Duke-North Carolina basketball rivalry: Do Blue Devils or Tar Heels lead the all-time series?

There’s no rivalry in men’s college basketball — and perhaps none in all of American sports — quite like Duke and North Carolina.

The two programs, whose home arenas are separated by just 11 miles of pine tree-lined streets, share a rivalry with a deep and rich history. Not only are the Blue Devils and Tar Heels two of the top five all-time programs in the sport, but also have played each other frequently, going all the way back to their first meeting in 1920.

How long ago was that? At the time of their first-ever meeting, Duke was known as Trinity College.

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Their 260 all-time matchups feature many of the greatest games, moments, players and coaches in the history of college basketball.

But for all that Duke and Norh Carolina share over that century of games, this is a rivalry at the end of the day, which begs the question: Who has the upper hand? Which of these programs has fared better in their biggest, most meaningful games of the season?

As the Blue Devils and Tar Heels prepare to square off for the 261st time when they meet Saturday night at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, here’s a look at the all-time series between the two sides:

Who leads the Duke-North Carolina rivalry?

Heading into Saturday’s contest, North Carolina holds a 143-117 advantage over Duke in the all-time series between the two.

For the past 50 years, though, it has been much closer.

Since 1977, the Blue Devils and Tar Heels have split their 114 meetings, with each having 57 wins to 57 losses. The win-loss total between the two isn’t the only thing that has been astonishingly even. The games themselves have been, too. Over the course of those 114 games, North Carolina has scored 8,935 points, while Duke is just 14 points behind it, with 8,921.

Since 1997, Duke has started to get closer to evening the all-time record between the two, going 39-25 over the 64 matchups during that stretch. Some of the losses during that otherwise-successful stretch, though, were particularly painful — namely, setbacks against the Tar Heels in Mike Krzyzewski’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium in 2022 and a loss in the Final Four one month later that was the final game of Krzyzewski’s legendary career.

North Carolina is 20-18 in games played against the Blue Devils at the Smith Center, which opened in 1986.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Duke-North Carolina basketball rivalry: All-time record between programs