NEW ORLEANS — Duke against North Carolina is big in February. It is big on the first Saturday of March.
Fans celebrate regular-season victories like others celebrate NCAA Tournament wins. Duke fans start bonfires in Durham after beating North Carolina. North Carolina fans storm Franklin Street in Chapel Hill after beating Duke.
No, Saturday night in New Orleans isn’t big. It is monstrous. It is epic. It is the most important game in the history of the best rivalry in college basketball, the two forever rivals’ first NCAA Tournament encounter, and their 258th matchup all time, being played in the Final Four of all settings.
The winner moves within one win of a national championship. The loser hears about this result forever. And add in the unique caveat that it will be the final time Mike Krzyzewski takes on North Carolina in his Hall of Fame career, four weeks to the day after the Tar Heels ruined his final home game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has proclaimed his state “the center of the college basketball universe.” Country singer Eric Church canceled a show so he could watch the game.
“There’s an incredible amount of pressure, and naturally there’s pressure when you’re here on this stage, a chance to play on Monday, championship night. That’s only going to be magnified and intensified because of the rivalry,” Grant Hill, the former Duke star and current CBS/Turner Sports college basketball analyst, told The Post on Friday. “It will be the highest of highs and lowest of lows. As a result, I think the players feel that and they are aware of that.”
The proximity of the schools — they are separated by 10 miles on U.S. Highway 15-501, which is also known as Tobacco Road — and the success of the teams has created this intense rivalry. So has the level of the players involved, from Michael Jordan to Christian Laettner, Rasheed Wallace to Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson to Vince Carter, and so many others. There are 38 Final Four berths and 11 national championships between them.
Hill remembered that when he attended Duke, there would be North Carolina fans who worked on campus and they would remind him of losses to the Tar Heels. He joked it was like “living with the enemy.” Duke wing Wendell Moore Jr. has had professors who root for North Carolina.
The two coaches and respective players have done their best to minimize the significance of the rivalry taking place in the Final Four. Being one win away from the national championship game is what matters, not the fact it is the first time Duke and North Carolina will meet in the NCAA Tournament, they have maintained.
“I can’t really give you guys what you want with this question, but we all know how big of a game this is,” Tar Heels wing Leaky Black said. “Final Four, Duke-North Carolina, it doesn’t get much bigger than this unless it was a championship game.”
This week, Black said he was stopped on campus crossing the street for a photo from a driver who interrupted traffic in the process. On Tobacco Road, everyone is fixated on the game, according to Spectrum News (Raleigh, N.C.) sports anchor J.B. Ricks. People are on edge, nervous about what a loss would mean in terms of bragging rights.
“Neither one of them wanted this to happen because now whoever loses this game, they’re going to have to live with that for the rest of their lives,” Ricks said. “It has a game of the century type of vibe.”
Duke (32-6) has the most to lose. This is Coach K’s final go-around. It already let North Carolina (28-9) ruin his final home game. And the Tar Heels weren’t even supposed to reach this point, after playing mediocre basketball a good portion of the season until flipping a switch in February. Duke is a two-seed, North Carolina is an eight.
“I feel like they have the most pressure,” North Carolina guard Caleb Love said.
Really, there is pressure on everyone. The stakes have never been this high. It will be North Carolina and Duke in the Final Four. Let the chaos ensue.
“Just us meeting at this time, especially after beating them in Cameron,” North Carolina forward Armando Bacot said, “it just makes for the perfect story.”