Classic time in College Park

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Prime time with Dickie V. Tickets drawing $200 bids on EBay. The student section overflowing hours beforehand.

Welcome to the best rivalry in college basketball as No.1 Duke (14-1, 4-0 ACC) visits Maryland (10-4, 1-2) tonight at Comcast Center.

The biannual matchup has become a series of instant classics. A 10-point lead vanishing in the final minute. A steal capping an upset. Duke twice losing as the nation's top-ranked team. Final Four and ACC championship matchups. And that's just the last four years.

"There have been some wild games," Terrapins coach Gary Williams said. "If you ask people to name the top five programs in the country over the last 50 years, Duke and North Carolina are on everybody's ballot, so that makes it a great game when people see somebody else gets in there and competes with them."

Maryland has done more than compete with Duke. The Terps knocked off the top-ranked Blue Devils the last two years at home. Indeed, Maryland added to its history as a giant-killer after defeating Florida earlier this season for its ninth all-time win against a No. 1 team -- one fewer than North Carolina and UCLA.

Redskins-Cowboys games are mild disputes compared to Maryland-Duke. Maryland students wear T-shirts with unprintable Duke sayings months before the teams meet. The signs in the stands can't be repeated. Neither can the language. It's the same way in Durham, N.C., where Cameron Indoor Stadium is a blue wave of bluebloods trying to intimidate the Terps. Maryland counters with its newly formed "Red Army" of 4,000 courtside students. No wonder former Terps center Buck Williams called it "the Civil War without guns."

"I'm 64 and I act 12 with games like this," said ESPN announcer Dick Vitale, who will work the game, the crowd and the viewers. "It brings out the little kid in me. How many people would give anything to rush from work to get in there to be part of it?

"It's become such a key rivalry because it has been such super teams. Gary Williams has become a potential Hall of Famer, and [Duke coach] Mike Krzyzewski is already enshrined. It's a classic coaching matchup, and the crowd really gets into it. The Red Army will be going bananas."

Terps fans old enough to remember Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon may consider North Carolina the bigger nemesis. Incoming coach Lefty Driesell saw the Tar Heels as the leading obstacle toward become the "UCLA of the East."