Last year, SI On Campus went coast-to-coast during March Madness, covering 5,495 miles at a rate that would have sent Washington State's decidedly down tempo Dick Bennett into cardiac arrest (Spokane to Reno to Phoenix to Las Vegas in four days!) The only difference this year: more road-trippers! Log onto SI.com every day until April 5 and check in with the SI On Campus team as it SUVs from New York to the play-in game in Dayton to the men's and women's championship games in St. Louis and Indianapolis.

By Grant Marek and Scott Allen

On paper, Duke and North Carolina are just a pair of bracket-lengths away from their first-ever Final Four meeting. On campus, Blue Devils and Tar Heels are just returning from Spring Break, distracted by the belief that the two schools inevitably are destined for the Armageddon of all March Madness matchups. On Monday, SIOC infiltrated Chapel Hill and Durham, embedding correspondents and bitter Bay Area rivals Grant Marek (Cal) and Scott Allen (Stanford) on the campuses of the East Coast's most famous foes. The two long ago had stopped speaking to one another, but after some prodding agreed to an e-mail correspondence.

Dear Stanfurd,

SIOC's Grant Marek and Jaime Lowe pose for a picture on the UNC campus. SIOC

THE ULTIMATE ROAD TRIP From New York to St. Louis, SI On Campus' three-week tour of the NCAA tournament Day Diary Entry Day 1 From Bobby Hurley to Villanova Day 2 Delaware State's Dance debut Day 3 Meet the tourney's first stars Day 4 Touring the Hoosier State Day 5 St. Paddy's Day in Indy Day 6 A Nick Lachey Sighting Day 7 Tennessee, some Hatters and "Ed" Day 8 Making way for the Cali crew Day 9 Cal-Stanford meet UNC-Duke Day 10 Sean May bakes cupcakes Day 11 Getting down with the Bluegrass Rivalry Day 12 The Sweet 16 at a hardware store Day 13 We're just mad about Madison Day 14 Warm and fuzzy receptions Day 15 In-house for a double-OT thriller Day 16 Road kill, horse and highway Day 17 BBQ and the Elite Eight Day 18 The Batmobile stops in St. Louis Day 19 Brews, horses, high-flying dunks Day 20 Nerf balls and a Globetrotters sighting Day 21 I need one! Just one! Day 22 View of the women's game Day 23 Title thoughts and the Illinois' scene Day 24 The final chapter ends in Indianapolis

Two hours into my UNC tour, and I can honestly say it feels like home. While its Sproul Plaza is sunken and goes by the name of the Pit, the resident crazies are protesting sinners and sports nuts rather than the war and the BCS. There's also a palpable disdain for a certain private school eerily like your own, Stanfurd boy. One thing is certain, Scott, you'd better call a social worker down there at Duke, because you and your trust-fund buddies are about to get abused.

The Tar Heels are serious about the rivalry, the hatred, and they seriously seem to like my "F--- STANFURD" shirt.

Meet my new best friend Kendall Fletcher. A long-time N.C.-native and a senior on the UNC women's soccer team, it didn't take long for the public-school sparks to fly for the two of us.

"You gotta hate Duke and Stanford 'cause they want to be Ivy League schools and they're not," she said.

What they are is slow and stupid, adds Tar Heel freshman Craig Bailey, who dropped by the Pit to point that out. He noted the crib sheets of today's Cameron Crazies, who are mere ghosts of their predecessors and apparently can't remember the "Here we go Duke, here we go" chants anymore. (I think it's the second "here we go" that gets them.)

Meanwhile, Bailey and his buddies didn't need to pull out the Duke Cliffs Notes to get going. "J.J. Reddick wears an undershirt because he has bad acne," Bailey chimed in.

Students like Bailey are still a little giddy from the Tar Heels' come-from-behind win over the Dookies on the final weekend of the regular season. It was a scene alright. The Tar Heel faithful went to the Library. Drank there. The East Franklin Street bar was home to just part of the pre-March madness as bonfires lined the shut-down street, students chucked garbage out of the Top of the Hill bar to keep the fire burning and furniture flew overhead out of dormitory windows.

But I'm willing to give the Blue Devils some credit. At least they showed up for the game (see the Stanfurd rugby team's forfeit to Cal in 2001 because it was afraid of getting hurt).

As for that Coach K American Express commercial that seems to be popping up everywhere these days, Bailey made sure his family responded appropriately: "My dad is canceling his American Express Card."

My Campanile is bigger than yours,
Grant

Dear Kal,

Dude, tell your new Tar Heel buddies to chill. Such animosity. Such bitterness. Is there something in the water in Chapel Hill? While Carolina's busy crying about how daddy's paying for the Crazies' education, Duke's busy kicking Carolina's butt. Besides, the pricey education is worth it. You'll be hard pressed to find a Dookie who can't spell Krzyzewski.

You see, it's all about love -- and basketball in Durham. Tar Heel fans could walk across the quad in Carolina blue and, while Duke students might take pity on their soul, they wouldn't be fearing for their rivals' lives.

"We wouldn't go up and get in their face about it," said junior Matt Hellman.

"Yeah, they take it a lot more serious than us," agreed fellow junior Dan DeRemigis.

Nice guys. Smart ones, too.

Hellman says the best way to shut up badgering Carolina fans -- they always start the arguments -- is to tell them that Coach K, who recently passed some dude named Smith for the lead in all-time NCAA Tournament wins, averages a trip to the Final Four every NCAA appearance.

Scott Allen at Coach K Court. SIOC

The banners inside Cameron Indoor, where the court is named in his honor, prove it. Can we say basketball Mecca? The outside looks like a church. The inside is hoops heaven, even for this Stanford guy and diehard Maryland fan. While you were busy brushing up on your rioting skills (undoubtedly to celebrate Cal's next, ahem, rugby title) at the Pit, I was busy working on my jump shot and recreating famous shots of years past. Then I waxed poetic about the beauty of the place and its resemblance to Maples Pavilion -- OK, it's a bit of stretch -- for a Raleigh-based NBC reporter, all while wearing my "Beat Cal" shirt.

Newsflash for your new friend Kendall Fletcher: Stanford and Duke want to be Ivy League about as much as some poor directional school wants to face Kendall and the UNC soccer team in the first round of the NCAA College Cup. Ivy League schools are good at the country-club sports. Stanford and Duke are good at basketball -- and the country-club sports.

Nobody's had any trash to talk about the Tar Heels yet, but, uh, didn't Rashad McCants compare playing for UNC to prison? Awesome.

Don't hate,
Scott