The Duke–Maryland basketball rivalry is a dormant

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

rivalry A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant o ...

between the

Duke Blue Devils men's basketball The Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team represents Duke University in NCAA Division I college basketball and competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The team is fourth all-time in wins of any NCAA men's basketball program, and is cu ...

team of

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and

Maryland Terrapins men's basketball The Maryland Terrapins men's basketball team represents the University of Maryland in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I competition. Maryland, a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), left the ACC in 2014 to ...

team of the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

. The basketball series has been called one of the most intense intercollegiate rivalries of modern times by some. A Harris Interactive poll of

Marylander The following are some notable people from the American state of Maryland, listed by their field of endeavor. This list may not include Federal officials and members of the United States Congress who live in Maryland but are not actual native ...

s ranked it the third best in the state behind the Commanders–Cowboys and

Ravens Ravens may refer to: * Raven, a species of the genus ''Corvus'' Sports * Anderson Ravens, the intercollegiate athletic program of Anderson University in Indiana * Baltimore Ravens, a professional American football franchise * Benedictine Ravens, ...

–

Commanders Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

rivalries in 2003 (before the

Beltway Series The Beltway Series, promoted by the teams as "The Battle of the Beltways," is the Major League Baseball (MLB) interleague rivalry series played between the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals. The Orioles are a member of the American Leagu ...

of the Orioles and Nationals was possible). In 2014, Maryland left the ACC for the Big Ten and regular season games between Maryland and Duke are no longer scheduled regularly.

History

Duke University and the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

consider each other to be their only rivals. However, during the early 2000s the Duke–Maryland games had national implications, including in 2001 where Duke and Maryland met in the Final Four. The nature of the rivalry between Duke and Maryland is not viewed in the same manner by the schools' respective fans. While the Duke–UNC rivalry originated from geographic proximity and shared history, Duke fans do not view Maryland as a rival. However, several former Duke players have cited Maryland as the team against whom they played their most exciting games. Maryland fans traditionally see the Duke game as the biggest game of the year, as is true with most of Duke's opponents. Maryland fans have often rioted in College Park after home games, regardless of the outcome. Famously, one fan threw a bottle and hit Carlos Boozer's mother in her head after Duke's remarkable comeback from a 10-point deficit in the final minute to beat Maryland, requiring the University of Maryland to issue a public apology. One year, most fans in the student section right behind the basket had to leave or turn their t-shirts inside-out because they had a FCC-banned explicative ("F**K DUKE") that could not be shown on television.

Michael Wilbon Michael Wilbon (; born ) is an American commentator for ESPN and former sportswriter and columnist for ''The Washington Post''. He is an analyst for ESPN and has co-hosted ''Pardon the Interruption'' on ESPN since 2001. Early life and education ...

, a sports journalist who works for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, was formerly a writer for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', and owns a home in Bethesda, Maryland, refers to the Duke–Maryland rivalry as " e of the best rivalries in one of the best basketball leagues in the country." In 2014, the Washington Post produced a short documentary on the peak of the rivalry from 2001 and 2002 which included interviews with Coach Williams and several former players from both teams.

End of the rivalry

With the

leaving the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

to join the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

at the start of the 2014–15 academic year, the schools' basketball rivalry may come to an end. While Maryland competed in the ACC for the 2013–14 basketball season, the conference's expansion to a fifteen-team league means that schools do not play every league opponent twice during a given season. Duke and Maryland played one time during the 2013–14 season on February 15, 2014, at Duke's

Cameron Indoor Stadium Cameron Indoor Stadium is an indoor arena located on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The 9,314-seat facility is the primary indoor athletic venue for the Duke Blue Devils and serves as the home court for Duke men's ...

. To some, including Duke basketball head coach

Mike Krzyzewski Michael William Krzyzewski ( ; born February 13, 1947), nicknamed "Coach K", is an American former college basketball coach. He served as the head coach at Duke University from 1980 to 2022, during which he led the Blue Devils to five natio ...

, the emotion and spectacle that the Duke–Maryland rivalry brings to the ACC are "not going to be there for our conference and for Duke and Maryland anymore."Don Markus
"End of the Maryland-Duke rivalry is fast approaching"
''The Baltimore Sun'', 13 February 2013

Game results

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Duke-Maryland basketball rivalry College basketball rivalries in the United States Duke Blue Devils men's basketball Maryland Terrapins men's basketball Maryland Terrapins rivalries