There aren’t many more notable Duke antagonists over the last two decades than former North Carolina star Tyler Hansbrough. That continues long after his basketball career came to an end, as he couldn’t help but take a shot at Mike Krzyzewski’s farewell tour and the pageantry surrounding his final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium, which the Tar Heels spoiled with a 94–81 upset win.
During an ACC Network appearance on Packer and Durham, Hansbrough compared Saturday’s game in Durham to a recent episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which guest star Albert Brooks throws himself a funeral while still alive so he can enjoy everyone’s praise.
“The only thing I can really compare it to—and I know I’ll take some heat for this—is Larry David, the Larry David show. This season they have a guy that goes to his funeral while he’s still alive so people can tell him how good he is,” Hansbrough said. “I thought it was one of those situations, I thought it was funny.
“Hey, K deserves a lot of respect, but Tar Heel fans, we love that.”
Duke’s celebration on Saturday capped a number of tributes to Coach K around the ACC. The game in Chapel Hill earlier this season, which Duke won 87–67, wasn’t one of them, and that brushed many within the Blue Devils program the wrong way.
“Duke won the first game against Carolina—folks inside the program bristled that the Tar Heels didn’t honor Krzyzewski during the game,” ESPN’s Wright Thompson reported in a feature earlier this month.
Even with the attention on Krzyzewski’s final season, things remain heated between Duke and UNC, as evidenced by this year’s two games. After UNC’s win Saturday, a pair of Duke assistant coaches appeared to snub Tar Heels coach Hubert Davis during the postgame handshakes.
While Krzyzewski and Roy Williams’s departures may take some of the gravitas away from the Duke-UNC rivalry in the immediate future, it doesn’t look like it’ll lack any heat under Jon Scheyer and Davis moving forward.
