Tag: Flagg

The Duke Blue Devils host the first of two regular-season meetings with longtime rival, the North Carolina Tar Heels, on Saturday in a Sonic Blockbuster matchup on ESPN (6:30 p.m. ET).

North Carolina native Ryan McGee penned an open letter to the star freshman on behalf of his home state, where the two programs on either side of college basketball’s storied rivalry are separated by only 11 miles.

Dear Cooper Flagg,

Congratulations on what has been a ridiculously great freshman season at Duke. At a basketball program that has long been an assembly line of legends, you have already managed to carve your name into the wooden framework of Cameron Indoor Stadium after only 20 collegiate games played.

You came to Durham with nearly unprecedented hype, as the nation’s top recruit and already the presumptive No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft. But you have lived up to the hype from the start, driving lanes, tossing up fallaway 3-pointers and throwing down backboard-rattling dunks in a campaign that will likely end with a truckload of Player of the Year awards sent back to your hometown of Newport, Maine.

But before we can cement your legacy, there is the matter of Saturday’s scheduled contest against a neighboring team that wears a lighter shade of blue, making the 11-mile trek north from Chapel Hill to Durham. Yes, North Carolina, the flagship school of the state in which you now reside — and the measuring stick by which your Duke days shall be forever assessed.

Forget that you turned 18 barely a month and a half ago. How you perform against the team from the other end of Highway 501 will tailgate you through every birthday you celebrate from now on.

And to be crystal clear here, kid, this isn’t overtyped sportswriter hyperbole. Just ask those who once stood in your sneakers on that same court, most of them long — very long — before you were born.

“It’s been 40 years since I played a college basketball game,” Michael Jordan said. (Perhaps you’ve heard of him, Cooper?) “To this day, before people ask me about our national championship or our three ACC championships or ACC tournament wins, any of that, they ask, ‘How did you did you do against Duke?’”

After pausing to make room for a Grinch-like evil grin while reflecting on his UNC days while at a NASCAR event (he’s now a team owner) late last fall, the GOAT added: “By the way, the answer is that we did very well.”

Very well, as in six wins to one loss — which brings us, Cooper, to the other lonelier end of that yardstick.

“That one loss for Michael was the first win for me,” Jay Bilas said. You definitely know that name, don’t you, Cooper? He’s the guy who is always talking about you on “College GameDay.” He’s also the fellow 6-foot-9 big man in all those photos wallpapering the museum in the Cameron Indoor lobby. No. 21, Bilas traded in SoCal for the South to be a member of Duke’s ACC power-shifting 1986 Final Four team. (Though, in your defense, you might not recognize him in those team pics because he had hair back then.)

“I don’t remember the score of many games I played in,” Bilas continued. “But I remember the score of that one in 1984. It was the ACC tournament and North Carolina was ranked No. 1, but we won 77-74. I will always remember that score because when we got back to Durham, every car in town had a bumper sticker that read: DUKE BLUE 77, CAROLINA BLUE 74.

“That’s how rare it was for Duke to beat Carolina back then. I remember us saying this shouldn’t be such a big deal. This needs to be a normal occurrence.”

Bilas, like MJ, grinned.

“And it has been.”

Indeed, Cooper, it has. UNC leads the all-time series with 145 wins to Duke’s 117, but that includes a 16-game winning streak that took place a century ago. Since 1978, the series has stood as Duke 57, UNC 49. Since 2003, it’s Duke 26, UNC 23. And so far this decade, the scorecard reads UNC 6, Duke 5.

The only non-regular-season game among those came in the 2022 Final Four, when the Heels ended Mike Krzyzewski’s unparalleled coaching career in the biggest conceivable way.

But Mr. Flagg, what you need to understand before Saturday evening’s tipoff has nothing to do with records, stat sheets or series winning streaks (though it’s worth noting that UNC has won two straight). This game is much bigger than that. This is about emotion. About bragging rights. About the ripples sent forth from the Triangle throughout the Old North State, from the Appalachians to the Outer Banks, its epicenter being the numbers that you and your teammates do or do not stamp onto those stat sheets in your two wintertime meetings with the Heels.

Duke-Carolina is about old men sitting in booths at barbecue joints, the Methodist dressed in one shade of blue asking the Presbyterian donned in that other Azul hue, “Well now, what the hell happened to y’all Saturday night?” Then promptly pushing the check across the vinegar-stained Formica, as tradition demands.

Be forewarned, dear freshman Flagg, that a countless roster of your fellow first-year players have been thrust into the Duke-Carolina spotlight, both willingly and accidentally.

