendancy in the mid-80s certainly took the rivalry to another level. There were great moments in the rivalry up until that point, but I remember as a kid in the early 80s believing that State was Carolina’s main rival. I guess it wasn’t until the ’84 ACC semis, and then two years later when #1 Carolina played #3 Duke to open the Dean Dome, that the rivalry in my opinion was clearly took on a new level. By the late 80s there was no question, with the J.R. “I Can’t” Reid stuff and the brutal ’89 ACC Final (not to mention State’s precipitous decline).

Carolina and Duke are routinely playing for the ACC Title and/or the #1 seed in the NCAAs. There are some good rivalries around the country and UL-UK is one of them. However, Pat Forde is out to lunch if he thinks it holds a candle to Carolina-Duke.

I think Pat Forde just needs to go ahead and stick with college football writing. He knows it better, which might explain why a lot of the so-called “hot rivalries” in his column are football rivalries.

Ahem.

Yeah. Clearly other teams also factor in ACC rivalries. WFU have been really a challenge this decade. NC State have been traditionally a big rival as well.

This kind of writing is more suited to the pro game. Maybe he should concentrate there.

Kansas-Missouri is probably closest in terms of antipathy but Missouri has been iffy as a team since the early 80′s.

Let’s look at football: Army-Navy, OU-Texas, OSU-Michigan, Alabama-Auburn, USC-UCLA and on and on.