Duke and North Carolina men’s basketball will celebrate their 100th year of entertaining-as-hell rivalry games when they play at UNC Saturday. To honor the tradition, Nike decided to make special edition jerseys for the teams to wear, and they are remarkably basic.
The 100th year of Duke-UNC will be celebrated with ugly jerseys
These are not it.
Please look:
Yep, one of the most storied rivalries in all of sports will feature both sides wearing glorified practice jerseys as one team presumably whops the other. Duke is one of the best teams in the country, ranked No. 7 in the current AP poll, while North Carolina is having one of its worst seasons in recent memory (10-12). Tar Heel fans can at least take solace in knowing even if Duke wins, they won’t look great.
According to Nike, these jerseys were made to replicate what was worn 100 years ago. Seriously:
The body is covered in the programs’ respective tones of heathered blue. The front of the jerseys are characterized by the program logo and are absent of numbers, mirroring the teams’ 1920 look. On the inside bottom hem of the jerseys are the Roman numerals MCMXX-MMXX, which translates to 1920-2020. A gold jock tag and gold ELITE tag on the neck signifies a special distinction: programs that have won at least one national championship as a Nike school.
Sometimes, things that have aged 100 years need to stay where they came from. This is one of those cases. My suggestion would be to rebrand these as pajamas, because they look very comfortable to sleep in. Because on the basketball court, these are bound to get roasted.
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