DURHAM, N.C. — You have two options.
One, you hope Kentucky rolls through March and takes a 39-0 record into the NCAA championship game, with Duke, looking for its fifth national championship, waiting to play spoiler.
Or you can wait until May 2 and shell out $100 to watch Mayweather-Pacquiao on pay-per-view.
Kentucky-Duke would be the better fight, if we can get there.
Consider this: The 1992 East Region final is old enough to buy its own beer. Kentucky senior Tod Lanter is the only player on either side who was alive when Christian Laettner hit “The Shot” in that 104-103 overtime classic.
We need a new drink. This isn't the game that saves college basketball. Despite the constant debate about one-and-dones, the shot clock and all things NCAA, college basketball doesn't need to be saved. The game is fine, thank you.
It could always use a double shot, though, and just look at the College Football Playoff for what a true heavyweight matchup can do. We got Alabama vs. Ohio State and Florida State vs. Oregon in Year 1, and it was spectacular.
Why not set the stage for something that can top that? With 10 more wins, Kentucky (29-0) would be playing for the first undefeated season since 1976.
Duke is the only team worth seeing at the end of that road. The Blue Devils have ripped off nine straight wins, and the back-to-back losses to N.C. State and Miami are on the backup drive. This is more than just a team getting hot at the right time.
“We've been good all year except for about the first four games we could not shoot the ball well,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “We did not shoot it and it affected our defense.
“But you don’t beat Wisconsin, Michigan State and Stanford unless you are pretty good. These guys have just matured.”
Duke also has Jahlil Okafor, whom Krzyzewski isn’t afraid to call “the best player in the country."
“What Okafor has done has been remarkable because he’s been good throughout,” Krzyzewski said after Duke defeated Syracuse 73-54 on Saturday.
“Even if his stats aren’t 20-something points he causes so much concern that someone could be open. Someone else's game is picked up just by having him on the court.”
Who doesn’t want to see the best player against the best team? A Kentucky-Duke matchup is a win-win, win-win situation for everyone except the die-hard haters.
You get a true heavyweight matchup. Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, only four championship games have featured two No. 1 seeds. Those have been some of the best title games: Duke-UConn (1999), North Carolina-Illinois (2005), Florida-Ohio State (2007) and Kansas-Memphis (2008).
You get stupid ratings. Kentucky-UConn drew 21.2 million viewers and a 12.9 Nielsen rating last season, but the championship game hasn’t hit a 16.0 rating since Duke played Butler in 2010. The College Football Championship between Ohio State and Oregon drew 33.4 million, with an 18.5 rating.
You get the two most-loved and most-hated teams in America. Kentucky vs. Duke might not outdraw basketball’s Holy Grail, the 1979 national championship game between Magic Johnson-led Michigan State and Larry Bird-led Indiana State, which netted a 24.1 rating and approximately 35 million viewers. Or maybe it would. Magic and Bird didn’t have Twitter with which to work.
You get well-timed history. ESPN will have a “30 for 30” documentary on Laettner to prop up the tournament after the Selection Show. Duke is 8-1 against Kentucky under Krzyzewski, the lone loss coming in the 1998 South Region final, a game in which the Wildcats rallied from a 17-point deficit.
You get K vs. UK. It’s Coach K, looking to build on a 1,000-and-change-wins legacy vs. John Calipari, who is looking for his third Final Four in three years. Even if Kentucky slips up before the tournament, this is every bit as good as Nick Saban vs. Urban Meyer.
You get a spinoff in the NBA Draft, and the first hour will be the Kentucky-Duke after-school special with a cast of Blue Devils (Okafor, Justise Winslow, Tyus Jones) and Wildcats (Willie Cauley-Stein, Karl-Anthony Towns, the Harrison twins).
This is the drama we are looking for, the sequel to the greatest college basketball game ever played. Of course, there’s still one regular-season weekend, conference tournaments and that first weekend of the tournament everyone adores so much to sift through first. If that’s taught us anything the past 30 years, it’s that the other 66 teams make moments like this impossible to come by. Wisconsin, Virginia, Arizona and everybody else will have their say.
But it’s OK to put it in layaway. It’s OK to press fast forward. This is the heavyweight fight worth watching. If only we could order it now. Let’s hope the first option plays out in April.
We’ll consider dishing out the $100 on pay-per-view for the undercard with Mayweather-Pacquiao in May.
