UNC Ends Coach K's Career, Secures Eternal Bragging Rights over Duke

The winner was going to be happy and the loser was going to be sad.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski began his final press conference of his career with a summary of the greatest college basketball game ever played.

The side in agony was his own in the 1,570th game of his illustrious career. 8 seed North Carolina emerged from a two-hour-long heart-stopper featuring 12 ties and 18 lead changes with an 81-77 victory over No. 2 seed Duke.

There was no way to live up to the hype.

For the first time in history, the Duke-UNC game in the regular season got a lot of attention from the national media, but it was overshadowed by the Final Four.

In the build up to the national semifinals in the Caesars Superdome, so much attention was paid to the past, present and future of Duke-UNC that it was obvious that the main attraction in the Final was Kansas-Villanova.

The game was going to be a letdown because of the high expectations of the people on Bourbon Street.

Nope.

Not a lot.

Not at all.

The 258th all-time iteration of the sport's greatest rivalry exceeded our expectations.

The Tar Heels and the Blue Devil exchanged haymakers after a slow start.

I think it reached the level that you would expect, said Krzyzewski.

Everyone in the building had to remind themselves to breathe at times. It felt like the entire game was played within the margin of a single bucket, as every basket was met with a loud applause. In reality, Duke had the largest lead at seven and North Carolina had the smallest at six, and those outlier moments were separated by a 13-0 Tar Heels run that flipped the game on its ear early in the second half.

It was Love that ruled the day.

The ice-in-his-veins, huge three-pointer that put the Tar Heels ahead by two possessions with 25 seconds to play, was one of the highlights of the game for Love, who had 22 of his game-high 28 points in the second half.

Few guys in that situation are looking for that type of shot. He has the ability to knock it down.

North Carolina is moving on to the title game against Kansas, Duke is heading back to Durham, and the former will always hold the bragging rights over the latter.

What can Duke do to beat this one and win a national championship in the future?

Carolina fans were reminded of the Duke fans who ended Krzyewski's career in the Final Four when Jon Scheyer won every game against the Tar Heels for the next decade.

It is the ultimate trump card.

Neither coach wanted to talk about the history of this game.

The rivalry is big because it is the Final Four, and Krzyzewski and Davis spent all week denying it. After the game, Davis said that they would put in a box to think about the end of Coach K's career over the summer.

It's not about me right now.

But it is.

We all know that.

It has been since this decision to have a year-long farewell tour.

It is the end of a long era, and it ends so close to the goal of winning one more title that it is hard to believe. He might have gotten away with it, too, were it not for those kids.

We are headed for a national championship on Monday night where the two most noteworthy coaches are not on the sideline.

What more noise does the Tar Heels have to ignore?

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on social media.