Why Duke-North Carolina Isn't Necessarily the Best College Hoops Rivalry

As sports fans, we are presented with certain things that are inalienable and sacred truths, especially in the modern age of media where every facet of any sport is manifested into some sort of ranking or list.

A lot of us have been told since we can remember following baseball that the 1927 Yankees boasted the best lineup of all-time, appropriately dubbed "Murderer's Row."

Commemorative specials and documentaries have served as a sort of confirmation to the fact that the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Colts and Giants was the greatest game ever played in the history of football. 

And as far as upsets are concerned, nothing can top the U.S Olympic Hockey Team's paramount win over the U.S.S.R in the 1980 Winter Olympics, the so-called "Miracle on Ice."

Whether through basic repetition or prolonged exposure to these widespread opinions that have subsequently been deemed as undeniable fact, these talking points become something that we resign ourselves to as being matters that are beyond debate.

One of these assertions is that the rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is the best in all of college basketball, and that to believe otherwise is nothing more than unjustified babble.

Any sort of discussion that revolves around the best rivalries in college hoops are usually pretty brief ones, beginning and ending with Duke and Carolina.  It's something that negates many other great adversaries, but for the sake of emphasis and brevity, who can really complain?

After all, no other contests in college sports receive the same level of coverage and media attention that Duke and UNC do, with talking heads rambling on and on about the merits and intensity of this rivalry, coming off with a teary-eyed sense of nostalgia that you would think would warrant the music of a Disney orchestra playing in the background.

We all hear about how these two schools have been battling since 1920, making it one of the oldest in the country.  Everyone finds a way to bring up the fact that the schools are separated by a mere eight miles. 

The images of Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Michael Jordan, James Worthy, Roy Williams, Christian Laettner, Grant Hill, and Tyler Hansbrough are molded into montages harkening back to past glory and triumph that seeps through the minds of every college basketball fan.

The rivalry even has none other than "The Worldwide Leader In Sports" in its proverbial corner, with the tremendous influence of ESPN taking this rivalry to even greater heights.  You'll see ESPN crews and cameras at every matchup between the two schools, flocking to the campuses as if they'd just been told that there were new developments in the Brett Favre saga.

On live TV, you can see Dick Vitale, red-faced and screaming with prepubescent giddiness, pimping clashes between Duke and Carolina as the greatest thing since the invention of electricity, and flatly stating that it is the best rivalry in all of sport.

With all of this seemingly overwhelming evidence supporting the Duke-UNC rivalry as the best in college basketball, one would be led to believe that disagreeing with this notion could only come from someone who is mentally ill. 

Well then check count me among those who don't think of the rivalry that way, and proudly so, because I respectfully disagree.

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