Everything You Need to Know About the Duke-UNC Basketball Rivalry
There's no bigger rivalry in college basketball than the Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels. No matter which side you support, that matchup is a game you circle on the schedule as soon as it's announced. And even neutral fans tend to have a close eye on that one.
The proximity helps. The history of the programs helps. But what really makes this so unique is that no rivalry is consistently contested by elite teams as often as this one.
Duke @ UNC Saturday will be the 49TH TIME (🫨) the two will meet as top-10 teams. Absurd. How absurd? Here's the five most common top-10 matchups in the history of men's college🏀
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) January 30, 2024
Duke-UNC (49)
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UNC-NC State (14)
Kentucky-Duke (13)
UNC-Kentucky (13)
UNC-Maryland (13)
With one of the season's biggest games on tap for Saturday, let's go over everything you need to know about this rivalry.
Duke vs. UNC All-Time Head-to-Head Record & Stats
The Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels basketball teams have 191 all-time head-to-head meetings. North Carolina holds a series lead, with 102 wins compared to 89 from Duke.
Over all of these games, only 39 points have separated the two teams. UNC has out-scored Duke by an average of 76.1 to 75.9 points per game, for a differential of just +0.2 points per game. That's about as close as you could ask for.
All-time in the series, Duke has scored 14,492 points, compared to 14,531 for North Carolina.
The longest win streak between the two teams is the 16-game streak UNC put together from 1921-28.
ACC Championship Meetings and History
The ACC Men's Basketball Championship has been played since 1954, with just one year (2020) skipped in that entire time. That leaves 69 championships having been awarded. Duke has won a conference-leading 22 of those titles. North Carolina is second with 18, while North Carolina State is a distant third with 10.
Duke and UNC have met in the ACC Championship game on 11 occasions, with North Carolina winning 6 to Duke's 5. Below is a full list of their ACC Championship meetings.
Year | Winner | Runner-Up | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
1967 | UNC | Duke | 82-73 |
1969 | UNC | Duke | 85-74 |
1979 | UNC | Duke | 71-63 |
1988 | Duke | UNC | 65-61 |
1989 | UNC | Duke | 77-74 |
1991 | UNC | Duke | 96-74 |
1992 | Duke | UNC | 94-74 |
1998 | UNC | Duke | 83-68 |
1999 | Duke | UNC | 96-73 |
2001 | Duke | UNC | 79-53 |
2011 | Duke | UNC | 75-58 |
Duke vs UNC March Madness History
While neither Duke nor UNC holds the record for most all-time NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament championships (an honor that belongs to UCLA, with 11), they do both rank top-five. Here's a comparison of how the two schools have fared in the tournament.
School | Champions | Championship Appearances | Final 4 | Elite 8 | Sweet 16 | Appearances |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
North Carolina | 6 | 12 | 21 | 29 | 37 | 52 |
Duke | 5 | 11 | 17 | 23 | 32 | 45 |
Has UNC Played Duke in the NCAA Tournament?
Duke and UNC have met in the NCAA Tournament only once — a 2022 Final Four matchup that North Carolina won 81-77.
Prior to that, the teams had one postseason meeting: a 1971 National Invitation Tournament (NIT) semifinal matchup, which UNC won 73-67.
Biggest Blowouts in Duke vs UNC History
North Carolina holds the biggest blowout win in the history of the rivalry, but you have to go way back (way way back) to 1921 to find that score. UNC blew Duke out by a margin of 37 points, earning a 55-18 win. If you're not impressed by what UNC managed to do shooting the ball into a peach basket, their biggest blowout of the modern era was a 25-point win in 1980.
Duke's biggest blowout win over UNC happened in 1964 when they earned a 104-69 win (35-point differential).