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Does a rivalry game hit different in March Madness? Duke, UNC meeting in NCAA women's tournament for the first time ever

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — When North Carolina’s Courtney Banghart and Duke’s Kara Lawson took over their respective programs in back-to-back seasons, the questioning was loud. Could they return the ACC powers to prominence? Carry them deep into the NCAA tournament? Pour more fuel on the the UNC-Duke rivalry?

“When you take these jobs, you know that, and you hear it early,” said Banghart, who took over in 2019 after one NCAA tournament appearance in four seasons. “You sort of say, 'OK, yeah, it is important to put yourself and this program in its rightful place.' Kara and I have done that to the point where we’re now playing for the first time ever in an NCAA tournament.

“I mean, if that doesn’t get your blood going, you should check it.”

Lawson might want to, considering she didn’t know it was the first meeting while remaining even keeled as she talked to reporters on Thursday.

“We’re fighting for a spot in the Elite Eight,” Lawson said. “And so whoever the opponent is, is the opponent.”

The Tobacco Road rivalry is on a road trip this week to Legacy Arena in Birmingham, where No. 3 North Carolina and No. 2 Duke will meet for the 111th time with an Elite Eight berth on the line. In the 49-year history of the rivalry, it is the first time the two will meet on the NCAA tournament stage. The Birmingham 2 regional tips off the Sweet 16 on Friday (2:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).

“Having two ACC teams hash it out [and] being able to play for the Elite Eight, there’s no better feeling in the world playing our rival,” said Duke junior guard Ashlon Jackson, the heroine of the second-round victory that clinched a Sweet 16 berth. “We’re super excited to see what type of game it will be. It will be super competitive, I know, for sure.”

In the age of bloated super conferences, UNC (29-7) and Duke (28-7) were the rare conference foes to play twice as travel partners in the 18-team ACC. The Tar Heels won at home, 53-46, in overtime on Jan. 9 and Duke answered with a 68-53 win in Durham on Feb. 27.

Omitting Lawson’s first season at Duke in 2020-21 when she said the Blue Devils “got our butt kicked” by everyone in the league, the rivalry has lived up to its billing under new leadership. The three games played in 2022-23 were decided by an average of 4.3 points. A year ago, the average was six points.

“It’s going to be cool to showcase on even a bigger stage what the Carolina-Duke rivalry is,” said fifth-year wing Alyssa Ustby. “Obviously, it’s always a gritty game. So it’s something that’s going to be pretty cool to show the rest of the country.”

The recent iterations of the Duke-UNC rivalry have been low-scoring, often mucky affairs. There’s a rare level of high familiarity that isn’t common this time of year and coaches had an early jump on scouting reports.

“Playing them a few times has definitely helped because we know what to expect,” freshman Toby Fournier said. “I mean, you can never really know what to expect in a game like this, especially during March Madness, but as much as we can.”

They’re incredibly similar, averaging about 71 points per game and allowing opponents 57. Their rebounding, assist and block rates are near even as some of the best in the nation. Duke finished one game above North Carolina for third in the ACC standings behind Notre Dame, a No. 3 seed, and NC State, a No. 2 seed.

“Sometimes you play opponents where your styles are so different, and you try to say, well, that becomes a chess match. This becomes a battle,” Banghart said. “This becomes a battle, right? You have to be able to win both ways to be sitting where we're sitting, but this will be more of a battle than it will be a ‘This, then this, then this.’ That's what March is for.”

The men’s programs first met on the NCAA tournament stage in 2022 when they lined up in the Final Four. The NCAA selection committees follow specific guidelines seeding teams in the bracket to avoid early conference rematches. But that’s more difficult in an era when double-digit teams from a conference reach the tournament.

“Over time, you're going to see meetings earlier and earlier in the tournament,” Lawson said. “It's just going to be a fact of kind of where we are.”

Duke-UNC is the only conference rivalry in the Sweet 16, but not the only conference rematch. Tennessee and Texas, in its first SEC season, will play on Saturday in the Birmingham 3 regional. If the bracket goes chalk, SEC regular season co-champions Texas and South Carolina would meet in the Final Four as would Big Ten newcomers UCLA and USC.

The Tar Heels are playing in their first Sweet 16 since 2015 under legendary head coach Sylvia Hatchell. They haven’t made the Elite Eight since 2014.

Duke is coming off a Sweet 16 loss to UConn a year ago. The Blue Devils last reached an Elite Eight in 2013, the final of a four-season run to the regional final under Joanne Palombo-McCallie.

Banghart credited the success of those coaches, and the others in the rivalry, for building toward this moment in which she and Lawson are in charge of carrying on the “respect, integrity and toughness” of the rivalry.

“The Duke-Carolina rivalry is so much bigger than me or this team, and that's what makes it so fun too,” sixth-year head coach Banghart said.

Though Lawson side-stepped any bulletin-board material regarding the opponent, the fifth-year head coach did not avoid the significance of the moment.

“It's not just another game. It's an important game,” Lawson said. “It's a game to get a step beyond where we were able to reach a year ago, and it's a game to put yourself in position to play for a spot in the Final Four. That's kind of how we've approached it, and trying to honor the value of the game with the right amount of respect and the right amount of preparation.”

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