Cooper Flagg, Welcome to Duke-Unc Rivalization

Duke Blue Devils hosts the first of two meetings of the season of long-lasting rival, North Carolina Tar Heels, Saturday in a Sonic Blockbuster match on ESPN (18:30 ET).

North Carolina native Ryan McGee wrote an open letter to the Star -Nypyder on behalf of his home state, where the two programs on each side of College Basketball’s great rivalry are only separated by 11 miles.

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Dear Cooper Flagg,

Congratulations on what has been a ridiculously big beginner season at Duke. On a basketball program that has long been an assembly line with legends, you have already managed to cut your name into the wooden parlor at Cameron Indoor Stadium after only 20 collegial games game.

You came to Durham with almost unprecedented hype, like the country’s top recruits and already the presumable # 1 choice in the 2025 NBA draft. But you have lived up to the hype from the start, run lanes, thrown Fallaway 3-Pointers and thrown Bagat-Reading Dunks in a campaign that is likely to end with a truck with the year’s player of the year sent back to your hometown of Newport , Maine.

But before we can cement your inheritance, there is the question of Saturday’s planned competition against a nearby team that carries a lighter shade of blue, making the 11-miles hike north from Chapel Hill to Durham. Yes, North Carolina, the flagship school in the state where you now live in – and the measuring stick that your duchies will be assessed forever.

Forget that you turned 18 hardly a month and a half ago. How to act against the team from the other end of the Highway 501, backing through every birthday you are celebrating from now on.

And to be crystal clear here, child, this is not over -type sports writer hyperbole. Just ask those who once stood in your sneakers in the same court, most of them for a long time – very long – before you were born.

“It’s been 40 years since I played a college basketball game,” said Michael Jordan. (Maybe you’ve heard of him, Cooper?) “To today before people ask me about our national championship or our three ACC championships or ACC tournament winner, some of it, they ask, ‘How did you do it against Duke? ” ”

After breaking to make room for a grinch-like evil laugh as he reflects on his UNC days while at a nascar event (he is now a team owner) late last fall, the goat added: “By the way, the answer is that we did very well. ”

Very good, as in six wins for a loss – which brings us, Cooper, to the other lonely end of that yardstick.

“The one loss for Michael was the first victory for me,” Jay Bilas said. You definitely know that name, don’t you, Cooper? He is the guy who always talks about you at “College Gameday.” He is also the fellow 6-foot-9 large man in all these photos taping at the Museum of Cameron Indoor Lobby. No. 21 traded Bilas in Socal for the South to be a member of Duke’s ACC Power-Shifting 1986 Final Four team. (Although in your defense you may not be able to recognize him in these team photos because he had hair back then.)

“I can’t remember the scoring of many games I played in,” Bilas continued. “But I remember the scoring of one in 1984. It was the ACC Tournament and North Carolina was ranked as No. 1, but we won 77-74. I always want to remember that score because when we got back to Durham, every car in Town had a bumper label that read: Duke Blue 77, Carolina Blue 74.

“It was so rare that it was for Duke to beat Carolina back then. I remember we said this should not be so big. This should be a normal occurrence.”

Bilas, like MJ, flirting.

“And it’s been.”

In fact, Cooper has it. UNC leads the all-time series with 145 wins to Duke’s 117, but it includes a 16-match winning row that took place a century ago. Since 1978, the series has stood as Duke 57, UNC 49. Since 2003, it’s Duke 26, UNC 23. And so far, Scorecard UNC 6, Duke 5.

The only non-regular seasonal match among them came in the 2022 Final Four when the heels ended Mike Krzyzewski’s unmatched coaching career in the greatest imaginable way.

But Mr. Flagg, what you need to understand before Saturday evening tipoff has nothing to do with items, state sheets or series -wound stripes (though it is worth noting that UNC has won two equal). This game is much bigger than that. This is about emotions. About boasting rights. About the ripples sent from the triangle throughout the old northern state, from Appalachians to the outer banks, where its episents are the numbers that you and your teammates do or do not stamp on these state sheets in your two winter meetings with the heels.

Duke-Carolina is about old men sitting in booths at barbecue joints, the methodist dressed in a nuance of blue who asked Presbyterian who was dressed in the second Azul color, “Well now, what the hell happened to Saturday night?” Then immediately push the check over the vinegar-colored formica that tradition requires.

Be warned, dear beginner flagg, that a countless list of your colleagues first-year players has been thrown into Duke-Carolina Spotlight, both willing and accidentally.

