I saw this Twitter article on sporting news about the reason the UNC vs. Duke basketball game tickets were selling for so much was cause of Zion Williamson. Although he is partially responsible, the main reason is that Duke vs. UNC is a huge rivalry. Granted, the better the players are, the better the game will be and the more famous people will show. The idea that Zion is the reason people are coming more than for any other game between the two schools is ridiculous. I will say Duke has never really had that hyped of a player, and not many programs have. I haven’t seen that kind of hype since Andrew Wiggins at Kansas.

But alas, no one really gave UNC a chance. We were ranked number 8 and they were number 1. For every Duke-UNC rivalry clip or article that was posted there was one or two about Zion.

It hasn’t really been like that my three years at UNC. It’s always been Grayson Allen vs. Joel Berry and Theo Pinson. It’s not like they didn’t have good recruits then either what with Marvin Bagley and Luke Kenard. What I am getting at is that UNC and Duke rival each other academically and athletically, especially in basketball, so why would ESPN move away from that? The issue for me was when the announcers of the game were talking more about Zion’s injury and the emotional impact it had on the game than the game itself, which UNC was winning. But you see ESPN do this all the time, whether it be Johnny Manziel, Andrew Wiggins, Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes. Do they want us to only see these specific people? On Twitter Zion was trending, and I’m glad he wasn’t hurt seriously because that would be a very tough break for him and no one deserves that. But the words they said like “Zion uses so much force he breaks through his shoe; Can any shoe contain Zion?” Five NBA players in my lifetime have busted through their shoe. I think what this means is something more. Trying to get a story when a story isn’t there. No one knew what happened. But all I know is no one was talking about the game, everyone was talking about Zion. When it was figured out he had a grade 1 knee sprain, grade 1 was trending on Twitter. No matter what, it’s always about UNC and Duke. One player can’t change that. Even if the entire country doesn’t see it that way that’s fine, but we do. Zion makes some amazing plays like the block against Virginia or all of his dunks.  Everyone knows him, you don’t have to be into sports to know him, a video of him is on Twitter every day. ESPN shares something of him every day and I don’t understand that, or how they think people like that. But when a player’s injury like that overshadows any type of big game, it makes you wonder why.