Invite to the Duke-UNC rivalry, Cooper Flagg: It’s unlike anything

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• “40”/ > Ryan McGeeJan 31, 2025, 01:00 PM ET Close Senior author for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com 2-time Sports Emmy winner
• 2010, 2014 NMPA Author of the Year

The Duke Blue Devils host the first of 2 regular-season conferences with longtime rival, the North Carolina Tar Heels, on Saturday in a Sonic Hit matchup on ESPN (6:30 p.m. ET).

North Carolina native Ryan McGee penned an open letter to the star freshman on behalf of his home state, where the two programs on either side of college basketball’s storied competition are separated by only 11 miles.Dear Cooper

Flagg,

Congratulations on what has been a ridiculously excellent freshman season at Duke. At a basketball program that has long been an assembly line of legends, you have currently handled to carve your name into the wood structure of Cameron Indoor Arena after only 20 collegiate games played.You concerned Durham with almost unprecedented buzz, as the country’s top hire and currently the presumptive No. 1 choice in the 2025 NBA draft. However you have actually lived up to the buzz from the start, driving lanes, gambling fallaway 3-pointers and tossing down backboard-rattling dunks in a project that will likely end with a truckload of Gamer of the Year awards sent back to your hometown of Newport, Maine.But before we can cement your tradition, there is the

matter of Saturday’s set up contest against a surrounding group that uses a lighter shade of blue, making the 11-mile trek north from Chapel Hill to Durham. Yes, North Carolina, the flagship school of the state in which you now live– and the determining support which your Duke days will be permanently assessed.Forget that you turned 18 hardly a month and a half earlier. How you perform versus the team from the other end

of Highway 501 will tailgate you through every birthday you celebrate from now on.And to be crystal clear here, kid, this isn’t overtyped sportswriter hyperbole. Just ask those who when stood in your tennis shoes on that very same court, most of them long– very long– before you were born.”It’s been 40 years considering that I played a college basketball game, “Michael Jordan stated. (Possibly you’ve become aware of him, Cooper? )”To this day, before people ask me about our national championship or our 3 ACC championships or ACC tournament wins, any of that, they ask,’How did you did you do against Duke? ‘” Even Michael Jordan is not immune to the depth of the UNC-Duke rivalry

. Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports After pausing to make room for a Grinch-like wicked smile while reflecting on his UNC days while at a NASCAR event (he’s now a group owner )late last fall, the GOAT included: “By the method, the answer is that we did extremely well. “Effectively, as in six wins to one loss– which brings us, Cooper, to the other lonelier end of that yardstick.”That one loss for Michael was the very first win for me, “Jay Bilas said. You definitely know that name, do not

you, Cooper? He’s the guy who is always discussing you on” College GameDay. “He’s also the fellow 6-foot-9 big male in all those images picturing the museum in the Cameron Indoor lobby. No. 21, Bilas traded in SoCal for the South to be a member of Duke’s ACC power-shifting 1986 Last 4 team.(Though, in your defense, you may not acknowledge him in those team photos because he had hair at that time.)”I do not remember the score of many games I played in, “Bilas continued.”However I keep in mind the score of that one in 1984. It was the ACC

tournament and North Carolina was ranked No. 1, however we won 77-74. I will always keep in mind that rating because when we got back to Durham, every car in the area had a decal that read: DUKE BLUE 77, CAROLINA BLUE 74.” That’s how rare it was for Duke to beat Carolina back then. I remember us saying this should not be such a huge offer. This requires to be a regular incident.”Bilas, like MJ, grinned.”And it has been.”Undoubtedly, Cooper, it has. UNC leads the all-time series with 145 wins to Duke’s 117, however that consists of a 16-game winning streak that took place a century back.

