While many might be wary of venturing into the dark depths of a college student’s YouTube history, browsing through Caleb Wilson’s will convey a theme immediately: the guy loves basketball.
Specifically, he loves this particular game of basketball. The one Saturday night which will pit No. 14 UNC against No. 4 Duke at the Smith Center.
Wilson can’t wait. Ever since he visited UNC when the Tar Heels hosted – and beat – the Blue Devils in 2024, he’s been hankering for his chance at Tobacco Road glory. How could he not?
“I love watching old Duke games,” Wilson said Thursday. “I’ve been watching them for a long time, really ever since I committed. I used to watch them in class in high school… I remember watching live when Zion Williamson blew his shoe out in that Duke game at Cameron.”
UNC’s Caleb Wilson is eager for his first game against Duke, having watched several old games on YouTube. “I’ve been watching them for a long time, really ever since I committed,” he said Thursday. (Image via Todd Melet)
But for Wilson and the overwhelming majority of the Tar Heels’ roster, that’s all the rivalry experience they have: watching. Sure, Henri Veesaar played Duke at Arizona, as did Jaydon Young at Virginia Tech and Jarin Stevenson at Alabama, but none of them were wearing that particular shade of blue which clashes so violently with Duke’s. None of them wore the name across the chest that makes Blue Devils everywhere see red.
Of the 2025-26 Tar Heels, only Seth Trimble has played meaningful minutes in the rivalry. Trimble was a key contributor in UNC’s sweep of Duke during the 2023-24 season — but also in 2024-25, when the Blue Devils beat Carolina not once, not twice, but three times on their way to the Final Four.
With that knowledge of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, Trimble has taken it upon himself to school his teammates ahead of Saturday’s game.
“I’m doing a pretty good job of letting the guys know how much tension there is during this matchup,” Trimble told reporters. “What the stakes are. The history. How they beat us three times last year. How much it means to this university, to the former players, to everybody that represents North Carolina.”
But in a sense, Trimble said, words of wisdom or grainy YouTube videos alone can only do so much. The Duke-Carolina game is college basketball’s version of the Grand Canyon: you just have to be there.
“You don’t really understand until you’re out on that court Saturday,” Trimble said. “And you see it’s like no other home game all year.”
Hubert Davis knows this better than most. Between his playing days, his time as an assistant coach and now his tenure as head coach, Davis has participated in dozens of Duke games (and this doesn’t even count those he attended as an analyst for ESPN). Wilson, always the basketball historian, noted how Davis could remember details from all 11 of his matchups against Duke as a player.
Since becoming head coach, Davis has tried to play it cool before his annual run-ins with the folks down the road. In 2022, Davis famously referenced a Bible verse telling his team to “ignore all sideshow distractions” before defeating the heavily favored Blue Devils in head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game. Davis went back to that well again Thursday.
“The main thing that I’ve tried to communicate to the guys is our preparation, our process, the way that we practice and the way that we play is no different,” Davis said. “The only difference is the circus is coming to town.”
Davis is clearly not moved by the fact that his old ESPN coworkers will be broadcasting live from the Smith Center both the morning of the game and in the minutes before tip-off. To this day, he still looks back in wonder at the fact that he even worked for the Worldwide Leader at all. Because once upon a time, Hubert Davis was a soft-spoken kid who went to speech therapy all throughout his elementary, middle and high school days. Public speaking was nowhere near his radar.
But the player who knows Davis isn’t buying his “just another game” mentality. He sees something hidden beneath the surface. And before he takes the court for his last home game ever against the Blue Devils, Seth Trimble wants to see that fire.
“I’m pretty positive he’ll cook something up for us in that pregame speech,” Trimble said. “He’ll have us ready to go.”
Featured image via Todd Melet
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