Carolina and Duke played their first basketball game on January 24, 1920. Additionally, Carolina was also retroactively awarded a national championship by the
Helms Athletic Foundation in 1942 for their undefeated 1924 season. Combining for eleven national championships over the last 36 years, Duke and Carolina have captured 28% of the national championships, or greater than one every four years. Over the past 18 years, one of the two teams has been the AP pre-season #1 ranked team in the country 8 times (44% of the time). Since 1977–78, Duke or Carolina has been in the pre-season top three 28 times (70%). Over the entirety of the AP poll (the past 69 years), the teams have been in the pre-season top four 69% of the time. Over this same period, one has been pre-season #1 18 times, making it an almost 3 in 10 chance that Duke or North Carolina starts the year at #1 in the last 50+ years. One of the two teams has peaked at AP #1 in 32 separate seasons since 1977, a 7 in 10 chance that Duke or Carolina peaked as the top-ranked team in the country at some point in the season since 1977.
History Though the two schools have always had the great emotion born of familiarity and proximity, some of the earliest roots of the modern basketball rivalry occurred in the early 1960s when
Art Heyman withdrew from his commitment to play for North Carolina in order to commit to playing for Duke. After a brawl between the two universities' freshman teams during the 1959–60 season involving Heyman and North Carolina's Dieter Krause, tensions heightened further during a February 4, 1961, varsity game when a brawl occurred initiated by Heyman and North Carolina's
Larry Brown, which resulted in suspensions for both players. The rivalry reached unprecedented heights in the mid-1980s under head coaches
Dean Smith of North Carolina and
Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, thanks to the emergence of cable channels such as
ESPN and the increasing coverage of the ACC in national broadcasts by the three major networks, giving a vast national audience more opportunities to witness the two teams and their coaches. Indeed, the two teams have been fixtures on national television since the early 1980s, and their final regular season clash has been nationally televised for most of that time. When Smith retired after the 1997 season, he held what was at the time the record for most wins by an NCAA Division I men's head coach, with 879 wins. On December 29, 2010, against the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski passed coach Smith with his 880th win to become the 2nd all-time winningest coach in Division I men's basketball, (a mark he has since surpassed). In
1982, with players
Michael Jordan,
Sam Perkins and
James Worthy, coach Smith won his first national championship and second overall for UNC that year. In 1991 Duke won its first national championship and then with most of their team returning, won another national championship in 1992. North Carolina then won the championship the next year in
1993. Since then, Duke won the national championship in
2001,
2010 and
2015 while North Carolina won national championships in
2005,
2009, and
2017. In 2011, Krzyzewski became the new holder of the record for most career wins by a D-I men's coach, surpassing his mentor
Bob Knight (who had surpassed Smith in 2007). On January 25, 2015, Krzyzewski also became the first NCAA Men's Division 1 Basketball head coach to reach 1,000 career wins after Duke defeated St Johns in Madison Square Garden 77–68. On February 16, 2019, Krzyzewski won his 1,123rd game to become the all-time winningest coach in college basketball history at any level (men's or women's), passing Harry Statham of Division II McKendree University. After Smith's retirement in 1997, North Carolina suffered through three coaching changes (from Dean Smith to
Bill Guthridge to
Matt Doherty to
Roy Williams) between 1997 and 2003. The six seasons between Bill Guthridge and Matt Doherty from 1997 to 2003 Duke won 13 of 17 games against North Carolina and some said that the rivalry was on the decline. However, with the arrival of North Carolina's alumnus Roy Williams as head coach in 2003, North Carolina won six regular season titles in eight years (2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012), won the ACC tournament in back to back years in 2007 and 2008 and won its fourth, fifth, and sixth NCAA championships in
2005,
2009, and
2017 respectively. North Carolina also won 6 of 8 games against Duke from 2005 to 2009. Erik Spanberg of
The Christian Science Monitor even argued in 2008 that the rivalry had tilted towards North Carolina in recent years. However, between 2009 and 2017 Duke won 13 of 18 games against North Carolina including 3 season sweeps over North Carolina in 2010, 2013 and 2015. During the 2009–2010 season, Duke won the regular season finale by 32 points, which was the second largest Duke win in series history. Following that game, Duke went on to win a fourth National title in
2010 and a fifth title in
2015. In
2017, UNC won its 6th national title. Since then, Duke and North Carolina have been splitting wins every year. In 2022, North Carolina defeated Duke in Krzyzewski's final home game in Cameron, returning the favor after Duke defeated North Carolina in Krzyzewski's last game at the Dean E. Smith Center a month earlier. In their highly anticipated third matchup, North Carolina defeated Duke in Krzyzewski's final game ever in the 2022 Final Four. Former
Esquire editor and author (and North Carolina graduate)
Will Blythe argues that the rivalry's passion can be attributed greatly to class and culture in the South. The rivalry has been the subject of various books and articles, including
To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever by Blythe and
Blue Blood by Art Chansky. Further illustrating the intensity of the rivalry,
U.S. Representative Brad Miller, a die-hard Carolina fan, told an
Associated Press writer in 2012, "I have said very publicly that if Duke was playing against the
Taliban, then I'd have to pull for the Taliban."
