There's a reason we're all talking about it this week—both schools are No. 1 seeds for the first time since 2005 and only the third time since the NCAA tournament started seeding teams in 1979. Their ACC semifinal last Friday was a riveting instant classic, proving they just might be the two best teams in the nation.
But the basketball gods will do the right thing. They know it can never happen, and it shouldn't.
It, of course, is a potential national championship game between rivals Duke and North Carolina, a phrase that is scary to even see written out. After Friday's electric celebration of college basketball ended in a 74-73 Blue Devil win, some in the national media salivated over the possibility of a rematch in Minneapolis April 8. That excitement didn't extend to any Duke or North Carolina fan I know, and I know a lot on both sides from living in Durham for the last 17 years. What a boon it would be for the sport nationwide, but what a horrifying, terrible event it would be for the Triangle area.
First, from a practical standpoint, I think the game would directly cause at least one death in Durham or Chapel Hill. I'm not kidding. Whether it comes from a heart attack or a violent, out-of-control bar fight, it would be best just to avoid a situation that could cause people to die or get seriously injured.
In a broader sense, that game would ruin the Duke-Carolina rivalry. The Chronicle tweeted a poll on this topic Monday night, and more than 70 percent of the respondents said it wouldn't. Those people are all wrong.
The series has taken on a life of its own in part because it's been so even. As we see before every regular-season matchup nowadays, if you pick the right number of games between the two teams over the last 30 to 40 years, they're bound to be tied in wins and losses and within just a few points of each other in those contests. The Tar Heels just gained a 6-5 edge in national championships—1924 doesn't count, and any true respectable Carolina fan knows that—and Duke leads 21-18 in ACC titles, but both of those could swing the other way in any given decade. The pendulum swings back and forth, with neither team getting the upper hand for long.
Even when they meet in what always ends up being a memorable game in the ACC tournament, there's always another chapter not too far on the horizon—it's happened the last three years in a row in the semifinals, with the Blue Devils taking two and the Tar Heels winning one.
A national championship would permanently settle that tug of war for supremacy and ruin all the fun, at least until another one came along 75 years later. One side would hold a trump card to wave in the other's face in perpetuity whenever it had to go to work the morning after losing a comparatively meaningless regular-season game.
That would breed resentment, hostility and envy instead of the deep mutual respect the rivalry is built on now. I think very highly of North Carolina's program and consider Roy Williams the third-greatest coach in the history of the game, behind only Mike Krzyzewski and John Wooden. I can appreciate watching a perfectly-executed secondary break, with the Tar Heels taking the ball out of the basket and immediately zipping down the floor for two points. It's beautiful basketball. I like having informed discussions and lighthearted debates about the two teams with friends that go to school in Chapel Hill.
I fear that would no longer be possible after a game with raw emotions running as high as they would during a national championship. Personal insults would slip out, fracturing and families. Referees or, even worse, individual players would be scapegoated forever. Again, I wasn't kidding about the violent bar fight. The game itself wouldn't even be fun to watch.
So let's not fly too close to the sun. The rivalry is in a great spot just the way it is, and the intensity of that game wouldn't make it any better. In fact, it would make it a lot worse.
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