—Austin Rivers hits a buzzer beater for Duke to defeat UNC in Chapel Hill, 2/8/12

It’s no secret I’m a huge Duke basketball fan.  I get if you’re a hater.  It’s the one team that I root for that is NOT an underdog in the traditional sense (except for the fact that unlike most college b-ball teams, they actually graduate their players and don’t pay them under the table).  The rest of the teams I root for The Knicks, Mets, Jets etc - only one of them has ever one a championship in my lifetime. 

You also have to understand that Duke wasn’t always the powerhouse they seem to be.  When I was there as a student, we lost all but one of eight regular season games played against Carolina.  The best game I’ve ever attended live was also the most painful one — a double overtime loss in Cameron 1995.

We finally won at home in my senior year, and it was great…but somehow, despite the celebratory bonfires, the thrill of victory didn’t have the same intensity as that agony of defeat.   

Maybe it’s because no Duke Carolina game, win or loss, had the kind of finish this last night’s game did.  It’s hours later and I’m still on cloud nine.

I know it’s just a regular season game, but this is the greatest rivalry in sports, and it’s definitely one of my top three endings to a Duke game.  The other two are of courrse: Christian Laettner’s last-second, back-to-the-basket, turn-around, game-winning jump shot  on March  over Kentucky in the 1992 Final Four (which I have to admit, played more than a small part in my decision to apply there); and Duke’s 2010 National Championship win over Butler, which was the last game I ever watched with my father.