NCAA tournament/postseason NIT Prior to their meeting in the
2022 NCAA Final Four, North Carolina and Duke's only other postseason meeting was at the
1971 National Invitation Tournament, with North Carolina winning 73–67 in the semifinals at
Madison Square Garden. Under
current bracket rules, if both teams qualify for the NCAA tournament, the earliest both teams would be able to meet in the NCAA tournament is the regional semifinals (Sweet Sixteen) due to facing each other at least twice per season. If both teams meet three or more times (typically by meeting one another in the ACC tournament), then the earliest both teams can meet in the NCAA tournament is the Regional Finals (Elite Eight). In 1991, the teams came within one game of playing each other for the national championship, as both advanced to
that year's Final Four at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. Chansky writes in
Blue Blood that as Carolina and Duke students lined up for tickets, the Carolina students chanted "0-for-4!" at their Duke counterparts (referring to Duke's previous Final Four runs) while Duke responded with "Long time, no see!" (as this was Carolina's first Final Four since the 1982 national title season). In the first semifinal, North Carolina was upset 79–73 by a Kansas team coached by Roy Williams, who would later return to Chapel Hill to take the head coaching job. Some Duke fans had already arrived for their team's game by the time Dean Smith was ejected for arguing with the officials, and Chansky writes that they were ecstatic at the ejection, waving their hands and yelling, "See ya!" as they normally did at Cameron for a player or coach who was ejected or in foul trouble. Below, in the Duke locker room, the Blue Devils were preparing for a rematch of the 1990 title game with UNLV in their semifinal. UNLV had won that game by 30 points and had come in undefeated in 1991, with many wondering if they were the best college basketball team ever. When the Carolina-Kansas result news got through, Mike Krzyzewski asked the team if they felt it was okay to lose since that meant they would do no worse than the Tar Heels, and some nodded. Krzyzewski understood but then added, "Flush it. Let's go kick their ass." Duke then stunned the sports world by defeating UNLV 79–77 and then went one better by beating Kansas 72–65 in the championship game to win its first national title. Chansky writes that one UNC athletic department staffer in Indianapolis was so distraught that he did not leave his hotel room the day after the national championship game, while when Duke arrived back in Durham, Krzyzewski is said to have asked the team at a turnoff to Chapel Hill if the team wanted to cruise down Franklin Street. In the wake of the Final Four, when talking about how close the two rivals came to meeting for the national championship, Krzyzewski said that he never wanted to see it happen because regardless of who won, the pain of losing that game would be unbearable for the defeated school and its fans.
March 25, 1971: #13 North Carolina 73, Duke 67 At Madison Square Garden, New York City (National Invitation Tournament Semifinals) The first-ever postseason meeting and the only one before 2022. North Carolina not only won the game but also went on to win the
1971 NIT after beating Georgia Tech 84–66, while Duke lost the third-place game to St. Bonaventure. UNC's Bill Chamberlain was named tournament MVP after scoring 87 points in the tournament including 34 against the Yellow Jackets.
March 2, 1974: #4 North Carolina 96, Duke 92 (OT) At Carmichael Auditorium, Chapel Hill 8 Points in 17 Seconds. Duke led UNC 86–78 with 17 seconds left. Despite the deficit and despite the fact that the game took place prior to the implementation of the three-point shot, Carolina rallied with a pair of free throws by
Bobby Jones, then baskets by
John Kuester and Jones after a steal by
Walter Davis and a turnover on inbounds attempts. After Duke's Pete Kramer missed the front end of a one-and-one, UNC tied the score on Davis' 30-foot bank shot as time expired. The game went into overtime, where UNC prevailed, 96–92. Duke also won the rubber match in Atlanta in the ACC tournament championship 79–53 en route to the third national championship for both Krzyzewski and the school.
