<p>goldenboy wrote:</p>
<p>In the modern era, Duke has been the best college basketball team while UNC has been #3 according to ESPN. There is only 9 miles that separate these two college basketball powerhouses and all North Carolinians either grew up cheering for UNC or Duke.</p>
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<p>This is a huge overstatement: plenty of North Carolinians don’t really care at all, and plenty cheer for NC State, Wake Forest, or Davidson instead of Duke or UNC. My parents are both from North Carolina, and I lived in the state during HS and was an avid ACC basketball fan. At that time, I liked NC State. At different times, I’ve actually managed to like both UNC and Duke (I realize <em>that</em> is pretty rare.) And now my two favorite ACC teams are UNC and Boston College–not a powerhouse and not even in NC.</p>
<p>My cousins in the state, however, divide up mostly between NC State, UNC, Duke, and Davidson. But plenty of people in the Tarheel State could care less about college hoops. And (as with elsewhere in the nation) there are plenty who just seem to have a strong dislike of Duke (without liking UNC or any other Carolina team).</p>
<p>I know that’s a lot of nuanced critical thinking for a Blue Devil to take in, goldenboy, but show some school spirit and give it the old college try! :-)</p>