NCAA Tournament 2022: North Carolina and Duke headline 2nd weekend storylines
By Bryan Mauro
Duke vs North Carolina
Let us get the elephant in the room out of the way. The Duke Blue Devils have advanced to play in their 13th final four under Coach K. Did you know it is also the last year Coach K is going to be coaching in college. Love or Hate Duke it is a story and it seems to be destined for a storybook ending. I am not going to get too in-depth on this game as I plan to dive much deeper into it later in the week but the opponent for Duke is a story all by itself.
The North Carolina Tar Heels advanced to the final four and they are going to play the Duke Blue Devils for the first time ever in the NCAA tournament. The heated rivalry is going to get taken up a huge notch when the stakes are the highest there is a national championship game on the line.
This is also showing the overall strength of the ACC in the NCAA tournament. The league had three teams in the Elite Eight and two did advance to the final four. The ACC is going to be playing for another National Title this year after we all thought the league was down.
North Carolina was not a tournament team a month ago and now they are one win away from playing for a National Championship. The Tar Heels have upped their level of play a ton over the last month of the year and are playing like a top 5 team in the country. Duke was always good as they posed a matchup problem for just about everyone in the nation but it never seemed like they had enough to win it all.
They have proven the doubters wrong because I didn’t think they had enough to get by Texas Tech but I was wrong. The media onslaught on this game is just the beginning as it has a chance to be one of the better games of all time. Carolina and Duke are always a fun one.