I'm all about superlatives and this is one I feel quite strongly about. Duke, North Carolina is the best rivalry in all of sports and every year, their final match up of the regular season is always the biggest event of the sports year. It's better than Ohio State, Michigan. It's better than the Red Sox, Yankees, or the Bruins, Canadians. Better than the Celtics, Lakers or the Giants, Cowboys. I don't need to keep going, you get the point. Every true sports fan has an opinion about this game, it is simply impossible to remain indifferent.
Well, tonight is the night. Number 1 UNC travels down Tobacco Road to take on the 5th ranked Duke Blue Devils. Like 99% of their head to head games, this one means a ton. The ACC regular season title is on the line and so is a number one seed in the Big Dance. Duke won the first match up of this season convincingly - although those pussy UNC fans will claim that Ty Lawson's absence made the difference. It didn't. Duke was the better team then and they the better team now. Lawson will be suiting up tonight but he's already creating excuses claiming the ankle is still sore and now there's a new hip injury. Bullshit.
Duke comes in mostly healthy and fresh after thrashing Virginia on the road this past Wednesday. Everything was clicking for the Devils and they will need to carry this over to tonight. They will need to hit threes and force turnovers. Most importantly, they will need to find an answer for potential player of the year Tyler Hansbrough. I'm confident they will be able to do all of the above and come Monday, there will be a new number 1 team in the country.*
*I'm well aware this new team will not be Duke (although it damn well should be), it will most likely be Memphis. However the point is that it will not be UNC. And it won't be UNC on selection Sunday either.
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