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College basketball's best rivalries

Duke-UNC, Kentucky-Louisville, Kansas-Missouri and more

Image: Duke vs. UNCGetty Images
UNC's Sean May blocks the shot of Duke's Sheldon Williams. The Heels-Devils rivalry is one of college basketball's all-time greats.

Bouncy cheerleaders, blaring bands and sold-out arenas do not make a college hoops rivalry. They add to the pomp and circumstance, but it takes much more for two teams truly to be called rivals.

It takes h-e-a-t, or its anagram h-a-t-e. Any way you spell it, a rivalry must have long-term intensity.

It needs Matt Doherty being caught on camera calling the Duke cheerleaders "the ugliest in the ACC" in his first game at Durham as coach of North Carolina.

Or a coach referred to by fans as "Traitor Rick," even though Louisville’s Pitino is the man who restored Kentucky to national prominence in the '90s.

It's when a whole state clamors to hate you, according to an SI.com poll of Missourians who hate Kansas more than the Cubs and Raiders.

It's clear when fights have broken out after games or coaches have refused to shake hands afterwards in a city rivalry that may be more heated than any other.

And of course it needs elite basketball programs so that something besides bragging rights is at stake every time the teams meet.

NEXT: Duke vs. North Carolina

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