UNC head coach Roy Williams has said he never looks ahead when it comes to the men’s basketball schedule. He prepares for who his team is playing next, and that’s it — even when it comes to what most people regard as the greatest rivalry in college basketball.
“I’m telling you the gospel truth, I have no freakin’ idea who we play next and I never look down the schedule,” he said at a press conference on Jan. 22.
Maybe the famous Duke-UNC rivalry game is the same old, same old for the longtime coach — but for the legacy players on the men’s basketball team, it’s a moment some of them have been thinking about for almost their entire lives.
It’s more than just a date circled on the calendar. It's more than just an event that will flood millions of TVs across the nation. It’s even more than taking part in a historic feud that dates back to the 1920s.
For legacy athletes, it’s a family affair.
“Since I knew about Carolina and about my dad, I knew about the rivalry,” first-year guard Creighton Lebo said. “It was one of those games we definitely always had to watch. Our whole family would sit down and cheer on the Heels.”
On Saturday, Lebo will step onto the court in Cameron Indoor Stadium for the first time in his collegiate career, 32 years after his father, Jeff, graduated from UNC.
Lebo can’t even recall his first memory of the rivalry. It’s just always been part of the 6-foot-1 point guard’s life – and it’s a game he’s been waiting for since he decided to attend UNC. While Lebo is preparing for the strangeness of a noiseless Cameron Indoor on Feb. 6, he still made sure to talk to his dad about what he should expect for his first experience against the nearby rival.
“He said it was one of the most intense games he’s played in his whole entire career,” Lebo said. “Everyone was trying to win that game more than any game of the year. He loved playing in that atmosphere, loved playing in Cameron Indoor.”