Considering that 1978, the series has

stood as Duke 57, UNC 49. Since 2003, it’s Duke 26, UNC 23. Therefore far this years, the scorecard reads UNC 6, Duke 5. The only non-regular-season game among those came in the 2022 Last Four, when the Heels ended Mike Krzyzewski’s unrivaled coaching profession in the greatest possible way.But Mr. Flagg, what you require to comprehend before Saturday night’s tipoff has nothing to do with records, stat sheets or series winning streaks(though it deserves keeping in mind that UNC has actually won 2 straight). This game is much larger than that. This has to do with emotion. About bragging rights. About the ripples sent out forth from the Triangle throughout the Old North State, from the Appalachians to the Outer Banks, its center being the numbers that you and your colleagues do or do not mark onto those stat sheets in your 2 winter meetings with the Heels.Duke-Carolina has to do with old men sitting in booths at barbecue joints, the Methodist worn one shade of blue asking the Presbyterian worn because other Azul hue,”Well now, what the hell happened to y’ all Saturday night? “Then without delay pressing the check across the vinegar-stained Formica, as tradition demands.Be forewarned, dear freshman Flagg, that a countless roster of your fellow first-year players have been thrust into the Duke-Carolina spotlight, both voluntarily and accidentally. Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports Zion Williamson was a freshman the night of Feb. 20, 2019, when 36 seconds into the UNC game at Cameron, his best Nike sneaker took off like it hadbeen rigged by a Hollywood special effects system. In 2007, when Duke’s Gerald Henderson’s elbow broke Tyler Hansbrough’s nose, it further opened the fracture in between Durham and Chapel Hill. The image of the UNC center’s blood-covered face is the Old North State’s comparable to Rocky Balboa shrieking” Adrian!”– however it was Hansbrough vowing vengeance on Henderson, who was, yes, a freshman.And those old-timers in their barbecue cubicles still tell the tale of Feb. 4, 1961, the day often singled out as the minute the rivalry became more than just a basketball contest. UNC’s Larry Brown– do an internet search for that name, Cooper, he became a very big offer among hoops coaches– was driving the length of Cameron court in the closing seconds, routing Duke 81-75. He was protected by Blue Devil ace Art Heyman, who spit at Brown and got at him for a purposeful foul. Brown responded by throwing the ball at Heyman and then throwing fists.The UNC bench, then situated along the standard, responded by jumping Heyman en masse. The Duke bench reacted by encountering the structure to safeguard their All-American while trainees put onto the flooring, punching anybody in pale blue. Amongst those later condemned of making it all much worse much faster were, yes, freshmen players from both teams,

in presence as fans during a time when they weren’t allowed to play yet.Also, Mr. Flagg, it would behoove you to not pay much attention to the existing win-loss records of your respective groups. Yes, Duke has lost only twice and will host Saturday night’s game as the second-ranked group in the land. And yes, North Carolina is scuffling at 13-9, ranked seventh in the ACC after dropping three of its previous four, and there is increasing sound from those who sport Tar on their Heels that it might be time to part ways with UNC hoops hero Hubert Davis after 4 seasons at the helm of his alma mater.But Davis himself will enjoy to explain how”toss the records out when these 2 get together”is no simple sports cliché when, well, these 2 teams get together. During Davis’junior year of 1990, two times the Tar Heels faced Duke as the greater ranked group– and lost both times. Then they satisfied in the ACC tourney title game, where Duke was ranked ahead of Carolina … and lost.Editor’s Picks 1 Associated” Individuals remember the game when we lost to them in the 1984 ACC tourney, but we needed to play our asses off not to have actually lost to them simply the week previously,

” Brad Daugherty remembered.”We were No. 1 in that game, too, and they pushed us to 2 overtimes before we lastly put it away. I think it had actually been nearly twenty years since Duke had actually won in Carmichael [UNC’s long time arena] and I remember seeing all the old lettermen there that night looking at us like, ‘Y’ all much better not be the ones that blow this streak!’Thank goodness we didn’t. “And, Cage, before you take the court for the latest installment of this rivalry do yourself a favor and remove the game film of this very same contest in this exact same structure nearly precisely 20 years earlier, not too long before you entered this big blue world.It was Feb. 2, 1995. Duke was bad. Like, the only real blemish on Krzyzewski’s post-earliest-seasons type of bad. The Blue Devils went 2-14 in the ACC. It was all so dreadful that when Coach K had to miss a chunk of the season for back surgical treatment, he chose not to

return at all. But in very normal Heels-Devils style, it might be the very best game ever played in your new home. Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse and the No. 2 Heels unleashed a dunk contest to take a 17-point lead, however Duke rallied to require overtime. At the end of the first OT, with the country rushing to discover the brand-new ESPN2 on their cable television systems, Jeff Capel– yes, the coach at Pitt– smoked a desperate heave from midcourt to force double OT and ignite Durham into delirium.UNC won the game. But Capel won your brand-new school’s hearts forever and ever, amen. Present Pitt head coach Jeff Capel is amongst the former Duke stars who have sealed their tradition in this competition. Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire Who understands, Cooper Flagg? Possibly you have your own Capel minute. Or Hansbrough minute. Or MJ … or JJ Redick … or Austin Rivers … or fill-in-the-blank with your all-time favorite blue note.Just understand this, Mr. Maine Guy. Whatever you believe you learn about college basketball’s biggest competition, forget it. Because all

of those who dribbled before you believed they understood, too. “The only thing you actually require to understand is that this is larger than you believe, and it is definitely bigger than you, “said Christian Laettner, possibly the most concurrently enjoyed and hated hoopster who ever hit the court for this series. A series that, in spite of all of his otherworldly success (see: 4 Final Fours, 2 nationwide titles and the Dream Team), he published a 5-6 record against UNC.”To state you played in the Duke-Carolina game is the most remarkable opportunity,”Laettner added.”To say you won it, and won it a number of times, that’s the present that continues offering for the rest of your life. And the ones you lost, you still replay in your head.”We’ll see what mark you leave on this competition come Saturday, Coop.Sincerely, Everybody in the state of North Carolina