The Blue Devils’ biggest game of the year will be even bigger in the Pardo household.
Carly and Daniel Pardo are twins—like roughly 32 of every 1,000 people in the world—and in a twist of fate that even the oddsmakers in Las Vegas could not have predicted, they will be represented by two of the four teams making up this weekend’s Final Four.
This Saturday, Carly—a sophomore psychology major at Duke—and Daniel—a political science major at Michigan State—will meet in Indianapolis to watch firsthand as the Blue Devils and Spartans duke it out for a spot in the national title game and the ultimate bragging rights for one of the Pardo twins.
“We’re a very competitive family,” Daniel said. “From board games to skiing to playing sports, the whole family is competitive. I can’t say we aren’t a competitive family, because we will sit there and yell at each other. But it’s nice that we can be competitive and that the next day the loser won’t be sulking.”
The Miami Beach, Fla., natives have deeper connections to Duke than Carly’s current affiliation—their father, Stevan, completed his undergraduate and law degrees at Duke and instilled the fandom in his children at a young age. Even Daniel, who now cheers for the Spartans in the Izzone, was brought up as a Cameron Crazie.
Carly never attended a Duke basketball game growing up, but her father did take Daniel—who was and still is a self-proclaimed Blue Devil fan—to a few.
“I grew up a pretty big Duke fan,” Daniel said. “It’s tough [when the two play] though.... When it comes down to Michigan State and Duke, I can never root for Duke because that keeps our rivalry going in the family.”
Now it is Carly who stands and screams among the Cameron Crazies—she called the 2014 Duke-North Carolina game at Cameron Indoor Stadium the best game she has attended in her two years in Durham.
Daniel holds the upper hand in the age department—he is officially seven minutes older—but it is his sister who has the bragging rights heading into Saturday’s Final Four clash. Duke defeated Michigan State 81-71 Nov. 18 in Indianapolis, allowing Carly and her dad and little brother—also a Blue Devil fan—to give Daniel grief for the coming months.
With the big game just days away, Carly said the trash talk has not yet started on the family group text, at least not the way it did in November.
“We’ve had some trash talk on our family GroupMe. What’s usually the worst is when we’re actually playing against Michigan State,” Carly said. “That happened this year. Throughout the game there was just this message between me and my brother, my dad and my younger brother—we were all just trash-talking my twin.”
The basketball trash talk does not end with what their respective teams do on the court. Carly said she has owned the hooping edge since the two were young.
“The only sport we played together was basketball in elementary school, which I was better than him... I was better,” Carly said. “I was taller than all the boys. In elementary school, all the boys are like super short—they can’t get rebounds for s***. I dominated.”
When asked about Carly’s claim, Daniel confirmed that she did beat up on him and his friends in the paint. This led him to wisen up and take a new approach to the hardwood—making use of the long ball.
But even with the Jahlil Okafor-like dominance Carly possessed back in the day, the twins agreed that the competition takes a backseat to the bond they share—even if things heat up during March Madness.
“It’s nice that the relationship I have with her is one that’s much stronger than a lot of people can imagine, especially being at different schools,” Daniel said. “But the competition’s there.”
The entire Pardo family will be attending the Final Four, the first time Daniel—who predicted the matchup in his bracket—and Carly have been to an NCAA tournament game.
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