Have we stopped to examine what rivalry basketball really looks like in this new era of college hoops?
Think about it. We’re NC State fans – we show up year in and year out. The players come and go, but the game has changed. The way things used to be simply isn’t the way they are now.
Freshmen once arrived to teams loaded with upperclassmen who had already been through the gauntlet. Those veterans schooled the newcomers on what the NC State-UNC rivalry truly meant. They shared personal stories from their own battles in those games, retold the legends passed down to them, and even pulled out old newspaper clippings with disrespectful quotes that stoked the fire and fueled the hatred.