Understand this: King Rice has a lifetime pass in the Smith Center if for no other reason than he owned Duke’s Bobby Hurley.
That’s enough credentials for a Tar Heel lifetime. Maybe some of you don’t remember. But Hurley was Grayson Allen before Grayson Allen was even born, and just like Allen, Hurley complicated matters by being very good.
Hurley was also a winner. He won a pair of national titles for the Blue Devils…but Rice was his kryptonite. Even in two seasons when Duke was generally acknowledged as being better than the Tar Heels, Rice held the head-to-head edge, 3-2, including a 22-point victory in the 1991 ACC Tournament title game.