As the regular season winds down this week in college basketball, the best rivalries in the game will be played to end the season. The Duke Blue Devils will visit the North Carolina Tar Heels in what is the greatest rivalry in the sport, and maybe n all of sports. Duke and Carolina are eight miles apart as the crow flies but world’s apart socially and politically.

Duke is the snooty, rich kid private school who looks down on the UNC students. Duke’s normal first reply to a loss to the Heels is “that’s alright, one day you will work for us.” UNC is the “people’s choice” and therefore has the majority of the fan support in the area. In fact, Duke is more popular outside on North Carolina than inside the state.

But both schools are very similar in that both are always in the running for national championships, ACC championships and future NBA lottery picks. Duke’s last national championship was won in 2010, the year after Carolina won its most recent. A season without one of them in the thick of the national championship chase is a rarity indeed.

The two teams meet twice a season in the regular season and each time it is a nationally televised event.Then they meet frequently in the finals of the ACC Tournament to decide the championship and normally a top seed in the NCAA Tournament.

But there are some other great rivalries in college basketball, even if some have been disrupted by conference shifting in recent years. The Georgetown-Syracuse rivalry will no longer be a conference game, but the old Big East rivals have stated it will continue even though the Orange will be leaving for the ACC. With the two meeting only once a season after this year, this rivalry may become a Kentucky-Indiana type early season classic.

Speaking of Kentucky-Indiana, these two fan bases are among the greatest in all of sports. In both states, college basketball (and high school basketball for that matter) is king. As the two flagship schools of these two hoops crazed states, the Hoosiers and Wildcats games are huge. The two teams did not play this year. Let’s hope they can get together an renew the series soon.

In the meantime, the Florida Gators and Kentucky Wildcats will get together this weekend in Rupp Arena. When the SEC added the Missouri Tigers and Texas A&M Aggies this season, they were forced to rearrange the schedule. Some of the teams that played twice a year were not able to do that anymore. But the SEC designated the Florida Kentucky rivalry as one that will be played twice each year. Considering that Tennessee and Kentucky has always been a huge rivalry, that is saying something.

Then there is the blood feud that is Louisville vs Kentucky. These two schools could not even get together to play each other for decades. Kentucky so rules the entire state that they even schedule one home game a season in Louisville. Can you picture the Florida Gators playing a “home game” each year in Tallahassee? Or the Alabama Crimson Tide scheduling a home game in Auburn? Or the South Carolina Gamecocks playing one of theirs in Clemson? But the Wildcats have done it for years. The Florida Gators do play a game in Miami each yea, but they rarely play the Hurricanes so that’s not quite the same. The Cards and Kats have an intense rivalry that met its peak a year ago when they met in the Final Four.

Michigan and Indiana will meet this weekend as well. This has the potential to become a big rivalry going forward. The Big Ten has so many huge rivalry it makes it tough for any to stand out above the rest. Unlike in football where Michigan-Ohio State is the biggest, in hoops you have Indiana-Purdue, Michigan State-Michigan, Wisconsin-Indiana, Illinois-Indiana, pretty much any two teams.

The Big 12’s biggest rivalry now is probably Kansas-Kansas State. The Missouri Kansas and Texas A&M Texas rivalries are no more since A&M and Mizzou moved to the SEC. The Wildcats and Jayhawks will only get larger as a result. Look for this one to be a season closer going forward.

So as we get ready for conference tournaments, enjoy this weekend of some of sports greatest rivalry games. A lot of bragging rights are at stake.