Zion Williamson was a beginner on the night of February 20, 2019, when 36 seconds into the UNC game in Cameron, his right Nike sneaker exploded as if it had been rigged by a Hollywood specialty. In 2007, when Duke’s Gerald Henderson’s elbow broke Tyler Hansbrough’s nose, it further opened the break between Durham and Chapel Hill. The image of the UNC center’s blood-covered face is the old North State’s equivalent to Rocky Balboa, screaming “Adrian!” – But it was Hansbrough who raised revenge on Henderson who was, yes, a beginner.

And the old timers in their barbecue stalls still tell the story of February 4, 1961, the day often selected as the moment the rivalry became more than just a basketball competition. UNCS Larry Brown-Business An Internet search for that name, Cooper, he became a very big deal among Hoops-trainers-run the length of Cameron Court in the final seconds, subsequently Duke 81-75. He was protected by Blue Devil Ace Art Heyman, who spit on Brown and grabbed him for a targeted error. Brown responded by throwing the ball at Heyman and then throwing fist.

The UNC bench, then placed along the baseline, responded by jumping Heyman a lot. The Duke bench responded by running over the building to protect their Allamerican, while students poured on the floor and stopped someone in Pale Blue. Among those who were later found guilty of making the whole thing much worse were much faster, yes, beginner players from both teams present as fans at a time when they were not allowed to play yet.

Mr. Flagg, it would be necessary not to pay close attention to the current win-loss items over your respective teams. Yes, Duke has only lost twice and will host Saturday evening’s game as the second ranked team in the country. And yes, North Carolina scrubs at 13-9, ranked as seventh in ACC after Hubert Davis after four seasons at the helm of his Alma Mater.

But Davis himself will gladly explain how “throwing the items out when these two meet” are not a sports cliché when these two teams go together. During Davis’ junior year 1990, the twice of Tar Heels faced Duke as the higher -ranked team – and lost both times. Then they met in the ACC Tourney title game where Duke was ranked in front of Carolina … and lost.

“People remember the game when we lost to them in the ACC tournament in 1984, but we had to play our donkeys so as not to have lost to them just the week before,” Brad Dautherty remembered. “We were also # 1 in that game and they pushed us to two overlays before we finally put it away. I think it was almost 20 years since Duke had won in Carmichael (UNC’s long -time arena) and I Remember to have seen all the old letters there that night and look at us as ‘you’re better not the ones blowing this stripe!’ Thank God we didn’t.

And Coop, before taking the court for the latest rate of this rivalry, do yourself a favor and dig the game movie in this same competition in this same building almost exactly two decades ago, not too long before you entered this big blue world .

It was February 2nd 1995. Duke was bad. As the only real spot on Krzyzewski’s post-fire seasons kind of bad. Blue Devils went 2-14 in acc. The whole thing was so awful that when Coach K had to miss part of the season for back surgery, he decided not to return at all. But in very typical heel-devils way it can be the best game ever played in your new home. Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse and the No. 2 heels released a dunk competition to take a 17-point lead, but Duke gathered to force overtime. At the end of the first ot, with the nation encrypted to find the brand new ESPN2 on their cable systems, Jeff Capel-ja, the coach of Pitt-smoked a Midcourt Desperate Heave to force double ot and ignite Durham to Delirium.

UNC won the game. But Capel won your new school’s hearts forever and always, amen.

Who knows, Cooper Flagg? Maybe you have your own Capel moment. Or Hansbrough moment. Or mj … or jj redick … or austin rivers … or filling blank with your favorite blue note at all times.

Just know this, Mr. Maine man. Whatever you think you know about College Basketball’s biggest rivalry, forget about it. Because all those who dribbled before you thought they knew it too.

“The only thing you really need to know is that this is bigger than you think, and it’s definitely bigger than you,” said Christian Laettner, perhaps the most simultaneously loved and disgust hoopster who ever has hit the court for this series. A series that, despite all its second worldwide success (see: four Final Fours, two national titles and the dream team), he released a 5-6 record against UNC.

“To say you played in the Duke-Carolina game is the most amazing privilege,” Laettner added. “To say you won it and won it several times, it’s the gift that continues to give the rest of your life. And those you’ve lost you still playing your head.”

We’ll see what brand you’re leaving on this rivalry coming on Saturday, Coop.

Sincerely

Everyone in the state of North Carolina