The Big Week Has Arrived: Duke & Carolina Set to Visit Haas

The week basketball fans have dreamed about since Cal joined the ACC has arrived.

No. 6 Duke and No. 14 North Carolina — two of college basketball’s bluest blue bloods and the combined winners of 11 NCAA championships — are on their way to Haas Pavilion.

Duke (15-0, 4-0 ACC) will make its first-ever appearance at Haas (or Harmon Gym) on Wednesday at 8 p.m. The game is expected to be a sellout and few tickets remain.

Carolina (14-2, 2-1), which played at Harmon back in 1972, returns to Berkeley on Saturday for a 2 p.m. tipoff. Officials said Monday that at least 75 percent of available tickets have been sold.

The Bears (13-4, 1-3), chasing their first winning season since 2017, have drawn an average of just 3,099 to their 13 home games, barely 26 percent of capacity at Haas. That’s second-lowest in the ACC (ahead of only Stanford at 3,009) and light years back of UNC, which has pulled in an average of 18,597 fans to its 11 games at the Dean Dome.

This will be a different week than we have seen at Haas in quite some time.

“I’m excited about the games, I’m excited about the crowd,” Bears coach Mark Madsen said. “Our guys are ready to go.”

Cal faced both the Blue Devils and Tar Heels in their debut ACC season a year ago, but both games were on the road.

Madsen said the arrival of transfers Dai Dai Ames from Virginia and Chris Bell from Syracuse demonstrates the impact of Cal’s move to the ACC on basketball recruiting.

“It’s a huge selling point to be able to play against these top teams,” Madsen said. “The ACC as a whole is exploding from a basketball perspective. This is something that we definitely discuss in recruiting and something that’s helped us in recruiting.”

Madsen was a year out of Stanford and a rookie in the NBA when Duke came to the Bay Area to face the Cardinal at the 1998 Pete Newell Challenge in Oakland. Third-ranked Stanford scored an 84-83 victory over the No. 1 Blue Devils in front of 19,804 fans, the largest crowd ever to watch a college basketball in the state of California.

“Basketball was important in the Bay Area at the college level,” Madsen reflected. “Over here at Cal and also at Stanford, we’re trying to get that back to where it was back then.”

Stanford coach Kyle Smith said this week’s games provide a huge opportunity for both local schools.

“We’re global brands,” Smith said of Stanford and Cal. “And these are global brands (in) basketball and it puts us on a level (with) an opportunity that you didn’t get in the Pac-12. Duke and North Carolina, an opportunity to associate with that and have the kind of atmosphere and crowd that can generate some buzz and excitement so we can close the gap. I think we will.”

Against Duke, Cal will face one of the nation’s top freshmen. Forward Cameron Boozer leads the ACC in scoring at 22.9 points per game and also collects 9.5 rebounds.

Madsen has a connection stemming from his time competing as a player against Boozer’s father, Carlos, and later coaching him with the Lakers.

“Watching Cam, you can see the influence of his dad,” Madsen said. “You can see the basketball IQ, you can see the toughness, you can see the knowledge of the game.”

Saturday brings another elite freshman in forward Caleb Wilson, who averages 19.5 points and an ACC-best 11.0 rebounds.

“In terms of Caleb, just an absolute competitor, someone who’s very skilled on the interior, who can get a defensive rebound and bust out and lead the break,” Madsen said. “Both those guys are just huge impact players for their teams.”

They also could become the first Duke-Carolina tandem both chosen in the top-5 of the NBA draft since 1990, when Duke’s Danny Ferry was taken at No. 2 and UNC’s J.R. Reid went at No. 5.

The Bears, swept on the road last week against Virginia and Virginia Tech, will be underdogs in both games at Haas. Madsen said a Cal victory in either game would be a positive measure of how far his program has progressed.

“It would show a continued progression of growth,” he said. “We’re trying to build this program back up to a national contender. To become a national contender, you have to be able to beat the top teams in the country.

“Look, we have our work cut out for us. Our job right now is to have elite preparation in every facet so that when the ball is thrown up we’re ready to compete and hopefully compete to have a chance to win.”

Follow Jeff Faraudo on Twitter, Facebook and Bluesky

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