CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jay Bilas is a former Duke player, a current Charlotte resident and ESPN’s leading college basketball voice.
Before leaving for New Orleans on Tuesday night for his appointment with hoops Armageddon — also known as Duke-UNC III, in the Final Four at 8:49 p.m. Saturday — Bilas spoke with me on the phone about the matchup, its historical context and whether he’d like to make a prediction.
The following Q&A is lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
— Scott Fowler: TBS has the primary Final Four broadcast this year. So what will your duties be in New Orleans?
— Jay Bilas: We’ve got all our ESPN coverage with our (pregame and postgame) studio stuff. And then I’m calling all the games for ESPN International, which broadcasts the games outside the 50 states. So I’m going to be a big, big star in Sweden (laughs). I’m studying up on a lot of different foreign languages to be able to throw some catchphrases in there.
— SF: As this first-ever Duke-UNC matchup in the NCAA Tournament became an inevitability last weekend, what were your initial thoughts?
— JB: The buildup is going to be unlike any semifinal, ever. You would think that the national championship hanging in the balance would be the lead story, but really it’s, ‘Hey, Duke and Carolina are playing in the Final Four!’ instead of the fact that a national championship will be decided by these four teams.
— SF: Have you seen any examples of UNC-Duke fever in North Carolina?
— JB: Yes. It’s a little bit of an odd feeling in our region of the country. I landed at the (Charlotte) airport Monday morning and stopped on the way home to get a cup of coffee. I got 10 questions about Duke-Carolina from different people. So the temperature is definitely going to be raised from what it normally is, and it’s normally pretty high to begin with.
— SF: Will Duke-Carolina in the Final Four elevate the sport of college basketball itself?
— JB: Anytime you have these great name-brand, blueblood matchups, whether it’s Duke-Kentucky or Carolina-UCLA or whatever, you want to see that.
It seems like people use the phrase, ‘Well, that’s what it’s all about’ a lot. You know, when they talk about academics, or they talk about guys hugging or crying after a game — that’s what the tournament is all about. Saint Peter’s — that’s what it’s all about.
But the Duke-Carolina thing has captured the imagination of people who are compelled by it and are outside of the rivalry itself. Then you add in that it’s Hubert Davis’ first year, and Coach K’s last year, and all of the fan stuff. I know more than a couple of fans who were saying, ‘Gosh, we were kind of hoping to end the year with winning in Cameron and ruining Coach K’s last game there. And now we’ve got to play them again?!’
And sometimes the outside chatter and attention filters in and the players are going to feel it. And the question is how will they handle it? Both these coaches are really good at getting players to focus on what’s important. But I don’t think you can ignore it. You may have to address it.
— SF: What do you mean?
— JB: I’ll give you an example. In 1991, I was a graduate assistant at Duke, coaching under Coach K. UNC was playing Kansas in the first Final Four semifinal; that was the game when (official) Pete Pavia threw out Dean Smith. Duke was playing UNLV.
Hubert Davis played in that UNC-Kansas game, you know (Davis led UNC with 25 points in a 79-73 loss to Kansas, coached by Roy Williams). So Kansas wins, and the Duke team is in this gigantic locker room, waiting. I was in there. Coach K was in a little coach’s area, watching film.
There were TVs around, and there was a sigh of relief in the locker room when Carolina had lost. It was like, ‘Well, now we don’t have to go through that (a possible Duke-UNC final)’ or ‘They’re not going to do better than Duke no matter what happens.’
And Coach K comes out of this little room and kind of snaps everybody to attention and says, ‘It is not OK for us to lose because they lost. It’s not OK!’ He reacted to what people were feeling then. And I think he probably felt that himself. I distinctly remember him saying that.
— SF: But this year is different, right? They can’t avoid each other this time.
— JB: Right. In 1991, it was like maybe Duke and Carolina were going to play in the Final Four. This year, they’re playing. And now you’ve got a week to think about it and consume it, and Instagram and Twitter and TikTok and television. In some ways, it will be inescapable. How everybody handles that will be as fascinating to watch as all the X’s and O’s.
— SF: Is this the biggest UNC-Duke game ever?
— JB: Well, there’s more riding on it than other games.
But is it the biggest if the winner then loses in the championship game? My point is there are bigger things that you’re playing for here than, ‘Hey, I beat my rival.’ Duke and Carolina are going to play again and again. So fans of the winning team might feel like they have a trump card for a while. But, if neither one of them wins the title, how big was it?
It will be awesome, though. It will be a great game, and a ton of fun. And how fans feel about it has no bearing on this. You’re probably getting the same thing I get right now from fans. Somebody will say, ‘Hey, should I be nervous?’
Sure, you can be nervous. You can be confident. You can be drunk. It’s not going to affect the outcome.
— SF: You broadcast the most recent meeting, when UNC upset Duke on March 5 in Coach K’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium in front of all the Duke lettermen, including you. How did you balance that?
— JB: I didn’t go to any party or see anybody afterward. I was working. I was kind of reluctant to go down on the floor beforehand for the former player thing, but ESPN talked me into it. They thought I should go. And so I had to go down to do that and then hustle back up to the booth of the game.
So it was unusual and different and overall, win or lose, still a really nice moment. Now I don’t know, given the result, if people (at Duke) would have done it the same way.
But it was an incredible spectacle. And a one-off. There will never be anything quite like that again. I know there are a lot of Carolina folks that think, ‘Well, Dean Smith and Roy Williams just retired. They didn’t stay another year and do all this.’ And Duke fans are loving every minute of it, as they should. That dynamic is there, too.
— SF: What really matters in the actual game Saturday?
— JB: Duke has to deal with North Carolina’s 3-point shooting. They’ve got three really good 3-point shooters, in RJ Davis, Caleb Love and especially Brady Manek.
Manek is playing extraordinarily well. He might have had 40 against Baylor if he didn’t get tossed for that elbow thing. He was killing them, and UNC would have won in a walk had he not been tossed.
And then Duke has to deal with Armando Bacot, who’s been the most consistent big guy in the country. You can point to his foul trouble as why Duke ran away from Carolina in the first game.
So Carolina is really formidable, but they’re not deep, and they don’t shoot it (well) at every position. Since Duke put the ball in Jeremy Roach’s hands, they’ve been about as efficient as you can imagine. Nobody in the tournament has played better than Duke. They’ve been a cut above what they were at any point during the regular season. Their efficiency in the second half of the Texas Tech game was absurd. It was like watching Villanova play Georgetown (in the 1985 national championship game).
Duke causes a lot of problems. Who guards (Paolo) Banchero? If you put Leaky Black on him, you’ve got to put Manek on somebody else. If you put Bacot on (Mark) Williams, then Manek has to go out and guard AJ Griffin and spend his time on the perimeter. There are a lot of difficult matchups. And if Carolina gets in any foul trouble, that could be problematic.
— SF: So who are you picking in this one?
— JB: I’m not making a pick. I’m calling the game for ESPN International and I don’t want to get the people in Sweden upset.
