With 11 national championships between the North Carolina and Duke men’s basketball teams, it takes a bit of digging to find instances when the two teams were struggling at the same time.
But, when both the Tar Heels and Blue Devils are unranked — as they both are heading into their Feb. 6 matchup — this discovery is necessary.
Here's a look at a few instances when these two blue blood programs momentarily fell off the map before they each returned to prominence.
1960
Although the presence of the rivalry has always been strong in the Triangle area, perhaps there was once a time when the contest didn't have as much national notoriety. Such an era may seem archaic, especially considering neither Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski or Roy Williams manned their respective sidelines that long ago.
This was the case in 1960, though, when after a few years of success from both sides, the teams entered their third bout of the season unranked, the last time they've both been absent from the rankings when they faced each other.
After two resounding victories over the Blue Devils earlier in the year, the Tar Heels traveled to Durham on Feb. 27 and dominated immediately, jumping out to a 35-15 halftime lead. Led by a 26-point performance from Lee Shaffer, the team coasted the rest of the way, en route to another convincing 75-50 win.
Despite UNC’s regular season dominance, Duke would win the rubber match of the series in the ACC Tournament just six days later, when the Blue Devils prevailed, 71-69.
At the end of the season, Duke finished No. 18 in the AP poll, while UNC remained unranked.
