heel yeah, baby!

The basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is the fiercest blood feud in college athletics. To legions of otherwise reasonable adults, it is a conflict that surpasses sports; it is locals against outsiders, elitists against populists, even good against evil. It is thousands of grown men and women with jobs and families screaming themselves hoarse at 18-year-old basketball geniuses, trading conspiracy theories in online chat rooms, and weeping like babies when their teams--when they--lose.
--Will Blythe

Yesterday morning, in completing the Washington Post's crossword puzzle, I answered clue 20 across first: "North Carolina." The answer? "Tar Heel State." It seemed meant to be.

Okay, so Carolina didn't win last night, falling to Duke 87-84. But they made a showing. And damn fine one, if I do say so my damn self. The stats on this game give some indication of how exciting it was: there were at least four lead changes and seven ties. UNC pulled down 21 offensive boards to Duke's 4, and 42 rebounds to the Blue Devils' 21. Duke led by as many as 17 points during the second half, and with 1:20 left they still clung to a 7-point lead, but with 33 seconds remaining, Carolina had pulled within one. As Coach K said, "We play five more minutes, they may beat us--or two minutes. That's the kind of game it was."

I first have to wag my finger--Colbert style--at Sports Illustrated for not picking the game in its "Week Ahead" feature. Instead, SI readers were enjoined to watch the FBR open, UFC 57, arena football, an NHL game involving a team from Dallas, No. 22 Indiana at unranked Wisconsin (sorry, scout finch!), and the Knicks at the Nets. Huh? I know Duke is No. 2 and Carolina is No. 23, but this game is always fun to watch, if for no other reason than to see Coach K's eyebrows try to jump off his forehead.

I became a Tar Heel fan by deliberate choice when I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, three and half years ago. Officially, I knew I was moving to ACC country, to one of the most fanatical college basketball regions in that conference, and wanting to adopt a surrogate team, I picked UNC because of its similarity to my own alma mater (big state school with a reputation for academic and athletic excellence). And if asked, that is my story. Unofficially though, I had a hopeless, messy crush on a boy who went there. (Surprisingly enough, my new-found fanship did not cause him to fall madly in love with me. I'm not sure how on earth my plan backfired, but it was quite the train wreck--many of you were there, and you know!)

For whatever reason (and it was the triumph of populism and democracy over elitism and oligarchy), I became a Carolina Girl and enjoyed many years of watching games with the most passionate, dramatic, and tearful sports fans on the planet: 14-year-old girls. In the freshman dorm, I had to show the match-ups on two different televisions on two different floors--Carolina fans on the second and Duke fans on the third--to ensure that the building would still be standing in the morning. It was a time full of quasi-close encounters with greatness: after each game, I could count on finding a certain Durham girl on the phone at 3:00 am flirting with Chris Duhon, and I once met J.J. Redick's hairdresser at a bar. But I did attend UNC's rout of Florida State on March 3, 2005 at the Dean Dome, with which win the Tar Heels clinched the ACC title. And I celebrated on Franklin Street a few weeks later when they vanquished Illinois for the 2005 NCAA Championship.

Of course, when Texas plays Carolina (as they did in football on September 16, 2002 in Chapel Hill, and as they did in basketball on March 20, 2004 at the NCAA Tournament in Denver--both Texas wins), I bleed orange. But it doesn't happen too often, so I can justify supporting both schools, much in the same way I can be both an Astros and a Red Sox fan. llschoolj tried to call me on this so-called conflict of interest by pointing out that he has seen the Astros lose to the Red Sox at Fenway (on June 13, 2003), but since he also recently confessed to me a childhood penchant for Duke (and this not even the most serious of his sports transgressions!), we'll just discount his opinion.

Only 34 days until the opening round of the 2006 NCAA tournament, and shortly after it concludes, the opening of the 2006 baseball season! I love for this!