The dependency of Duke-North Carolina could be hurting ACC Basketball: If it’s not Heels vs. Blue Devils, where’s the interest? There is NONE!

(This is a little long, but it is a very good sit-down piece and other media outlets would be smart to pick it up and run with it……)

The fans, the students, the league officials, all the media outlets and more of all of the above, have now put so much emphasis on the Duke-North Carolina basketball games for both the men and women, if anyone else is playing each other or even playing Duke or North Carolina, then the interest level drops way down and the boredom factor sets in very quickly, at times before the ball goes up in the air….

This has become the game of games and if you don’t have these two in the finals next Sunday for the men, then you are going to be playing second fiddle….

After last night’s hype and the subsequent hype for today’s women’s final, anything else will be considered sub-standard……

The excitement is there for Duke vs. North Carolina, but I for one am saying you won’t see the same enthusiasm, if you start seeing Florida State, Clemson, or teams like Virginia Tech going for the title…..

We have dug ourselves a very deep hole and from now on, if it’s not Duke versus North Carolna in the big game, the numbers are not going to be there and you could probably order up TV coverage from WCWG TV 20, because the fans will not watch in large numbers or attend these games in mass numbers, if North Carolina is not playing Duke….

The ACC is now in an “All or None Zone”….It is Duke-North Carolina and nothing else compares…..The league and the fans have done it to themsleves….After all the love and attention that has been shone for Duke-North Carolina, how are you going to build up another matchup???

The fans are now spoiled and for some, this is the only BIG ACC Rivalry that they know and nothing else compares….North Carolina vs. N.C. State used to be big, on both the men’s and women’s sides….Back in the 70’s, N.C. State-North Carolina for the men, was better comp than what you see now with the Duke-UNC men….It was a much better series….When they start saying Kyle Singler’s name up there with David Thompson, it almost makes you want to cry….Thompson was the best-ever and Singler is just a good player…He may exceed Thompson’s numbers, but DT only played three years of varsity ball and if you stand he and Singler side-by-side and then have them go one-on-one in their college primes, it would be very ugly and Singler is a good kid, but David Thompson was a college basketball man…

All of the other series have fallen by the wayside and they have gone to waste….Now we only have Duke-North Carolina and will it be enough to continue to carry this league? These two will not end up facing each other every year and then in those seasons, the boredom factor is going to rule the roost….

The fans have now been conditioned that there is only one series in this league that matters and that one is, Duke versus North Carolina….Last night’s game wasn’t even all that great….North Carolina has way too many better athletes than Duke does right now…When Dexter Strickland is taking it to the hole and slamming the ball in your face, then something is wrong somewhere….Harrison Barnes and Kendall Marshall are very good young athletes and Duke can only counter with Nolan Smith and the Blue Devils are starting to rely on him way too much….He is the workhorse and other men from Duke are going to have to start stepping up and helping him out…..Singler was not impressive last night, Seth Curry was OK, but nothing like he was over in Durham….The Plumlees and Ryan Kelly are great kids, but they are getting schooled more from Tyler Zeller and John Henson than they are in the Duke University classrooms…..Duke needs to find some way, to get some late-season minutes from Kyrie Irving and if not, we may not see Duke-North Carolina in the final next Sunday, at the Greensboro Coliseum…

The fans are already clammoring for Duke-North Carolina at the Coliseum next week and I hope they get it, cause if they don’t the Coliseum is in for a snooze-fest, when they play the Champsionship Contest……

The dye has been cast…..If it’s not Duke vs. North Carolina, they will be paying you and your ACC Friends $10.00 a car, if you’ll park at the Stamey’s BBQ across from the Coliseum and tickets will be falling from the sky like Carolina-grad James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”…..(They will be paying you to park your ride and FREE TICKETS will be in surplus, all because we sold our soul to the Blue Devils and Heels and for most, if it’s nots them, then nothing else matters….We sold our soul to the Blue Devil and the Tar Heel….)

4 thoughts on “The dependency of Duke-North Carolina could be hurting ACC Basketball: If it’s not Heels vs. Blue Devils, where’s the interest? There is NONE!

  1. Granted, Duke and UNC are the class of the conference. But they have been so for quite a while. That’s not what’s changed over the last 20 years.

    Welcome to March Madness…..that’s all there is to college basketball!! It’s what you get when you structure your entire season around a 3 week period…….a made for sit at home and watch TV event no less!!

    Even K said it last night……he needs to get his team ready to play it’s best in TWO weeks…..this week means nothing. I understand that the national championship is the ultimate goal, but when the biggest coach on the planet blows of conference tournys and games that set seedings….it seems we have a problem.

    Until to create a reason to watch November through February, college basketball is going to continue to lose interest.

  2. When other teams return to being reasonably competitive for an extended period then interest will return. It is not like Carolina and Duke fans dont go watch Carolina and Duke. These fans are not the ones not showing up to games. The ACC is down and has been for a while. It is tough to justify the expenditures necessary to see your team play when they are bad to average. Get better and “they” will come.

  3. There was a time when Wake Forest was part of the league at least as far as being in the Duke-North Carolina mix goes….Wake with Rod Griffin group, Rodney Rogers group, Tim Duncan, and even Wake with the Jeff Teague, James Johnson, Aminu group…..But Wake, is not in the competitive mix now and that hurts the league as a whole….The league must be carried by many of the originals in North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State, Wake, Maryland, Virginia and the like….All of those schools that I have mentioned have, or have had a deep ACC Basketball tradition at one time or another and now the league is so top-heavy that the other schools don’t create a buzz or interest….Virginia had it big-time with Wally Walker, Gus Gerard, Jeff Lamp, Lee Raker, Terry Gates, Jeff Jones, Sampson, Othell Wilson, the Stokes brothers…At one time it was there and we could talk all day about Maryland with Lefty and Gary Williams having them there….Juan Dixon,Lonnie Baxter, Joe Smith(still in the league now 16 years), Walt Williams, Len Bias, Len Elmore, Tom McMillan, John Lucas, and others…..There was a time…..

    At one time this league was much more than just Duke and North Carolina and for the current fans this is all they know…Duke-North Carolina and they are too simplistic to believe it could be any other way…..Our ACC family has two very impressive big brothers in Durham and Chapel Hill and our other brothers????? We’ll get back to you on that one………

  4. Sidney Lowe must go or if not Debbie Yow must step down and we need leadership at NC State to take us in another direction in men’s basketball and in the main athletic office.

    Wake Forest should have never fired Gaudio and hired Buzzy.

    The Big Four teams carry the ACC and the other teams need to learn what their role is and that is buying seats at the tournament to watch their schools lose.

    Carolina and Duke do get old, but it is still much better than watching a Clemson-Boston College sleep-over or if we are lucky enough to get Miami and Florida State games we can go over to Guillford Battleground and visit the tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary Soldier.

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