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The Carolina-Duke rivalry must be preserved.
The Duke Basketball Report revealed its top ten college basketball rivalries. It was self-serving because everyone knows which is No.1.
But the variations of the “second nine” only underscore how valuable the home-and-home series is between the Tar Heels and Blue Devils, which has been on national TV since the 1980s.
“None of it can touch Duke and UNC,” J.D. King writes. And he lists two versions of the next nine, with reasons natural rivalries are not so great.
For example:
Kentucky-Louisville is a natural, but they have never been in the same conference and refused to play each other for most of 70 years in the earlier 20th century.
They met in the 1983 NCAA tournament and have been playing once a season ever since, which is the problem. To be a great hoops rivalry, a home-and-home series every season is necessary.
Other rivalries within the same conferences have not come close to the Carolina-Duke TV ratings, which are the best in every regular season. Most are overshadowed by football rivalries.
Kansas and Missouri, border states, used to have a really hot basketball rivalry. But do they even play each other now that Missouri has moved to the SEC?
Which is the very reason that the ACC must do everything in its power to keep the Carolina-Duke rivalry as it is today. No, they can’t separate and move to different conferences, even if they played once a year on a neutral court or alternated arenas annually.
The home-and-home series would disappear, and the reason would be something about money.
The rivalry of today is the North Star of the ACC and should not change formats regardless of which league the two schools move to. They must play home-and-home every season or risk becoming like the old arch football rivalries that died in realignment.
Saving the ACC is what most ACC fans want, but in a world driven by money that may not happen. What league would not want the greatest rivalry in the history of college basketball, worth multi-
millions in right fees from the TV network that wins the bid?
Say that Duke moved to the Big Ten and Carolina to the SEC. Do you think other schools in those leagues would allow them to play home-and-home and overshadow the rest of their basketball schedules?
Not a chance.
The common denominator of Carolina-Duke basketball over the last 60 years is both programs have remained national contenders and NCAA tourney participants for most of those six decades.
Let them stay together, whether in the ACC or another conference. The legacy players and legions of alumni and fans from both schools would mourn the loss if the greatest rivalry in college basketball does not stay as it is right now, on the first Saturdays of February and March. . . .in prime time on national television.
Featured image via Associated Press/Ben McKeown
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
No where is it clear that in different conferences Carolina-dook could not be played as two games home/away. It doesn’t “overshadow” a conference, it adds to two instead of one. Only ignorant athletic conference directors wouldn’t recognize the positive impact of such a series for all teams.
Barry, the separate conferences would not allow it because they would not be conference games and the all the other schools would balk about that and not sharing the TV money that Duke-Carolina series would get.
The monetary value of moving to the SEC or BIG10 by far outweighs the need to sustain this great rivalry. I hate it, but is true.