Duke vs. North Carolina: A Final Four showdown for the ages
By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
Maybe it’s not cool to tell one of the greatest coaches in college basketball history — in the final days of his career, no less — that he’s just plain, flat-out wrong. But, deep breath, here it is: Mike Krzyzewski, Coach K, you are wrong.
Let’s explain. Heading into what has been described by more than one observer as the biggest college hoops game in history, Krzyzewski opted for the anti-hype approach. Duke’s epic Final Four showdown with Tobacco Road foe North Carolina, which will take place in New Orleans on Saturday night, is just another game, he says.
"It’s got to be looked at as four teams playing for a national championship," Krzyzewski told reporters. "The (rest) is stupid stuff. That means nothing."
Well, it doesn’t mean nothing to the college basketball community, which is increasingly losing its collective mind over a matchup so outrageously perfect in timing that it still doesn’t feel quite real.
In Coach K’s last season, the Blue Devils and the Tar Heels will meet in the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever, and with a shot at the championship game on the line, no less.
Duke, North Carolina face off in the tournament for the first time
It is a game that has been set up beautifully. Duke thumped its old rival by 20 points in early February, a defeat that looked set to consign North Carolina to a spot outside the March Madness field.
Then, on March 5, UNC spoiled the party for Krzyzewski’s last home game at Cameroon Indoor Stadium, rolling to a 94-81 win in front of a stunned crowd, including more than 80 of Coach K’s former players and a bunch of others who paid five figures for a ticket.
The trilogy match is here. Saturday can’t come fast enough. It wasn’t expected, given that it took Duke to pull off two comebacks and survive the spicy West region, and for North Carolina to topple defending champion Baylor in a wild overtime thriller. But that just makes it even juicier.
Everyone wants a part of it. Country music singer Eric Church, a lifelong Tar Heel, canceled a concert in Texas and didn’t even pretend there was any other reason for doing so other than that he had to be at the game.
Couples in the Durham-Chapel Hill area planning to get married this weekend have had to make special plans, as detailed in this lovely tale from Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Eisenberg.
For the rest of us, with no obvious skin in the game, it is just the best of what sports is. Drama, theater, history, legacy, revenge, rivalry and mystique.
"There is so much to it," FOX Sports bracket forecaster Mike DeCourcy told me. "We haven’t had a legend of the sport step off the stage in this way for a long time. It is pretty remarkable how it has turned out.
"When you think about the history of the schools, all those times they have played but never in the tournament. And when they do it’s now, in this season like no other for Duke. That’s why everyone can’t wait."
Of course, Krzyzewski knows it, too. He knows what this is. He knows how his last dance is being viewed and that it should be seen as something special. The words of deflection are for a practical purpose.
The times when the story arc of "winning it for Coach K" has taken hold coincides directly with the occasions when Duke’s star-studded lineup, headed by Paolo Banchero and with four potential first-rounders, has looked shaky.
Once freedom of mind was discovered, late against Michigan State and Texas Tech and all throughout against Arkansas in the Elite Eight, the Blue Devils began to show exactly what they can do.
NCAA Tournament: Duke advances to the Final Four
Krzyzewski did at least concede that this weekend is mouthwatering to a wider audience, describing it as the "most amazing day in college basketball, to bring four champions together."
In that regard, he’s most definitely right. The semifinals of this year’s tournament are an absolute blockbuster of big names. Four of the bluest blue bloods. That the Kansas-Villanova matchup is getting only a smattering of attention is a small travesty, but completely inevitable given the other clash that will take place just after it.
FOX Bet has Duke favored by four points, but odds count for just as much as predictions and seedings in games like these. Which is to say, nothing.
However, Hubert Davis’ Tar Heels will have no problem being cast as the underdog and, once again, the spoilers of the fairytale. He has tried all week to get his players to focus on the immediate, not on the bigger narrative, just like the last time they met. He found it hard to believe there had never previously been a contest between the teams in the tournament, a fact that has proven a head-shaker for many.
"I am surprised it hasn’t happened before," Davis said. "As celebrated, as successful as both programs have been, for us to not have met in the Final Four — or ever — I am surprised. Duke-Carolina, the significance of Coach K’s last season — those things, even though that is a story and that’s relevant, it doesn’t help us on the floor."
As hard as both teams will try to concentrate solely on what’s in front of them, that’s a task that might be beyond both Krzyzewski and Davis.
For this isn’t stupid stuff. It does matter. It’s a game, sure. Just a game. But one that, by default, will go down in history.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
