“The Rivalry” is like a beacon of light at the end of the midterms tunnel. It shouts out, “Don’t worry! At the beginning of March, you will feel the thrill of the greatest sports rivalry on earth, and nobody can ever take that away from you!” It keeps you singing “Rah-rah Carolina-lina. Rah-rah Carolina-lina. Go to Hell, Duke!” as you fill in Scantrons.
It warms your soul.
If you’ve stumbled upon this article, chances are you go to Duke or UNC. If you go to the former, I apologize in advance for the things I am about to say.
UNC fans are scientifically better than the Cameron Crazies.
Recently, I travelled to Cameron Indoor to watch another rivalry: the Duke-UNC women’s basketball game. Unfortunately, we lost. However, what disturbed me most wasn’t the loss but the manner in which the Cameron Crazies cheered. Often they cheered when their own team received an offensive foul or when a jump-ball went to Carolina.
“Do they even know what was going on?” I asked myself. I prayed my own school’s fan base was not as silly when it came to the basics of basketball.
Determined to prove UNC students have a higher basketball IQ than those other kids down Tobacco Road, I created a quiz that tests basketball knowledge and set out to find 30 Cameron Crazies and 30 UNC students.
So, I journeyed to the shadow lands of Durham and ventured into K-ville disguised as a Duke student (shout-out to all the tenters I befriended!) and quizzed, quizzed, quizzed. Then, I wandered around the Pit at UNC and surveyed a sample of Carolina fans. (Side note, I’m pretty sure the “Do you have a minute to stop child poverty?” people hate me as I snatched a good number of students away from them, so they could take my quiz. Sorry I’m not sorry?)
Before I get to the good stuff, let me just quickly describe to you the misery that is K-ville. First of all, as an undercover Duke student, I had to pretend that Austin Rivers was a god for sinking that clutch 3 (and I use “clutch” because I’d just be a hater if I denied that it wasn’t insanely clutch). Second of all, I had to wear my extra-small Duke T-shirt from 8th grade (a time when I thought
Duke couldn’t be so bad if Nathan Scott wanted to go there). I’ve never felt so ugly. Third of all, it’s like really, really cold and muddy there. Ew.
Anyway, the results are in, so let’s get down to business…
The Good:
UNC had 3 perfect scores (10) while Duke had none. We also had a lower minimum score of 3 (versus Duke’s minimum of 2). We also answered more questions concerning UNC personnel, All-Americans, and NCAA National Championships correctly than Duke Students (probably because we are superior in all 3 categories…). Almost half of the Duke students polled thought Duke had more national championships than Carolina. C’mon. Really?
The Bad:
Duke had a higher quantity of mid-to-high scores. Basically everybody got a 7 or a 6 and while any good Carolina student might be thinking “That’s like a D…”, it’s still better than the abundance of 3’s and 4’s scored by the Tar Heels. Also, Duke technically answered fewer questions incorrectly, but then again, who really knows the difference between Marshall and Miles Plumlee … and more importantly — who cares?
AND The “I should have paid closer attention in STOR 112 because this was hard to make”:
Basically, Carolina basketball fans had a mean score of 6.27 versus Duke’s of 6.17. Thus their average was .1 points higher than the Cameron Crazies.
And as Austin Rivers so painfully taught us, one point (or point one) really makes a difference… Or .1 seconds on a shot clock … Or .1 seconds jumping too late to block a shot. Oh, I need to stop. This is too painful to write.
So the bottom line is this: Congratulations, UNC students! You’ve won this matchup. You know basketball better than the Dookies. What better way to flaunt that knowledge than by tuning in to cheer on our beloved Tar Heels Saturday, March 3 at 7 p.m. on ESPN?
Want to take my Basketball IQ test? Click here!
Sources:
http://dukecheck.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Kville-all-full.jpg
http://weheartit.com/entry/22146648
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwzyow51U81qmmouzo1_400.jpg