UNC Basketball fans talk about it every year. As the Carolina-Duke game approaches (either round one or round two), ESPN starts running its promos for the game continuously. But a few things are missing from the promo.
And they run them... A LOT! For pretty much an entire week, multiple times a day, if you turn on any ESPN network, you will see a montage of highlights throughout the Greatest Rivalry in Sports.
This isn't just a quick five-second clip. Sometimes it is 15-30 seconds of highlights from the rivalry, spanning 40+ years. Both sides have had their moments.
For Duke, it's obvious. They show the Austin Rivers buzzer-beater in 2012 in Chapel Hill, or the 1995 half-court shot in Durham made by Jeff Capel (to send the game to overtime, by the way). The Blue Devils ultimately lost that game, but they leave that part out.
In the case of the Tar Heels, there have been significant moments in the rivalry. Walter Davis' 30-foot bank shot to send the game to overtime and cap off the furious 8 points in 17 seconds comeback. Or Danny Green's dunk over Greg Paulus. Jerry Stackhouse makes his way into these promo videos with his incredible reverse dunk in Durham during that 1995 game.
However, while the UNC basketball program has had incredible moments, some of them never make it into the ESPN montage video. Notice we didn't mention Marvin Williams putback in 2005 to cap off a 9-point comeback with under four minutes to go? Or more recently, Caleb Love's shot over Mark Williams in the 2022 Final Four in Coach K's final game?
Those games weren't on ESPN; they were on CBS. So, as great as they are in the rivalry, they are never used in ESPN's promo videos.
But we have good news Tar Heels.
The two best UNC shots in my lifetime in this rivalry (Marvin putback, Love 3) are never in the ESPN hype montage because the games weren’t on ESPN. Now we got one for the montage.
— Ivan Corriher (@IWCorriher) February 8, 2026
Now in a few weeks when round two approaches in Durham and ESPN starts to put together that promo video, they'll have no choice but to add one to it for the Tar Heels. Seth Trimble's corner three that swished perfectly through the net with the Dean Smith Center going absolutely crazy in the background will be part of that promo video for the next 40 years, just like Capel's shot is for the Blue Devils.