by Bill DiFilippo / @bflip33
North Carolina and Duke have arguably the greatest rivalry in all of college basketball, so much so that it extends beyond the usual 40-minute game the two sides play at least twice a year.
On the eve of Wednesday’s showdown between the Tar Heels and the 8th-ranked Blue Devils in Chapel Hill, the two sides’ managers played their annual pre-game scrimmage…which featured a bench-clearing brawl. The full video can be seen here.
From CBS Sports:
Every season, the night before Duke and North Carolina play, the team’s managers stage a scrimmage at at the same venue where the varsity fellas continue the rivalry. On Tuesday night, an elbow following a rebound led to a small fight on the hardwood. According to Duke’s student newspaper — which had a great gamer on the matchup — Drew Goldstein was the manager on the wrong side of the elbow.
That spurred the scuffle. It didn’t progress to a donnybrook, thankfully, but it’s nice to know the team’s waterboys and laundrymen are as vested in this rivalry as anyone else.
For what its worth, North Carolina’s managers won, 38-33. As for the game tonight, its still up in the air whether or not it will be played due to inclement weather in North Carolina. But as of right now, it is still on and is scheduled to tip off at 9 p.m. at the Dean Smith Center.
