Few in the world have less than the Espn college campus chooses to broadcast its university basketball job.
However, it was curious last weekend when the network announced that its last “Gameday college” of the regular season would visit Chapel Hill for Hype Up Duke against North Carolina For the second time in nine weeks.
Yes, the game is important for North Carolina, Which probably won’t do the NCAA tournament without a victory. And yes, Duke Fights for global seed n ° 1 with an essential player Cooper Flagg, which will almost certainly be the first choice of the draft of the NBA in June.
But if you try to tell the story of this university basketball season, it doesn’t make much sense.
It is certainly a small nit to choose with the so-called world leader. “College Gameday” does not have the cultural relevance in basketball she does in football; It is the filling program that frequently attracts less than a million viewers. And rely on the Duke-Unc rivalry is a button so easy for ESPN; He welcomed Gameday last weekend from the regular season for 12 of the last 13 seasons.
The problem, however, is that the whole competitive balance of university basketball has moved considerably over the past decade. Highlight the Duke Carolina many times and again and again – even when it is not a particularly relevant game for the national image – looks like a restaurant to serve as Steak Salisbury and Jell -O. It may be time to update the menu.
Without a doubt, the greatest test of strength in the rivalry on Saturday will take place between Alabama and Auburn, two TOP-10 teams who played a deliciously observable game last month which ended with Auburn marking a huge 94-85 victory. One or the other of these teams could win the national championship.
But there are also other big games between the Final Four Conten: Kentucky in Missouri, Ole Miss in Florida, Houston in Baylor and St. John’s in Marquette (who is not a Gameday candidate because the Big East has no contract with ESPN).
Choosing one of them would have made sense and sent the message that ESPN will not put Duke-Unc under the default projectors to the detriment of more deserving games with more relevant scenarios.
If Duke-Und will continue to be a preeminent rivalry of university basketball, he cannot live in the past. He must win this juice.
Right away? I don’t see it.
Locally, of course, this game will always be more important than anything else. But for a national audience, the fascination for Tobacco Road did not only concern the brand or uniforms or even the success of the two programs. It was the personalities involved.
Although Jon Scheyer has done as well a job as possible by maintaining Duke’s place in the competitive landscape, there is simply no way to replace the aura to see Mike Krzyzewski on the sidelines against Dean Smith or Roy Williams. And from the point of view of North Carolina, it is difficult to know if he makes fun of Hubert Davis for having been surpassed like the head coach of a traditional blue blood or the pity because he seems to be such a nice and serious guy.
From the 1980s until Krzyzewski’s last game – A defeat against North Carolina in the Final Four 2022 – This edge between the two programs was undeniable. It was personal. And this easily resulted in viewers who understood nothing else on one or the other of the two schools.
You cannot just remove Krzyzewski from this mixture and recreate the same issues. When the Tar Heels upset Duke in this Final Four semi-finals, their exaltation was not only to beat Duke or to make the national championship match. It was to beat him.
Are we really supposed to believe that North Carolina players think it’s the same thing to beat Jon Scheyer? Do you really think that Flagg, an 18-year-old who grew up in Maine, spent his nine months on the Duke campus building a real animus to North Carolina?
It’s illogical. That’s wrong. This rivalry can one day become excellent again if the Tar Heels can come together, but it will never be the same again. And basketball basketball brong cannot continue to climb on its shoulders by calling on the past.
It is a very different sport now compared to the decades where you could count reliably on Duke and North Carolina to play the biggest games each year, because they were generally excellent.
Baylor – Baylor, for Goodness Sakes – won a championship more recently than one of them. The powers of dry football that did not take very seriously basketballs dominate the top-15. The ACC, formerly considered to be the ordeal, is one of the lowest points in its history. Indiana, which is in the middle of a coaching search, is about to learn the lesson that its success under Bobby Knight has little attraction for the best established coaches.
In this sport at the moment, tradition is not worth much and the interest in rivalry is difficult to maintain without the two schools doing their part.
When these two schools gathered on February 1, Duke gave the Tar Heels such a debate that the final score of 87-70 did not really do him justice. And yet, as ESPN concludes its coverage of regular season university basketball, it again pushes the match in the throat of his viewers as if it were the Yankees and the Red Sox.
Some fans will say that Duke-Und is still the most convincing match in university basketball-or perhaps any sport-regardless of rankings or results.
But that clings to the past in a sport where competitive balance is not static. There are more interesting teams than ever before, schools that we are not used to seeing at the top of the ranking and a harvest of dynamic coaches in distant places like Texas Tech and Missouri who deserve to be on this pedestal.
This is the real story of university basketball this year. In comparison, that of ESPN offers this weekend feels tired and not deserved.
This article originally appeared on USA Today: Duke-Und has lost his juice; It’s time for ESPN to highlight others
