UNC Bucket List is a weekly feature highlighting the 100 things students should attempt before they graduate. Check out the full bucket list and all previous Bucket List posts here.
Bucket List Item Number 40: Get tickets as a senior to the UNC-Duke game
It’s true that NCAA March Madness Tournament is already upon us, and the ACC Tournament has also provided us Tar Heel fans with some exciting, nail-biting and memorable finishes from our men’s basketball team. Yet when I graduate in May, I’ll never forget the night I was officially introduced to the rivalry. And no Wolfpack faithful, I’m not referring to our schools’ “rivalry.”
I’m talking about that Saturday night classic on March 5, 2011. It was my first taste of the UNC- Duke men’s basketball rivalry.
Before coming to UNC, I was never really into college basketball. Even though I transferred in the year we won the NCAA tournament and will never forget all the craziness that ensued when we all rushed Franklin St. afterwards, for the most part I was just playing along with the crowd. I didn’t have any kind of burning passion against Dookies. Blame it on growing up in UConn country or loving football more than basketball. I may have seen UNC and Duke football game my junior year and competed against their rowing team when I was on UNC Men’s Crew as a sophomore, but to me Duke was just another reputable university that was just down the road.
That all changed when my dad flew down to Chapel Hill a couple of weeks ago with our tickets. He wanted to do something special for my senior year, and because he hadn’t been to a UNC basketball game—nevermind a UNC-Duke game—he purchased tickets for the game online. I asked him beforehand if he had seen any college basketball games, and he told me he’d seen a few Ivy League games some years ago.
He had no idea what he was in for.
To give him a full introduction to the team and give him an idea of how big men’s basketball is here, we visited the Carolina Basketball Museum. Located on the first floor of the Ernie Williamson Athletics Center —just steps away from the Dean E. Smith Center and the Maurice J. Koury Natatorium —the museum contains all of six of the team’s national championship trophies as well as other interesting items ranging from game-used jerseys to Roy Williams ’s game plans. I would highly recommend exploring it before your next men’s basketball game to really appreciate the legacy of the program and the players. For more information on what to expect check out the museum’s floor map.
As for the game itself, I quickly realized why an ESPN poll in 2000 named UNC-Duke the third-greatest North American sports rivalry of the 20th century. The experience was unique compared to the other men’s basketball games I’ve been to. Never have I seen the crowd so passionate, the student section so lively and energetic. Every missed foul call on Duke were met with curses and complaints, while every highlight-reel UNC dunk or three-pointer celebrated with high-fives and loud cheers. The mere appearance of Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski coming onto the court generated tons of boos—with one student even holding up a sign that said “He looks like a rat”—while the crowd erupted in roars and cheers literally seconds after Roy Williams and Dean Smith appeared on the stadium television monitors to proclaim “I’m a Tar Heel.” As the final buzzer went off and the students in the student section rushed the court, I felt proud to be a Tar Heel too. And, as I walked uphill with my dad toward Franklin St. to celebrate, I realized that I’ll never look at Duke the same way again.
So to conclude, let me put this simply: if you’re a rising senior and haven’t witnessed the UNC-Duke men’s basketball rivalry in person, you need to cross this off your bucket list.
Period.
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