LAWRENCE, Kan. – They played a national title game in the first week of the season at Allen Fieldhouse. They played each other to their knees. They left those who squeezed into the old barn breathless.
The bluest of blue bloods left each other black and blue. If you see another game like it this season let us know because the season has a lot to live up to.
No. 1 Kansas hung on to beat No. 9 North Carolina 92-89 Friday in a game that started dripping with history and ended up dripping in sweat.
In the first week of the season, they played a game worthy of March.
"The atmosphere was a 10," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "I don't know if it can be turned up much more for 40 minutes than it was tonight."
"Another blue-blood matchup," Kansas sixth-year guard Dajuan Harris said. "You know how those go."
But they don't always go like this. At least not this early in the season. Kansas is trying to find both scoring and bench depth after petering out at the end of last season. North Carolina is trying to find size, already loaded with one of the nation's best backcourts.
The two basketball giants found a little of both while adding to their sparkling basketball histories.
In what almost shaped up to be a revenge game from the 2022 national championship contest, North Carolina rallied back from 20 down late in the first half to take a four-point lead. Kansas then scored nine of the last 11 points for the win, the 590th for Bill Self as KU's coach to tie Phog Allen's school record for victories.
"He's still the best coach and greatest innovator this school will ever know," Self said. "We don't need to get carried away."
Still, teams spend months trying to get to the level these two superpowers put on display. Carolina big Jae'Lyn Withers led the Heels back by making his first four shots, all in the second half. Six Tar Heels scored in double figures.
Preseason Big 12 Player of the Year Hunter Dickinson admitted it will be a while before he's fully in game shape after missing time with a sprained foot.
"I was tired out there," Dickinson said.
You could hardly tell after Dickinson had a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds for Kansas. South Dakota State transfer Zeke Mayo had a game-high 21. The two veterans combined to score all of Kansas' points in the final 3:30.
For one game at least Mayo, a Lawrence native, became the shooter Kansas expects him to be. The stands were jammed with former KU stars. One of them, former KU guard Devonte Graham, was in attendance urging Mayo to shoot.
"The entire game was obviously something I've never been a part of," Mayo said.
Two years ago in New Orleans KU rallied back from a 15-point halftime deficit against North Carolina to win the national championship. This time the Jayhawks and Tar Heels once again took turns throwing (basketball) punches. Each dropped 50 points on the other in alternating halves, with KU taking a 53-38 lead into halftime.
The result was laden with significance and history. North Carolina played only its second game ever at Allen Fieldhouse and first since 1960.
"It doesn't matter if it's in March or if it's in November, it's going to be highly competitive," North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said. "You run through the tunnel, because the last time Carolina played here was 1960, and see that crowd. You see Kansas across the court. If you can't be fired up to compete and play … something is wrong with you."
There is $1.29 in loose change laying on top of Phog Allen's gravestone in Oak Hill Cemetery. Going back to the Roman Empire, the practice of leaving coins on a grave is a sign of tribute.
Only at a place like Kansas can a modest marker in Section 13 of the same cemetery that contains the game's founder, James Naismith, be prelude to history.
That's because a few miles down the road it was raining something more than pennies. What the game lacked in 3-point shooting (the teams combined to shoot 29.5% from beyond the arc), it made up for in grittiness.
KU got 42 points from its bench after averaging 11.8 last season, but UNC had a 31-17 free-throw advantage.
That's just something you don't see by opponents coming into Allen. They're intimidated when they get off the bus.
Not the Tar Heels.
"If we hadn't have won, I wouldn't have been pissed," Self said. "It's Nov. 8."
North Carolina jaws are still hanging open from blowing that halftime lead in the title game. This contest was only an early-season test but it had the feel of an NCAA Tournament game.
This time North Carolina came all the way back from a 20-point deficit late in the first half. Withers' basket with 7:07 left gave the Tar Heels an 80-79 lead.
But it didn't last.
"We need games like that to get better," Harris said.
The ties that bind are part of the game's fabric. Dean Smith played for Phog Allen when he was part of the 1952 national champions. Smith went on to be UNC's coach for 36 years and its winningest coach in history after beginning his coaching career as a volunteer assistant to Allen and Dick Harp.
Roy Williams coached Kansas from 1988-2003 and North Carolina from 2003-2021. He was the only coach to win 400 games at two schools, winning NCAA titles in 2005, 2009 and 2017.
Larry Brown played for and coached under Smith before winning the 1988 championship at Kansas.
"North Carolina and Kansas don't exist without the other one," Self said. "Dean Smith came from here. Larry Brown came from Carolina. Roy Williams came from Carolina and Kansas. For the first time in a long time it's not emotional if Hubert and I play. It was emotional for Roy. It was emotional for coach Smith. It was emotional for Larry. There was too much emotion going on for it to be a good game."
At its core, this was an early-season measurement of two blue bloods. It was a giant check mark next to the Jayhawks who ran a deep bench at North Carolina. Guard R.J. Davis, the returning ACC Player of the Year, shot 3-for-15 and scored 16 points.
Combine that with teammates Elliott Cadeau and Seth Trimble and North Carolina's backcourt was 10 for 36.
The Jayhawks had three bigs that can influence players like Davis. There was Dickinson. Senior K.J. Adams scored 37 points. Standing at 6-foot-9, Flory Bidunga is one of those wide-grinning oblivious freshmen who can bring the hammer. This one is from the Congo who contributed eight points and eight rebounds.
Two games in for both teams, there are miles to go after this meeting. But everywhere you turned there was history. For starters, there were a combined 10 national championships represented.
There was the building itself. Allen turns 70 this year having been home to 876 Kansas games as well as 37 NCAA Tournament games. Allen is used to these types of games, just not this early.
"Coach Self told me it's going to be different than I've ever seen," Alabama transfer Rylan Griffen said after scoring six points in his second home game. "It's going to be something that I never could expect. The level of winning was the main message. Just being a 20-win team here is not enough. Every other program, that's a great accomplishment. That's a great year. Here at Kansas that's not enough."
It was the kind of game Matt Carver wouldn't miss. For 19 years the Houston resident who hails from North Carolina has done stats for the Lakers and Rockets. About a month ago, he decided to fly up from Texas. Four hours before the game he snagged a ticket in the upper reaches for $250.
"I have no words," Carver said as he waited near the tunnel for the Tar Heels to come off after their shootaround. "I get goose-bumps just thinking about it."
There was nothing left to the imagination on Friday.
