Duke fans turning into Carolna fans

Edward Cone
News & Record
3-9-03

A terrible thing has happened to Duke fans: They have turned into Carolina fans.

I don't mean that Duke fans now root for the Tar Heels. Look for Billy Yow to join the NAACP before people start changing their favorite shades of blue.

No, the Dukies will still be pulling for the wrong team when college basketball's best rivalry is resumed this afternoon in Chapel Hill. What has changed is their attitude: No longer do Duke fans merely expect to win. They think they deserve to win. "We have won too much," complained Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski last week as he ripped Duke fans for their rude 'tudes.

This same sense of entitlement has long defined the UNC fan, and that attitude was as responsible as the Tar Heels' long years of success for the ABC (Anybody But Carolina) sentiment that prevailed around the Atlantic Coast Conference.

You might think that recent seasons would have given Carolina fans some perspective - with last year's 8-20 record providing, as Spinal Tap said at Elvis' grave, too much perspective. Yet many of the Tar Heel faithful have not grasped the hard realities of the post-Dean Smith era.

On message boards and call-in shows, they bay for the head of head coach Matt Doherty, overlooking the injury to Sean May that hobbles the current team, forgetting the sub-King Rice guard play that doomed the previous edition. They underrate the difficulty of replacing a legendary coach and maintaining excellence on the fly. Never mind such inconvenient details: If Carolina is not exercising its birthright to victory, then it must be Doherty's fault.

For this Carolina fan at least, the answer is that we don't know yet if Doherty will lead us back to the promised land. So far he's brought in five good players, including two or three potential stars, and under his tutelage last year's freshmen are much improved as sophomores. He's also irked a lot of the big-money boosters, endured rumors of player unrest and taken some lopsided losses. Next year's performance - and he certainly deserves a next year - will tell the tale.

Duke fans, meanwhile, face a different kind of dilemma. After three national championships and a string of great years that extends back to the Reagan era, I sense a change in the once-humble Blue Devil partisans. For example, shortly after Duke's ugly collapse against St. John's, I ran into a cheerfully rabid Duke fan at the grocery store. "Coach K has let us down this year," she scowled about a guy whose 20-5 team, although clearly not one of his best, has hovered near the top of the rankings all season.

This way lies madness, Duke fans. You have the best coach in the country. Enjoy it. Don't succumb to the hubris that now causes Carolina fans such pain.

Dominance does bring its own challenges. Duke now attracts players who leave early for the NBA, just like Carolina's used to. Even the vaunted Cameron Crazies seem a little out of sync - Coach K ripped them last week, too.

The clever antics of the fans in the stands were cute when Duke was a plucky underdog, but they come off as obnoxious and self-referential when applied to a perennial top-5 team.

At Maryland, the ACC's newest elite program, fans also seem to be taking on Carolina characteristics. "One senses a slight change in the character of Terrapin fans these days compared to years past - namely, they are getting to be like Tar Heel fans used to be," reports Thad Williamson, a writer for the Inside Carolina Web site and author of a book called "More Than a Game: Why North Carolina Basketball Means So Much to So Many." "They have total confidence in their head coach and total appreciation for each player. They show up at games expecting to win."

Uh-oh. Terps coach Gary Williams better watch his back.

As for this afternoon's game at the Dean Dome, I can't say I expect a Carolina victory. But anything can happen in a rivalry so intense that the Discovery Channel is reportedly making it the subject of a documentary, and the Tar Heels did play well against Duke at Duke - so why shouldn't they win? After all, they're entitled.

Edward Cone (www.edcone.com, efcone@mindspring.com) writes a column for the News & Record most Sundays.

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