David Chadwick on UNC-Duke: You’ll probably never see another game like this
My wife, Marilynn, and I were in Sudan on a mission trip years ago. It was late at night. A Sudanese friend took us to a large field in the middle of nowhere where a blanket of darkness engulfed us. He said: “Look up at the stars. You’ll probably never see this again.”
It was breathtaking. Startling. The bright stars twinkled in their perfectly ordered constellations. We could see every detail. My Sudanese friend was correct. We’d never seen anything like it, nor since.
That moment has me reflecting on this weekend’s Final Four. Why is it so special? So talked and written about?
Yes, it involves four blueblood basketball programs: Villanova, Kansas, Duke, UNC. Yes, it’s the pomp and pageantry of the Final Four. As a member of the 1969 UNC Final Four team, I still vividly remember our send-off to Louisville, Kentucky. Thousands of students gathered to cheer us on to victory. The pep band blaring the Carolina fight song. The electric atmosphere in Freedom Hall for the final games of the season.
But this Final Four seems very different than all others.
In the semi-finals, Duke and UNC square off. Two schools separated by 11 miles, their colors two different shades of blue. A long-standing rivalry that covers six decades, with every decade having had a UNC and/or Duke team in the Final Four — 38 times in all; UNC 21 times and Duke 17.
It’s the Carolina Family formed under Dean Smith versus the Duke Brotherhood created under Coach K. These are the nicknames given by the players in each program.
Since Coach K took over the Duke program in 1980, Duke has won 50 games, UNC 49. How astonishingly weird is that!
It’s the game that features first-year coach Hubert Davis’s first trip to the Final Four versus Hall of Fame Coach K’s last trip to the Final Four. There’s also the revenge factor — UNC upsetting Duke March 5 in Coach K’s final home game ever. I doubt that sits well with Coach K, his players, plus every Duke fan in the universe.
In the words of former Duke player and ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, it’s the game that “always delivers.”
College basketball fans dub this time of year as March Madness. And rightly so. Regularly, David’s topple Goliath’s. Underdogs surprise teams with superior talent. Memories are created that last a long time, even a lifetime.
But this year’s March Madness seems especially mad. Crazy. Nerve-wracking. Tense. Hand-wringing. The talk of the basketball metaverse. Even those who aren’t basketball maniacs are chattering about it.
Why? Because in all the years of the unparalleled Duke and UNC rivalry, having played each other 257 times to be exact, these two college basketball behemoths have never — ever — not once played each other in the Final Four. How does that happen?
That will change Saturday night. Finally, by some quirk of basketball fate, the two will face off against each other in the national semi-finals. Who will win? I really don’t know. I have my loyalties. Others have theirs.
But here is the one perspective we all should grab. Watch the game. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment. It will be a game we will talk about for a long time. A true shining moment.
Enjoy it to the full. Savor every single second. For like that starry night in the Sudan years ago for me and my wife, you’ll probably never see this again.