The Tobacco Road rivalry has gotten historically ugly

Unfortunately, both teams are now taking these themes to the extreme.

Over the past three seasons, Duke has ranked second, fourth and 12th in Division I in adjusted defensive rating, per CBB Analytics. North Carolina has sat at 14th, 20th and sixth across that same span. The Blue Devil offense, meanwhile, ranked 100th, 53rd and 25th; the Tar Heels have been 68th, 75th and 44th. Combined with their ‘Tobacco Road’ rivalry being one of the fiercest in all of college basketball, it seems the two are engaged in an effort to test the very limits of what counts as basketball.

These two teams have met six times over the past three years (with a seventh coming in February) and the average score has been North Carolina 54-Duke 52. The most recent meeting required overtime to reach North Carolina 53-Duke 46. In 2022-23, they played twice in seven days; the final scores were 45-41 and 44-40.

Its aesthetic likens to nails on a chalkboard, the sporting equivalent of a highly resistible force meeting a completely immovable object.

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Just four times since 2001-02 (as far back as Sports Reference has data) has a single former Power 5/now Power 4 match-up had multiple installments where neither team exceeded 45 points: Wake Forest-Georgia Tech in 2004-05 and 2021-22; LSU-Arkansas in 2010-11 and 2011-12; Miami-Virginia Tech in 2012-13 and 2014-15; and Duke-North Carolina in one week in 2022-23.

And Duke and Carolina went to overtime last week tied at 40 points. If a single free-throw had fallen differently, this rivalry would have more sub-45 point games in three seasons than any other match-up over the past 25 years.

Frankly, I’m not sure this should count as basketball anymore. The pace has been snail-like every time. The two are shooting a combined 34.0% from the field and 69.0% from the line. The Blue Devils are averaging 36.7 combined turnovers and fouls, with the Tar Heels right behind at 35.0. Duke is the only one among them to have even a single game with an assist-to-turnover ratio above 1.0, and North Carolina’s has been 0.5 or below five times.

After all, basketball is a game and games are supposed to be fun. But the Tobacco Road rivalry has become something else. It is a summoning circle for a Cthulhuesque deity. It is an attempt to single-handedly undo all the progress to women’s basketball that has come in recent years.

My solution is simple: From now on, when these two teams play, first to 60 wins. Turn the game clock off (but please keep the shot clock on). Stop counting non-scoring stats. Just force these teams into a cage fight and don’t let them out until one of them remembers how to score.