Carolina is the biggest home underdog to Duke in 18 years.

We have heard everyone from Jay Bilas to Mike Krzyzewski lamenting the state of college basketball this season.

Bilas, the brilliant ESPN broadcaster and former Dukie, has been saying almost from opening week that it’s a down year. Coach K, disgusted by another half-hearted effort by his team at Boston College, theorized that the game needs a new plan.

So maybe it’s a good time for Carolina to be a double-digit underdog to Duke on its home court for the first time since 2002. You remember that infamous year, don’t you, when the Tar Heels were on their way to an 8-20 record with three of those losses to Duke by a total of 66 points. Ouch.

UNC basketball was in a funk since Roy Williams turned down the job after Bill Guthridge retired in the summer of 2000 and Matt Doherty was hired before his time for such a challenge. Carolina was 6-11 coming off a home win over Clemson that snapped a 6-game losing streak.

Duke was ranked No. 1 with an 18-1 record going to the Smith Center on the last day in January. The defending national champion Blue Devils were favored to go back-to-back for the second time in school history, just as they had 10 years before. Their starters were Jay Williams, Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy, Dahntay Jones and Chris Duhon, all future NBA players.

Doherty’s second Tar Heel team had lost Joseph Forte, Brendon Haywood and football stars Ronald Curry and Julius Peppers. Kris Lang and Jason Capel were senior starters, but there wasn’t much more firepower in a sketchy lineup that also had 3 freshmen who would win an NCAA title in 2005 as seniors.

The arena was loaded with royal blue shirts, as thousands of Tar Heel fans had given up on their team and parted with their tickets. The Dukies won by 29 and were sort of celebrating the death of Tar Heel basketball late in the game.

Coach K called a TO and ordered his cocky players to shake hands after the game and do not gloat on the way through the visiting tunnel. He promised them Carolina basketball would be back.

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