I think I’m living my worst nightmare.
And, to no one’s surprise, Coach K’s a part of it.
Let me explain.
Since I was a starry-eyed child, I’ve always bled Carolina blue.
Over the years, I’ve seen some pretty miraculous moments: the 2005, 2009 and 2017 national championship games, for instance, all of which saw Roy Williams and the Tar Heels cut down the nets in what I’ll always consider some of my favorite memories.
I’ve witnessed a trio of ACC Championship wins, a bunch of Final Four appearances, a boatload of talented players suiting up in the team’s argyle-lined uniforms and, best of all, 20-plus wins over the hated Duke Blue Devils. (Along with plenty of blowouts over N.C. State, but I decided to, respectfully, leave that part out as to not make Wolfpack fans feel worse than they already do.)
UNC Basketball has given me some of my favorite moments as a sports fan, from Danny Green’s X-rated dunk over Greg Paulus in 2008 to rushing Franklin Street as a UNC freshman after the 2017 national title win over Gonzaga.
Yet, the Tar Heels have also provided me with some of my most heartbreaking moments, including infamous shots by — and I’m sorry for saying these names, fellow Tar Heels — Austin Rivers in 2012 and Kris Jenkins in 2016.
Through it all, however, the ups and downs of being a Tar Heel have been worth it.
Especially when it’s time to play Duke.
If you’re not a fan of UNC or Duke — sorry again, Wolfpack fans — then you simply don’t understand what it’s like to take part in a rivalry that transcends all rivalries.
With all due respect to the Auburns and Alabamas, the Steelers and Ravens, the Yankees and Red Sox and the Lakers and Celtics of the world, you just don’t get it.
In North Carolina, you’re essentially assigned a fandom at birth, just before you’re slapped with a name or a Social Security number.
If your parents are Tar Heels, then congrats, you’re a Tar Heel.
If your parents are Blue Devils, then I’m sorry, but unfortunately, you’re a Blue Devil.
And whatever fandom you’re assigned, it’s practically a rule that you learn to trash talk, basking in every victory and standing ground during every defeat.
If you have a friend, relative, coworker or favorite mechanic that’s on the other side of the rivalry? You’re obligated to let them hear it after they lose. Absolutely rip into them (respectfully, of course). If it ruins the relationship, then oh well.
I don’t make the rules. God does. (Who, by the way, made the sky Carolina blue for a reason.)
You don’t have to be a sports fan to consider yourself a Tar Heel or a Blue Devil.
Because this rivalry is about more than basketball. It’s way more than what happens on the hardwood. It becomes a part of your identity.
Thus, every matchup between the two teams — twice or even three times a year, depending on the ACC Tournament — is one full of excitement, nervousness and intensity. Both for the fans and the players on the court.
But after this Saturday, the storied rivalry will never be the same.
It’s all because, after 24 years of life, my biggest nightmare is coming true: we’re getting a UNC-Duke game in the NCAA Tournament, a milestone that hasn’t happened once in the tournament’s 83-year history.
Until now.
To make matters worse, it’s happening in the Final Four, meaning the stakes are infinitely higher as the winner will have a chance to play for a national championship against either Kansas or Villanova next Monday, April 4.
While a majority of the country is jumping for joy and those in sports media are salivating at the idea of such bitter rivals taking the court on the sport’s biggest stage, I can’t be alone in feeling one emotion: pure terror.
I’ve always enjoyed the unpredictability of the rivalry. How, no matter the kind of season each team is having, the record books are thrown out the window as a clash of the titans ensues.
In this situation, however, I couldn’t hate it more.
I think I speak for fans on both sides of the rivalry when I say that a UNC-Duke NCAA Tournament scuffle has always been on my please-never-ever-happen list.
It would undoubtedly be an amazing feeling for the Heels to knock off the Blue Devils in the tournament, ending their season with a loss to simmer on for five months before the next season begins, but truthfully, it’s not worth the stress.
In a normal year, the headache would already be too much to bear — but this season, there’s an added bonus: Coach K’s retirement tour.
You see, it doesn’t take a genius or a fortune teller to see how the stars are aligning here.
On March 5, the Tar Heels traveled to Durham with the goal of ruining Mike Krzyzewski’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Cameron Crazies who had slept in tents for months, spent thousands of dollars on re-sold tickets and traveled across the country to be there were ultimately let down as Carolina trounced Duke in the second half to secure a 13-point win, 94-81, in a performance that Coach K felt he needed to apologize for.
As I wrote in my column the week following the game: “...for me, and the 15,000-plus on Franklin Street, this couldn’t have been sweeter.”
And, in the moment, it couldn’t have.
Even if the Tar Heels had missed the NCAA Tournament, I would’ve been happy. That was the perfect end to the season — as long as Duke didn’t go on to win the national title, of course.
Yet, here we are, a few weeks after both teams fell to Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament in Brooklyn and subsequently went on a tournament run for the ages.
The No. 8 Tar Heels, led by a strong lineup that has seen three different players score 28-plus points for them in the tournament (Brady Manek, R.J. Davis and Caleb Love), blew out No. 9 Marquette, held on to topple defending champion and No. 1 seed Baylor, downed No. 4 UCLA and prematurely ended the Cinderella story of No. 15 St. Peter’s in the Elite Eight to punch their ticket.
The No. 2 Blue Devils, flushed with talent in the starting lineup and on the bench, crushed No. 15 Cal State Fullerton, earned close wins over No. 7 Michigan State and No. 3 Texas Tech before handling No. 4 Arkansas in the Elite Eight to get Coach K to his 13th Final Four in his final season.
The storybook ending is starting to come into full form for Coach K and the Blue Devils.
It’s almost as if it was scripted.
The story will go as follows: Coach K, the most successful head coach in college basketball history, loses to his bitter rival in his final home game, only to come back stronger, make a Final Four run and get revenge on Carolina in the schools’ first-ever tournament meeting en route to a national championship win that lets him ride off into the sunset on the highest of high notes.
The media will love it.
Duke fans will cry tears of joy.
And I’ll be utterly heartbroken.
I’ve seen people — including my own out-of-state friends — suggest that a Duke loss would be much worse for Duke fans than a UNC loss would be for UNC fans.
They’ve mentioned that UNC should just be happy to be here as a No. 8 seed and that, even if the Tar Heels lose, fans can hang their hats on the fact that they still ruined Coach K’s home finale.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
In a rivalry where every game matters, no matter the seedings or the records or the streaks or the skids, a loss in this spot would be brutal no matter which team you root for.
The loser of this game, regardless of which school it is, will never be able to live this one down — that is, until the matchup happens again 83 years from now.
There aren’t any moral victories in this rivalry.
Only winners and losers. And I’m not prepared to be the loser.
Welcome to my worst nightmare.
Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.
