Is there anything finer...

than Duke v. Carolina?

I say no, at least not in the world of sports. I've been off remodeling the last couple days, and I still have a good bit of work to do on that, but before I pick my paint brush back up (hopefully for the last time on this project), I had to write about tonight's college hoops clash between #2 Duke and #3 UNC.

You see, while my heart truly belongs to Messiah College athletics, in the arena of major college basketball, I'm a Dukie through and through. I'm not precisely sure why I became a Duke fan. My first clear memory of watching college basketball was as an almost 9 year old, crying after Duke lost to Seton Hall in the 1989 Final Four. This, of course, would seem to indicate that I liked Duke prior to that game. I have some very vague recollections of Danny Manning and Kansas in the 1988 Final Four and title game, and Duke was there as well, so perhaps it happened then. I don't know. But I do know what has come since. I remember the disappointment the following year as they reached the title game only to be brutalized by UNLV. There was the jubilation in '91 when they knocked off that same UNLV team, who was #1 and undefeated, in the semis, and followed it up with their first national championship against Kansas. In 1992, my tears of defeat turned into tears of joy in a matter of the 2.2 seconds it took Christian Laettner to hit one of the biggest shots in NCAA tournament history against Kentucky in the Elite 8, as they went on to successfully defend their title. There was Grant Hill taking the team on his back in '94 and falling just short in the title game, and the horrific year after that when Coach K's health forced him off the bench. There was the disappointment of the '99 title game, the agony and then thrill of watching Duke fall behind by 22 against Maryland in the 2001 semis only to rally for an 11 point victory on the way to the 2001 title, the disbelief of watching them surrender a 9 point lead with under 5 to play against Emeka Okafor and UConn in 2004, and any other number of highs and lows in between. I love Duke hoops.

And as a result, I live for Duke v. Carolina, which thankful continues to come around at least 2 times every year, despite the increase in the size of the ACC. If there's a better rivalry in sports, you'd be hard pressed to convince me of it. You have 2 schools whose campuses are seperated by 7 miles, each with their own very storied history of basketball success, who have been at or near the top of college basketball for years on end. As I already mentioned, both schools are in the Top 5 for this matchup, and that's hardly a rarity in the history of the rivalry. There have been years where one team is #1 for the first matchup, the other for the second. It's all too common.

For all my cyncism about the NCAA and major college athletics, one thing I am not cyncial about are college fans. There are no fans anywhere that are more passionate about their teams than college students, and the Duke and UNC fans are among the best in that category. It's that level of passion that, in my mind, seperates a rivalry like Duke v. Carolina from any kind of professional rivarly. It's just absolutely intense in a way that you just can't replicate on a consistent basis. And, as much fun as it was in the late 90s, early 00s when Duke was absolutley dominating the rivalry as Carolina was down, there's just something fundamentally right in the sports world when both teams come into the gym among the nation's elite, locked in a 2 team battle for ACC supremecy.

Tonight's game figures to have a special level of intensity attached to it, due to the events towards the end of the last game these teams played last season. Duke guard Gerald Henderson broke the nose of UNC All-American forward Tyler Hansbrough with a late, wildly aggressive shot block attempt in a game that was pretty much out of hand. It's been argued back and forth whether Henderson actually intended to hurt Hansbrough, but that's ultimately not relevant. We all know that UNC and Hansbrough haven't forgotten, and you can guarantee that the fans in Chapel Hill, where tonight's game is being playing, haven't forgotten it either.

So: 9:00 tonight. ESPN. Be there, set your VCR/DVR, or whatever else you have to do. You don't want to miss this one.

And now, I must go pick that pesky paint brush back up.