This Just In – In the interest of long-term stress management and the mental health of all involved, let’s enjoy a Groundhog Day Eve moment of Zen and think of things familiar and comforting. Let’s think about beating Duke at Cameron in Carolina’s first 2025 Blue Blood Battle this year.
Yes, there are many newsworthy items to discuss, but for just a moment, I’m placing them in my “not right now” box to make space for the game on Saturday night.
Ribs, wings, chips, dip – we’ll be loaded up and ready for game time. All dietary restrictions are suspended until Sunday. Game day shirt – check. Email signature modified (Go Heels, Beat Dook at Cameron on Feb. 1) – check. Snarky social media comments at the ready – check.

North Carolina’s Cormac Ryan (3) attempts to shoot as Duke’s Tyrese Proctor (5) defends during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Durham, N.C., Saturday, March. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben McKeown)
When I first came to North Carolina, the Duke-UNC was all new to me. I didn’t follow college basketball much as a kid, except the know that UCLA usually won the championship. I can’t imagine that now.
Although we won’t have Coach K to serve as the target of our condemnation, he’ll certainly be one or two rows back from the Duke bench.
This year’s Duke phenom is Cooper Flagg. A dominating presence under the basket, he is a freshman who no one expects to be in Durham time next year. This is a common occurrence at Duke – the one-and-done thing with talents so big they turn pro immediately.
I don’t know what the answer is here for college basketball and I understand (intellectually) the pressure of a zillion dollar opportunity that could be lost to injury by continuing in college. That said, if actually attending college and matriculating to earn a degree is unrelated to your presence there, you shouldn’t be there. It’s bad faith to accept a scholarship.
If you’re all that, like LeBron James, go straight to the pros. Leave that spot on the team for a kid who wants to play basketball while earning his undergraduate degree in engineering or drama. Leave that spot, in other words, for a college student.
The more our collegiate sports drift into the professional career track the more those participating will lose from the college experience. In their joint interview for an ESPN documentary, Coach K and Coach Williams agreed that the NCAA still has work to do in finding the balance between what’s fair compensation for players who are certainly entitled to benefit from the sale of their image and likeness and the protection of these young people from the corrosive effects of being sucked into the money game instead of focusing on their sport.
We love to poke at Coach K and I enjoy the rivalry as much as anyone, but he was thoughtful and serious-minded in talking about the importance of developing relationships and the character of these young men who are entrusted to the influence of college coaches. These relationships take time to build and they can’t happen if players can skip out without penalty because they went three games without enough playing time.
Protecting the value of the college experience is a big job for coaches. Duke and Carolina and great people at the top of their organizations and this allows us fans to focus on the game itself. Our universities need to be leaders in driving improvements and I’m somewhat optimistic that this is possible. Like I said, Coaches K and W may not be on the bench calling plays, but their influence (thankfully) continues from a row or two back.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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