February 4, 2004: #1 Duke 83, #17 North Carolina 81 (OT) At the Dean Smith Center, Chapel Hill In the first game in the Carolina–Duke rivalry pitting
Mike Krzyzewski against new UNC head coach
Roy Williams,
Chris Duhon's reverse layup with 6.5 seconds left in overtime gave Duke its 16th straight victory overall and fifth victory in the last six years on Carolina's home court. Duke turned up the defense late in regulation and went on a 10–0 run, taking a 72–69 lead on two free throws by
Luol Deng with 1:06 left.
Sean May scored on a rebound with 53 seconds to go, but
JJ Redick restored the three-point lead on a drive with 38 seconds left. After a Carolina timeout,
Jawad Williams hit a game-tying three-pointer with 18 seconds left;
Daniel Ewing missed a potential game-winner for Duke with 3 seconds left. In overtime,
Shelden Williams had two blocks and his defense forced Carolina into a 35-second shot clock violation with 22 seconds left. Redick then made two free throws to make it 81–78 and
Rashad McCants drilled the game-tying three that set the stage for Duhon's heroics.
March 6, 2005: #2 North Carolina 75, #6 Duke 73 At the Dean Smith Center, Chapel Hill On Senior Day in Chapel Hill, before the largest crowd to see a college game on-campus in the state of North Carolina (22,125), the Tar Heels had a chance to win their first outright ACC regular-season title since 1993. However, they trailed Duke 73–64 with 3:07 left after Duke's
Lee Melchionni made a 3. Offensive rebounds and subsequent put-backs by Carolina's Jawad Williams and
Marvin Williams, the latter set up by a Duke turnover, cut the lead to five with two minutes to go. Duke's
DeMarcus Nelson then missed the front end of a one-and-one. Sean May then rebounded a miss of his own, and was fouled on the put-back; he hit the free throw to make it 73–71 with 1:44 left. Misses by Melchionni and
JJ Redick gave the ball back to the Tar Heels, but Duke's Shelden Williams came up with a huge block to regain possession for the Blue Devils with less than a minute to go. Duke inbounded the ball and looked to move it quickly up court, but Carolina's David Noel chased down
Daniel Ewing from behind and knocked the ball away before he could get a pass off. Raymond Felton came up with the loose ball in a scrum and called for time, setting up a game-tying possession for the Tar Heels – an eerily similar scenario to the game a month earlier at Cameron Indoor Stadium. This time, he took the ball to the hoop and got fouled with 19.4 seconds left. Felton hit the first, but missed the second. However, he redeemed himself for his failure at Cameron, and managed to tip the board to Marvin Williams, who took it straight back up, was fouled with 17 seconds left and banked it in to give the Tar Heels the lead and set off a wild celebration in the Smith Center. The free throw made it 75–73; Duke called time to set up one final play. Duke's sharpshooter, Redick, got the ball, but his 3-pointer rimmed out with 6.7 seconds left. Ewing's desperation jumper with 4 seconds left was an airball; May grabbed the rebound to run out the clock and seal the 75–73 comeback win.
February 8, 2012: #9 Duke 85, #5 North Carolina 84 At the Dean Smith Center, Chapel Hill UNC held a lead of 10 points or more for most of the second half and were leading by 10 points until 2:09 when Duke's
Tyler Thornton hit a 3-point shot quickly followed by another 3 by
Seth Curry to close the margin to 4. With just 14 seconds left in the game, Tyler Zeller accidentally tipped the ball into the Duke basket on a Duke 3-point shot by Ryan Kelly.
Duke was awarded 2 points on the tip in by Zeller leaving Carolina with a 1-point lead. Duke's Tyler Thornton fouled Zeller who made his first shot but missed his second leaving Carolina with a 2-point lead. Duke brought the ball up court following the defensive rebound off Zeller's missed free throw and Duke guard
Austin Rivers – with his father, NBA player and coach
Glenn "Doc" Rivers in attendance – hit the game-winning 3 over Zeller as time expired. Rivers finished the game with a career high 29 points, including six three-pointers.
