The schools attempted to schedule a third game to break the 1-1 tie, but influenza had become an epidemic throughout the South and much of the country (eventually killing more Americans than were lost in World War I). The rubber match was never played, and of course the Trinity and UNC fans argued over which had the better basketball team. Sound familiar?
For the next 90 years, Duke and Carolina would take turns beating each other on the road and vie for first place and the title in whatever league they were in.
In 1921, Carolina Defeated Flu-Laden Trinity And Won A "Mythical" State Championship
In 1921, the teams won on their home courts and tied for first in the mythical Big Five standings (Davidson, N.C. State, Trinity, UNC and Wake Forest), each finishing with a 3-2 record. The schools did arrange a “championship game” at the Raleigh Auditorium on Saturday, March 5.
Major "Fritz" Boye Coached Carolina in 1921, Then Went on to Become a Brigadier General
Bedridden by the lingering flu, Trinity coach Floyd Egan missed the game, witnessed by some 2,000 fans and his team that was fighting influenza lost the state title to the Tar Heels, 55-18. Led by Durham’s Cart Carmichael (Billy’s brother) and Charlotte’s Monk McDonald, UNC won its first basketball championship ever in Major Frederic Boye’s second and final year as coach. The West Point graduate and former captain of the Army basketball team had been with the ROTC program at UNC before the U.S. Military reassigned him to a post in Atlanta, where he would go on to attain the rank of Brigadier General in 1945.
THE SOUTHERN CONFERENCE
At almost the same moment that North Carolina was beating Trinity, UNC officials were meeting with counterparts from other colleges in Atlanta to help form the Southern Conference. Carolina became a charter member in March, 1921, joining 13 other schools (most of which now belong to the ACC and SEC) to form the nation’s third athletic conference behind the Ivy League and Big Ten. Neither Trinity nor UNC made the trip to Atlanta in 1921 for the first Southern Conference Tournament, which was an extension of an existing tournament and remained open to all comers for the first few years. But the next season, the Tar Heels made their mark with no coach! Carolina’s 1922 team, which was led by Monk McDonald, Billy Carmichael and his brother Cart, lost its opener at the Durham YMCA by the lopsided score of 41-18 before an overflow crowd of 2,000 fans. The “Y’s” giant 6’3” center Myril “Footsie” Knight dominated the game, and he did it again a month later in a rematch in Chapel Hill, leading his team to a similar 21-point pasting.
1922 UNC Team Took Southern Conference Title By Winning Five Games in Five Days in Atlanta
With a center jump following every basket, big men could dominate the game and keep the ball on one end of the floor for most of the time — much like dominating soccer teams of today. Knight kept winning the jump balls, and his teammate Curtis “Sis” Perry single-handedly outscored the future Champions of Dixie, 46-25.
The Tar Heels dropped three more games that season but won five games in five days at the grueling Southern Conference tournament in Atlanta to bring home the championship. They beat Howard (now Samford), Alabama Polytechnic (now Auburn), Georgia, Alabama and Mercer to claim the title.
For Trinity, which did not make the trip to Atlanta for the Southern Conference tournament, the highlight of the season was a 37-26 upset of the Durham Y after losing eight straight games in James Baldwin’s one year as coach. He stepped down following the 6-12 final record.
Billy Carmichael, who went into the service for a year, gave up his senior season to coach the UNC freshman team in 1923. McDonald and Cart Carmichael got their revenge against the Durham YMCA in the first two games on their way to 15 straight victories before their only loss, 34-32, to Mississippi in the Southern Conference tournament . (Coaching must have been overrated back then because Cart Carmichael had become UNC’s first All-American on his own.)
Despite its success flying solo, Carolina decided to hire another coach in1924. Norm Shepard, the former Davidson star, took over a team that in today’s parlance was loaded at every position. Cart Carmichael and Monk McDonald were savvied seniors, and they were joined by Durham sophomore Jack Cobb, Carolina’s next All-American. The Tin Can opened that season, and the shivering crowds increased as the home team’s winning streak grew. An estimated 3,000 spectators, all wearing scarves and overcoats in the freezing silo, witnessed a 31-20 win over Trinity on the last day of January. In his only season on the bench, Shepard led the Tar Heels to a 26-0 record, their second Southern Conference title and, eventually, the label of national champion by the Helms Foundation in the pre-NCAA Tournament era. Butler, which won the 1924 AAU Tournament in Kansas City that UNC did not attend because it meant missing too much class time, also claims the 1924 national title. For Dukies, the 1924 banner that hangs in the rafters at UNC has always been a travesty because the Tar Heels did not play a single opponent from above the Mason Dixon Line.
Duke Fans Still Mock First "Championship" Banner Hanging in Smith Center for Unbeaten 1924 Team, Which was Awarded Title by the Helms Foundation Years After Trinity Published Congratulatory Letter
The 1924 season also featured the first-ever game between future bluebloods Carolina and Kentucky, the two teams that would go on to compile the most victories in college basketball through 2010. But, clearly, Trinity and Carolina already had something going.
In perhaps the first off-court exhibition of the rivalry, a group of UNC students who had set bonfires and snake-danced on Franklin Street, drove close to Durham and marched toward the Methodists’ campus. Two days later, the Trinity team and coach Jesse Burbage published a congratulatory letter to their unbeaten rivals in the Durham Morning Herald.
Off-court Rivalry Began with March to Durham
Lost in the mayhem over Carolina’s undefeated record was Trinity’s second-best season ever, going 19-6 while it also opened a new home court, the Alumni Gym that replaced the tiny Ark and actually had a full-size court.
Trinity "Congratulates" UNC's 1924 Team
After 1924, the schools continued reacting to one another — a pattern that would continue to the present day. Trinity hired George Buckheit from Kentucky to head the basketball team and assist football coach Howard Jones, who left after one season to win Rose Bowls at Southern Cal. On December 11, 1924, Trinity received the $40 million charitable trust from tobacco magnate James P. Duke and was renamed for its benefactor; it also adopted “Blue Devils” when the school newspaper began using it after no clear cut winner emerged from a contest to find a new nickname.
Former three-sport star Monk McDonald and Harland Sanborn each coached the UNC team for one year, in 1925 and ’26, finishing with identical 20-5 records and winning two more Southern Conference championships behind Jack Cobb, the Tar Heels’ second All-American who was named the Helms National Player of the Year in 1926. Indeed, stability didn’t seem to