Zion Williamson was a freshman the night of Feb. 20, 2019, when 36 seconds into the UNC game at Cameron, his right Nike sneaker exploded like it had been rigged by a Hollywood special effects unit. In 2007, when Duke’s Gerald Henderson’s elbow broke Tyler Hansbrough’s nose, it further opened the fracture between Durham and Chapel Hill. The image of the UNC center’s blood-covered face is the Old North State’s equivalent to Rocky Balboa screaming “Adrian!” — but it was Hansbrough vowing revenge on Henderson, who was, yes, a freshman.

And those old-timers in their barbecue booths still tell the tale of Feb. 4, 1961, the day often singled out as the moment the rivalry became more than just a basketball contest. UNC’s Larry Brown — do an internet search for that name, Cooper, he became a very big deal among hoops coaches — was driving the length of Cameron court in the closing seconds, trailing Duke 81-75. He was guarded by Blue Devil ace Art Heyman, who spit at Brown and grabbed at him for a purposeful foul. Brown reacted by throwing the ball at Heyman and then throwing fists.

The UNC bench, then located along the baseline, reacted by jumping Heyman en masse. The Duke bench reacted by running across the building to protect their All-American while students poured onto the floor, punching anyone in pale blue. Among those later found guilty of making it all much worse much faster were, yes, freshmen players from both teams, in attendance as fans during a time when they weren’t allowed to play yet.

Also, Mr. Flagg, it would behoove you to not pay much attention to the current win-loss records of your respective teams. Yes, Duke has lost only twice and will host Saturday night’s game as the second-ranked team in the land. And yes, North Carolina is scuffling at 13-9, ranked seventh in the ACC after dropping three of its past four, and there is increasing noise from those who sport Tar on their Heels that it might be time to part ways with UNC hoops hero Hubert Davis after four seasons at the helm of his alma mater.

But Davis himself will be happy to explain how “throw the records out when these two get together” is no mere sports cliché when, well, these two teams get together. During Davis’ junior year of 1990, twice the Tar Heels faced Duke as the higher ranked team — and lost both times. Then they met in the ACC tourney title game, where Duke was ranked ahead of Carolina … and lost.

“People remember the game when we lost to them in the 1984 ACC tourney, but we had to play our asses off not to have lost to them just the week before,” Brad Daugherty recalled. “We were No. 1 in that game, too, and they pushed us to two overtimes before we finally put it away. I think it had been nearly 20 years since Duke had won in Carmichael [UNC’s longtime arena] and I remember seeing all the old lettermen there that night looking at us like, ‘Y’all better not be the ones that blow this streak!’ Thank goodness we didn’t.”

And, Coop, before you take the court for the latest installment of this rivalry do yourself a favor and dig out the game film of this same contest in this same building almost exactly two decades ago, not too long before you entered this big blue world.

It was Feb. 2, 1995. Duke was bad. Like, the only real blemish on Krzyzewski’s post-earliest-seasons kind of bad. The Blue Devils went 2-14 in the ACC. It was all so awful that when Coach K had to miss a chunk of the season for back surgery, he decided not to return at all. But in very typical Heels-Devils fashion, it might be the best game ever played in your new home. Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse and the No. 2 Heels unleashed a dunk contest to take a 17-point lead, but Duke rallied to force overtime. At the end of the first OT, with the nation scrambling to find the brand-new ESPN2 on their cable systems, Jeff Capel — yes, the coach at Pitt — smoked a desperate heave from midcourt to force double OT and ignite Durham into delirium.

UNC won the game. But Capel won your new school’s hearts forever and ever, amen.

Who knows, Cooper Flagg? Perhaps you have your own Capel moment. Or Hansbrough moment. Or MJ … or JJ Redick … or Austin Rivers … or fill-in-the-blank with your all-time favorite blue note.

Just know this, Mr. Maine Man. Whatever you think you know about college basketball’s greatest rivalry, forget it. Because all of those who dribbled before you thought they knew, too.

“The only thing you really need to know is that this is bigger than you think, and it is certainly bigger than you,” said Christian Laettner, perhaps the most simultaneously loved and loathed hoopster who ever hit the court for this series. A series that, despite all of his otherworldly success (see: Four Final Fours, two national titles and the Dream Team), he posted a 5-6 record against UNC.

“To say you played in the Duke-Carolina game is the most amazing privilege,” Laettner added. “To say you won it, and won it several times, that’s the gift that keeps on giving for the rest of your life. And the ones you lost, you still replay in your head.”

We’ll see what mark you leave on this rivalry come Saturday, Coop.

Sincerely,

Everyone in the state of North Carolina