I have torn up my bracket and thrown it in the garbage, much like most American sports fans who take part in the yearly practice of entering workplace pools and making predictions about the results of games in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

As a devoted supporter of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels and a former student of the Chapel Hill school, I chose UNC to win the national championship game this Monday based more on instinct than logic. Regretfully, in last week’s Sweet 16 play, the Crimson Tide of Alabama dominated the Heels.

I could take my ball, pout, and walk home. Rather, this weekend I’m joining the trend and cheering for N.C. State’s Wolfpack, the Cinderella team of the big dance known as March Madness.

N.C. State shocked UNC to go to the NCAA tournament, but it required an extraordinary five victories in five days in the ACC Tournament for them to even reach the Big Dance. Easter Sunday’s Elite Eight game saw 11-seeded N.C. State defeat ACC rival Duke, extending the Wolfpack’s incredible run.

With a spot in the NCAA Tournament on the line, State University is now in the Final Four and will play top-seeded Purdue University.

It irritates some of my fellow UNC supporters that a true-blue Tar Heel would ever support North Carolina State. After all, throughout my college years, there was a chant that went something like “Duke is puke.” Wake is not real. However, N.C. State is the team I detest.

To be honest, I have never been a huge fan of the Wolfies. Yes, my allegiance is to UNC when the Pack is playing the boys in sky blue. As a fellow participant in the larger UNC System, which encompasses institutions ranging from Elizabeth City State University to Western Carolina University, I have always thought of N.C. State as a sister university.

Rather, the ACC My greatest level of contempt for a rival in the past has been the evil empire that is Duke University, also referred to as the University of New Jersey at Durham and lovingly misspelled as Dook.

However, Mike Crewcutsky… Whiskey CrywhiskeyMy degree of hatred for the Dookies has significantly decreased, Kerkeklsi, um, Coach K, now that he’s not lurking the Blue Devils’ sidelines.

I was watching N.C. State defeat Creighton at a local sports pub when I talked to another basketball fan about this occurrence. We all concluded that without Coach K and his incessant rat-faced look of disdain, which appeared to have been caused by someone passing out after eating at Taco Bell, it just isn’t the same hating Dook.

We also both agreed that former UNC coach K During “Coach K & Roy Williams: Rivals Reunited,” an hour-long program on the ACC Network back in February, coaching rival Roy Williams and K looked to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. K seems to have calmed down a little after retiring.

Conversely, I’ve been astounded by the level of animosity toward everything UNC, which is commonly summed up as ABC: Anybody but Carolina.

The justification of some Blue Devil supporters who attended, say, WCU or Appalachian State and who detest UNC in particular surprises me greatly. They justify, “I applied to Carolina, but they didn’t accept me.”

Alright, so you believed you had a chance to get into Duke?

I wear something that reminds me of something I saw online a few years ago.

I’m wearing a WCU T-shirt because I attended WCU; you’re wearing a Duke T-shirt because you visited Walmart.

Some friends at N.C. State are shocked that I occasionally cheer for their beloved Wolfpack and that I find Dook to be a more offensive opponent. “We despise Carolina,” they declared. However, Duke is more important to Carolina fans than we are. And that is not to our liking.

Usually, when an ACC team is playing outside of the conference, I will cheer for them after initially supporting UNC. Yes, there was a period of time when I couldn’t bring myself to hope that Dook would defeat the Russian army or the Taliban, but those days are long gone.

I’m therefore backing the Cardiac Pack from Raleigh to do an even greater miracle than the one that occurred in 1983 when the school beat highly favored Houston to win the national championship.

But if they fail to win it this year, ABC will be the winner—anybody but Connecticut, that is, the reigning champion UConn.

Raleigh to do an even greater miracle than the one that occurred in 1983 when the school beat highly favored Houston to win the national championship.

But if they fail to win it this year, ABC will be the winner—anybody but Connecticut, that is, the reigning champion UConn.