Order Restored as Duke-Carolina Rivalry Heats Up Again

For the ACC, it was like pulling Punxsutawney Phil out in July or making a birthday wish three months late. The motions were still there when Duke and North Carolina met last year, but somehow it didn't have the same meaning.

For the league dominated by two shades of blue, a season without a meaningful Duke-Carolina matchup was the year without Santa Claus.

At least, excluding Sidney Lowe's ongoing sartorial impersonation.

"No matter what, the [North Carolina-Duke] games are going to be big, but when it's a battle for first place, that makes it so much greater," Duke sophomore Seth Curry said of Wednesday night's tilt. "Whoever wins has sole possession of first. It brings a more dramatic role to the game."

After a Duke sweep last year, lowlighted by a 32-point pantsing at Cameron to end the regular season, the Blue Devils and Tar Heels again meet as the class of the ACC. Fifth-ranked Duke is 21-2 and 8-1 in the ACC. North Carolina, 20th in the poll, is 17-5 and 7-1 in the ACC. The Heels have won 10 of their last 11 to turn around a year that began like a sour coda to last season's woeful 16-16 regular season.

Just like that, it's old times again for Duke and North Carolina, which is good news for the ACC and great news for college basketball.

The Blue Devils-Tar Heels series is the sport's eternal rivalry. It's private vs. public, city against town, Methodist against prefer not to disclose, great against, well, great.

Roughly half the time in the team's last 61 meetings, both have been in the Top 10. The last time both teams were unranked was in 1955. Or to put it another way, Eisenhower was in his first term and Brett Favre had to send lewd messages via rotary phones.

Once again, it's the battle for No. 1, a night for the down on its luck ACC to put itself on parade.

"Out of anything that's going on this week, [taking sole possession of the ACC] is what we're playing for," said Duke senior Kyle Singler, who is 3-3 against North Carolina in his career. "That's the thing that matters to us."

For both sides, the balance of the rivalry appeared impossibly far away in the last 18 months.

In the fall of 2009, North Carolina appeared unmatchably far ahead. The Heels had beaten the Blue Devils four consecutive years in Cameron, from 2006-2009, and won six of seven games overall. Or, to put another more painful way for the Blue Devils, Duke's last win over the Tar Heels on their vaunted home floor had come four Tar Heel Final Fours and a two national titles ago.

Harrison Barnes, a recruit Mike Krzyzewski had seemingly recruited so long that his first visit came via sonogram, picked North Carolina on a nationally-televised ESPNU broadcast adding insult, and a bad Skype connection, to repeated drubbings.

Then everything fell into place for Duke. Over the final six weeks of the season, the Blue Devils emerged as the nation's best team, springboarding from Mike Krzyzewski's 1,000th game as Duke coach, a Feb. 13 rout over Maryland. Then the 82-50 thumping of North Carolina even Custer might've called one-sided gave Duke a 17-0 home record, a share of the ACC regular season championship and launched Duke to its fourth national title.

Following the championship, Duke players wore shirts adorned with the phrase "Order Has Been Restored."

Except in the rivalry.

In Chapel Hill, the Heels slumped to start the season, lost their first three games against BCS-level competition and once again promptly dropped out of the rankings.

Barnes, who could've only been more hyped if he were born with a Michael Jordan shaped birthmark on his forehead, struggled, misfiring from the floor as the preseason first-team All-American was reduced to a tentative perimeter scorer.

Then, like Duke before it, it all came together for North Carolina.

Freshman Kendall Marshall moved into the starting lineup in mid-January and in his fifth game at the helm handed out 16 assists, a Tar Heel record in an ACC game. Barnes caught fire after Marshall's promotion, averaging 18.8 points per game over his last five contests. Junior point guard Larry Drew announced he was transferring Friday, but the Heels seemed to use it as a rallying point in the Marshall-led rout of Florida State.

"They're just functioning at a really high level especially on the offensive side of the court," Mike Krzyzewski said.

For Roy Williams, the evolution was something he had preached since the season-opening press conference.

"In the preseason, I said I thought our team would get better and better as our year went along, just because we were so young.

"We're a young club, and we're getting better. Hopefully we'll continue to get better. We have to. [Duke] is the biggest challenge we've faced and it's not even close."

In part, that may be due to the Tar Heels' youth and Duke's home-court advantage. The Blue Devils have lost just two of their last 62 games in Cameron, arguably college basketball's toughest arena, one that's a little like playing basketball in a blender set to puree.

"The most important thing is to be mentally tough," Barnes said, relaying advice from his Heel elders. "It's a very aggressive crowd and Duke applies a lot of pressure defensively. You have to be mentally tough."

No matter the location, though, the stakes are what they historically are. Win, and take control of the ACC. Lose, and hear it about it for another month.

Either way, college basketball's best rivalry is back where it should be, the main event, the ACC's marquee game, deciding which team controls the league.

As more than one shirt might again say in Cameron Wednesday night, order has been restored.