Michigan and Duke are basketball rivals?

Reminds me of walking to a football game in the early 90's. Guy walking toward me had a shirt that said "DUKE SUCKS." As he passed and walked away, on his back it said "AND LAETNER SWALLOWS!"

That page is crap.

I have a little different take on this.  Most everyone here has a slightly different definition of the word..Rival.

Do I hate Duke BB? (and NC for that matter) Yes.  Are we a rivalS in acedemics?  Yes.  Are we rivals in FB? no.  Are we rivals in BB? No.

I define a rival as someone, some entity, some school that has an equal amount of hatred for each other.  A rival is that the outcome of the game means something a little more than bragging rights.  In my opinion, it has to go both ways.

I am sure that most Michigan BB fans hate Duke.  But that does not make them our "rival".  There is nothing to gain (save NCAA Tourney) on the outcome.  Duke's rival is NC.  NC's rival is Duke.  There is no question about this.

Our rival is ohio, (in most sports).  Their rival is us.  We are NOT rivals with moo U.  We are NOT rivals with ND.  We are not rivals with EMU.  As I have posted previously, there are 5 Big Ten FB teams that consider us their rival.  However we only have one.

I still dislike Grant Hill. As far as Laetner, there was never any mystery about his d-baggery.  But Grant Hill was placed on a pedestal and we were all expected to worship his bloodline, supposed intellect, work ethic and clean life.  This continued well into his NBA career until his injuries and complete inability to help his many different teams advance into the post season.  I may not hate Duke, but its really difficult for me to like them.

But I'm not sure any of that translates into a current rivalry.  I live in the Triangle, have Duke friends, and can assure you that UM doesn't make their list.  It's probably composed of UNC and...and that's it.  I actually get the impression that they feel like they should win every game and if they don't it was because of bad luck (other team exceeds expectations or one of their own is injured).  Think Notre Dame - but without the Catholic pretense.

This was a legit, out of conference rivalry for both programs before Michigan effectively stopped fielding a competitive basketball team from 1999-2007 due to major sanctions. First game in the modern series between these 2 teams took place in the 89-90 season, the year after Michigan won the NC and 1 year before Coach K won his first. Michigan won that initial game, and the 2 teams started playing every year in the non-conference schedule all the way through 2008 or 2009, I believe. This rivalry was big nationally in the 90's, especially during the Fab 5 era. It was an OT loss on national TV against Duke in 91 that basically launched the Fab 5 to National stardom. The Fab 5 went 0-fer against some great Duke teams, most notably in the NCAA title game in 92. Post Fab 5, Michigan B-Ball started underachieving every year but finally started beating Duke with a little more frequency, including wins in 95, 97 and 98 (3 out of my 4 years in college, incidentally). After 1998, the Dark Period began for Michigan B-Ball, and even though the 2 teams kept playing every year it became a series of Duke blowouts. It was kind of like RichRod vs Tressel, only for 9 years instead of 3. We finally beat them again in 08 once we started to field a halfway decent team, but years of apathy and suckitude allowed the rivalry to fizzle out, to the point where the annual series got canceled. It was ironic, then, that the two teams played each other in the Tourney in 11, so soon after the series had been canceled. It came on the heels of Jalen's awesome Fab 5 documentary, which of course stoked a bunch of old flames and led to Grant Hill's editorial rebuttal. Just for old time's sake, Michigan found a way to break its fan base's hearts by losing that Tourney game to Duke in the final seconds. Now that Michigan is respectable as a national program again, it would be nice to see them resume the series in future years. I don't think Wiki was wrong for listing this as a rivalry. For those who remember, Duke-Michigan games used to be a huge deal and got a ton of national coverage. The Duke game was our basketball equivalent of the Notre Dame rivalry in football.

We were (although to be honest, it was one-sided, mattering more to us than them, aside from perhaps when the Fab Five was here) . . . but  we aren't anymore.  The series needs to be restarted.

and there is bad blood. Even my eight-year-old hates Duke. Of course, that's not just because of me but because we live in Tallahassee, but still.

It's probably one of those things where it's our biggest game when we play them and they couldn't care less.

I remember watching that Duke game in 1997, coming back in the second half and the students charging the court. The 1996 game was a 1 point win at Cameron Indoor.

The Fab Five will be remembered long after the players for Duke from the 90's have been cast onto the ash pile of sports.

 

I think we can all agree that when Duke and Michigan play, it's going to be more special than when Duke and Michigan State play or Michigan and Wake Forest play.  There's history, there's quality and there's strong fan support.  Of course, Michigan and Duke are not each other's biggest rivals, but it's definitely something that gets the fans pumped.  That, to me, is a pretty good rivalry.

One of the first strikes against Amaker, IMO, was that he didn't want to play Duke once he became coach here. Sharp contrast from Bo, who'd been an assistant at tOSU but who, as we all know, absolutely lived to beat them.

It could be a rivalry if we scheduled it annually, but, IMO we aren't quite there.  That differs from whoever created this wikipedia article, but, just my 2 cents.

And something about both being known for great academics.