Tomorrow is the big day. Today - or maybe even yesterday, was the big day when the Cameron Crazies popped their tents up in Krzyzewski-ville to await their admittance into the 7,000-some crowd for THE biggest game in all of sports. For me, today - and definitely even yesterday, is when I am consumed with hatred. There are few days when I allow myself to be so consumed with hatred that it's all I can think about. But I didn't sleep last night, and I won't sleep tonight. Why you ask? Because I watch my DVD copy of "Team Carolina: The Complete 2005 Championship Season" and read my book "To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever" by Will Blythe. I read Adam Lucas archives, I watch Dick Vital analysis', and I Youtube.com "Rival Week" commercials and indulge in complete happiness at the account that I am part of the Duke-Carolina rivalry.

Tomorrow, #3 Carolina visits Cameron Indoor Stadium to take on the #6 ranked team in the nation (AP Rankings). [Sidenote: I chose AP Rankings for a reason; USA Today and ESPN have them ranked #5.]

Am I nervous? Hell yes. Duke is coming off an OT win over Miami, and Carolina hasn't had a scare since Florida State (which was just about as ridiculous as Alabama's slight win over Kentucky earlier this football season).

[One more sidenote: Football schools shouldn't suffer against basketball schools on the gridiron; and basketball powerhouses shouldn't find themselves with a last minute 3-pointer to barely beat a football school.]

But tomorrow, that's not the case. These are THE basketball powerhouses of the world. Throw the records out the window, put the rankings aside, and friendships don't mean anything when the clock stricks 9:00ET tomorrow in Durham. Wayne Ellington and Gerald Henderson won't be best friends tomorrow - I promise, this game is about pure, devil-behind-the-wheel hatred.

So here's my problem: "A man who lives, not by what he loves but what he hates, is a sick man." I love Carolina Basketball, but I've grown to love Alabama Football on an equal level. But I LIVE to hate Duke, and I don't live to hate Auburn, Tennessee, or LSU. I would cheer for Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, or the University of Hell before the words "Go Duke" ever come out of my mouth. I don't talk to the guy at a bar in Tuscaloosa that has an awful, royal blue Duke hat on. I wouldn't sit at dinner with Brad Pitt if he told me he would pick Duke over Carolina (which, in most first meetings with people, is often the first question I ask.)

I'm posting this so that all who read it before they see me tomorrow can understand what it's like to be part of the Carolina fanhood. I'm delighted by how much I despise Duke. I am proud of how much Duke repulses me. And tomorrow will go down as one of my better days so far this year if we win, or I'll walk out of wherever I'm posted up watching the game without speaking a word (except for every obscene, explicit, four letter word I can mutter under my breath) and prepare myself to not kill whoever I choose to blame the loss on when I see their face in Miami in 5 days.

But what am I talking about? We won't lose. We've gotten our wake-up call; our reality check. Who cares how high they turn the heat up in Cameron to try to disadvantage Roy and the third-ranked team? Coach K is the one who passes out on the sidelines every couple years [Last sidenote: Please youtube that video!!!!]. And with all my talk about being overly-consumed with hatred for everything Blue Devil, I pray I can get into the spirit of Valentine's Day (which I mentioned in my last post, I will be spending with my love, Psycho-T) and enjoy tomorrow's game without biting anyone's head off or being thrown out of whatever bar I've posted up at for going Psycho-B (that's me and Tyler's nicknames for one another) on someone for cheering for Duke when they have no tie, roots, or fanhood to the Dookies.

So, for all you Tuscaloosian's and fellow Alabama students that read this: Tomorrow is MY "Iron Bowl." Tomorrow is when Nick Saban and Les Miles meet on the hardwood. And tomorrow's when two schools, always voted the biggest rivalry in all of sports - no matter if they're unranked or 3 vs. 6, meet for the first time all year and reveal in the first of two (maybe three) matches who deserves a Number 1 Seed in the tournament. It's like Alabama being in Tuscaloosa, and Auburn being in Cottondale.

I end with this, from Will Blythe's book aka The Bible For Obsessive Carolina Fans....

"The basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina has become the greatest rivalry in college athletics, and one of the greatest in all of sports. It is Ali versus Frazier, the Giants versus the Dodgers, the Red Sox versus the Yankees. Hell, it's bigger than that. This is the Democrats versus the Republicans, the Yankees versus the Confederates, Capitalism versus Communism. All right, okay, the Life Force versus the Death Instinct, Eros versus Thanatos. Is that big enough? This is the rivalry of such intensity, of such hatred, that otherwise reasonable adults attach to it all manner of political-philosophical baggage, some of which might even be true.....

Duke is the university as launchpad, propelling its mostly out-of-state students into a stratosphere of success. While hardly opposed to individual achievement, North Carolina, by contrast, is the university as old home place, equally devoted to the values of community and local service.

That, at least, is the mythology many of us swallowed as we grew up. So that when one roots for one team or another in the Duke-North Carolina rivalry, one if cheering as much for opposing concepts of American virtue as for adolescent geniuses of basketball."


Happy Birthday, Dad! Hopefully the 'Heels can bring it home tomorrow night so we can have much to celebrate in Miami!! Here's to Good Health, Good Basketball, and a Great 52 Years!!