YouTube Gold: A First Draft Of Jay Bilas’s Top Five Duke-UNC Games

Maybe as much as anyone, Jay Bilas has earned the right to comment on the Duke-Carolina rivalry.

One of Mike Krzyzewski’s early recruits at Duke, Bilas picked Duke over Syracuse and others, although he said once that his mother was pushing for Stanford.

But he chose Duke when Coach K asked him to recommend a restaurant in LA when he was on a recruiting trip. If we remember correctly, Bilas wrote that “it’s probably not as important but I’m coming to Duke.”

Or words to that effect.

He was a powerful if undersized center and signed on faith alone because in his freshman year, Duke was just bad.

But Tommy Amaker came in his second year and Duke began its move towards iconic status.

Bilas played against Tar Heels like James Worthy, we think (might be wrong on that one), Michael Jordan, Brad Daugherty, Michael Jordan, Kenny Smith and others. He’s commented on games for years and obviously has Mike Krzyzewski’s ear. So he knows what he’s talking about.

However, as his hair will suggest, this video is from 2009 and there are games that don’t make the chronological cut.

That said, here are his Top Five Duke-UNC games as of 2009.

There are some other limitations here. There wasn’t extensive video in the 1960s, but it’s hard to leave the 1968 triple overtime win over UNC off. And the 1978 Airball game, where Dean Smith tried to hold the ball for the entire first half,might have been there too.