We've long maintained that there is a deep connection between Duke and UNC, and what visits one will, before long, visit the other. So after the lacrosse case, it was all but inevitable that something bad would happen in Chapel Hill. And so it did when the three football players ended up in a bizarre situation involving (naturally) alcohol and women picked up on Franklin Street.
The New York Times has the most detailed story we've yet seen on this weird story, and here's a quick summary: players drink all day, hit the bars, bring home two women with a guy as well, and sex is supposed to be imminent. But when one guy starts getting tied up, things go bad quickly. The guy who tagged along allegedly threatens to kill the players. Police come. General weirdness ensues, including one guy hopping to the kitchen while duct-taped, freeing his ankles with a pizza slicer.
In another weird Duke-UNC echo, the mother of the male defendant calls the charges "a crock," using the same word Kim Roberts used to describe Crystal Mangum's charges against the Duke lacrosse players.
But there's one part of this story that just bugged us. Keep in mind that we don't think heavy drinking is a good idea, and neither is picking up strange women in bars, a lesson these kids have probably grokked pretty thoroughly by now. And we feel sorry for what they went through, we really do. No one should have to put up with that sort of fear. But having said that: if you're a football player at UNC, or really if you're almost anyone, would you walk into a bar and walk out with these two women?