February 18, 2015: #4 Duke 92, #15 North Carolina 90 (OT) At Cameron Indoor Stadium, Durham Entering the game at Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium with the passing of North Carolina's long-time coach
Dean Smith a couple of days before, both Duke and UNC coaches, players and staff all gathered at center court and held a moment of silence for Smith. Once the game started Duke jumped right out of the gate with an 18–6 lead early in the game thanks to hot shooting. UNC would respond by outscoring Duke 30–22 over the next several minutes of the 1st half to cut Duke's lead down to 40–36 with around 4 minutes left in the 1st half. Duke then went on a 9–0 run over the next 2 minutes to get their largest lead of the game at 49–36 with 2 minutes left in the half. UNC would score the last 6 points of the half to cut Duke's lead down to 49–42 at halftime. In the 2nd half almost everything went UNC's way as UNC started dominating the post and eventually built their largest lead of the game, 77–67, over Duke with 4 minutes left in regulation to complete a 41–18 run over Duke in an 18-minute span. With Duke still trailing UNC 79–72 with around minutes left in regulation, Duke's
Tyus Jones would help Duke finish regulation on a 9–2 run over UNC to tie the game at 81 points apiece to send it to overtime. In overtime, the game was filled with missed free throws, missed shots, fouls, turnovers, lead changes and ties with Duke eventually winning the game 92–90. The Tar Heels took full advantage, never trailing at any time and leading by as many as 22 points on their way to the win. Luke Maye starred for North Carolina with 30 points and 15 rebounds.
March 15, 2019: #5 Duke 74, #3 North Carolina 73 At the Spectrum Center, Charlotte (ACC tournament semifinals) After Duke's Zion Williamson only played the first 30 seconds of the 1st meeting and missed all of the 2nd meeting against North Carolina due to a mild knee sprain in his right knee he was finally able to play a full game against North Carolina in the semifinals of the ACC tournament. North Carolina blitzed Duke early thanks to hot shooting from Cam Johnson to put North Carolina up 33–20 over Duke with about minutes left in the 1st half. Duke's Zion Williamson finally got going and scored 12 of Duke's last 24 points of the half to help Duke comeback and tie the score at 44 points a piece at halftime. The second half was neck and neck the entire way with both teams having their best players making big play after big play. Both teams became tired down the stretch and both teams suffered small scoring droughts at different parts late in the second half. In the end Duke was able to hold off North Carolina's last 2 shot attempts to escape with a 74–73 win over North Carolina snapping a 3-game losing streak to their biggest rival and advancing to the ACC tournament championship game. Zion Williamson was the hero for Duke after scoring 31 points in his second game back from injury.
February 8, 2020: #7 Duke 98, North Carolina 96 (OT) At the Dean Smith Center, Chapel Hill North Carolina entered this first rivalry game of 2020 with a 10–12 overall record (3–8 in conference play), their worst season record in 18 years. Ranked #7, Duke was a clear favorite to win this away match-up, having been in the top 10 all year. However, the Tar Heels outperformed expectations, in part due to 24 points and 11 rebounds by
Cole Anthony, who had recently returned from a lengthy injury leave. North Carolina lead 44–35 at halftime and held a 13-point lead with 3:55 remaining in regulation time. However, they struggled with free throws, shooting 21-of-38 on the night, and Duke mounted a comeback, cutting the lead to five points with 0:20 remaining. Duke point guard
Tre Jones scored 8 points in the final 50 seconds of regulation. Down 84–82 with 4.4 seconds remaining, Jones sent the game to overtime by intentionally ricocheting a free throw off the rim, rebounding, and sinking a 2-point buzzer-beater. During the tournament, Mike Krzyzewski passed UCLA's
John Wooden for the most Final Four appearances by a single head coach, while North Carolina also set a record with their 21st Final Four appearance and beat two Final Four teams from the previous season in UCLA and reigning national champion Baylor. In a thriller that included 18 lead changes, Carolina overcame a 3-point halftime deficit to win 81–77.). In the hours leading up to the game, students play music and put on dark blue and white paint (Duke's colors). After the game, dependent on a win by the
Duke Blue Devils, students rush out to their main residential quads (only a short distance from Cameron Indoor Stadium), and burn benches. Many residential communities at Duke traditionally build and paint benches for day-to-day use in the hopes of burning them in celebration of a win over Carolina. The students then rebuild benches shortly after in hopes of being able to burn them again the next year. At Carolina, a win over Duke typically results in students rushing
Franklin Street, the main thoroughfare just north of UNC's campus and the commercial heart of Chapel Hill. Police block off the street before the game in anticipation of thousands of students celebrating the win. Bonfires are also a feature of these celebrations, often using Duke gear as fuel.
Results Scores of games (1920–2025) Ranking of the team at the time of the game by the AP poll is shown in parentheses next to the team name (failure to list AP ranking does not necessarily mean the team was not ranked at the time of the game).
Achievements by season (1975–2025) • This was the last year of a balanced regular season schedule (each team played a home-and-away series with every other conference foe). In subsequent years, this was not possible due to conference expansion. † The NCAA tournament was canceled in response to the
COVID-19 global pandemic of 2020. The ACC tournament was canceled after the second round after North Carolina was eliminated and Duke had yet to play a game. ==Football==