Since the NCAA allowed immediate eligibility for transfers in 2021, only four players have logged at least 10 minutes in each of the last six regular-season matchups in the NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill basketball rivalry. Three come from the men’s side — UNC’s RJ Davis and Armando Bacot along with NC State’s Casey Morsell — and UNC’s Deja Kelly is the only one on the women’s side.

So the question becomes, does this in-state rivalry still resonate the same? Do players appreciate what this rivalry means when they come from different schools and are usually only sticking around for a year or two? Does it still mean something? Anything?

“It’s still a rivalry, but it’s just not the same,” said Ernie Myers, a member of NC State men’s basketball 1983 national championship team. “I don’t know if it’s the same hatred.”

Over his four-year career with the Wolfpack, Myers played the Tar Heels 10 times, building a genuine disdain for certain players donning the baby blue. Myers faced off against Warren Martin in eight matchups and grew to despise him. It’s the animosity built up over time that made the games between NC State and UNC so intense.

“You get tired of people,” Myers said. “You get into little shoving matches, and you talk crap back. I did that with [Michael] Jordan a lot when I played against him.”

Twenty-four different transfers have played at least 10 minutes in a game in the last six regular-season matchups between the men and women. Twenty players have transferred out during the same period. And of the 65 players who have played 10 minutes in a game, only 21 have done so four or more times.

“It would be very hard to build up animosity when you don’t even know if that guy will be there next year,” Myers said.

There have been moments over the last few years where that disdain between players was still there. The heavyweight bouts between Bacot and DJ Burns in the paint had a little bit of spice, with Bacot once mocking Burns by wearing Burns’s trademark sunglasses in the locker room after a win. Bacot even admitted that he wanted Duke to beat NC State in the Elite Eight, saying, “I can’t stand NC State.”

Those moments have been few and far between the last couple of seasons, largely because few players have remained in it as long as Bacot, who played the Wolfpack 11 times.

But the truth is, the players have never been the main characters in this rivalry. The rivalry has and will always mean more to the fans. It should mean more to someone who is a fourth-generation NC State student or whose UNC fandom has been passed down from parent to child multiple times.

They are the ones who create the hostile environment when they yell obscenities toward the players. They are the ones who let players know how much this game means when they get to the arena four hours early and pack the stands for warmups.

“For the players specifically, sometimes you’re missing that little spice that you haven’t played against the same players over and over,” said Derek Jordan, an NC State women’s basketball analyst. “But I think just the environment really is what creates the animosity amongst the play. They just feel it. It’s just sort of a feeling when you walk in the building.”

When former NC State guard Jarkel Joiner transferred from Ole Miss to play his final year with the Wolfpack in 2022-23, he did not know about the rivalry. Joiner quickly found out when fans from both teams found a picture of him wearing a Jordan Tar Heels jersey. Wolfpack fans wanted him to delete the picture while Tar Heels fans reveled in the irony.

And if a player doesn’t understand the game’s magnitude, coaches ensure they will. NC State men’s assistant coach Levi Watkins, who also played for the Wolfpack for four years, stressed the importance of beating UNC to Joiner as soon as he arrived on campus.

Watkins and the fans did their job because when Joiner stepped on the court to play the Tar Heels, he understood this wasn’t just another game.

“You just feel the energy,” Joiner said. “You could tell it wasn’t just a regular ACC game. It was different. It was a rivalry game.”

Despite playing the Tar Heels just twice with a win and a loss, Joiner left his mark on the rivalry in his one season. After losing in Chapel Hill earlier in the season, Joiner tied his season-high with 29 points against the Tar Heels in Raleigh, including 18 in the last 10 minutes of the game after the Wolfpack went down 54-48. He punctuated his performance with an alley-oop from Terquavion Smith that put NC State up 10 with less than two minutes to go.

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For Joiner, it was one of the best moments of his college career. Taking down the Tar Heels while also essentially eliminating them from NCAA Tournament contention.

“It’s a real cool experience just being a part of that,” Joiner said. “Going down in history, beating North Carolina. It’s a cool moment to remember.”

Former NC State women’s guard Raina Perez had a similar experience to Joiner. Perez transferred from Cal State Fullerton and had no idea about the rivalry. She heard her teammates talk about it during the season but didn’t fully understand how much it meant until the weeks leading up to the game.

That’s when she saw the game was sold out, and it’s also when her teammates and coaches started to emphasize the importance of the game.

“Your teammates talking like, ‘Oh, we can’t lose to UNC. We can’t lose to UNC,’” Perez said. “And then you hear coaches talking about it, like, ‘Yeah, this is a big game for us, rivalry, it’s UNC.’ And then when you step on the court and you walk out and your gym is filled up, it’s a sold-out crowd, then that’s when you realize, ‘Oh, this is serious.’”

In her first season with the Wolfpack, COVID-19 restrictions kept the stands empty, but when Reynolds Coliseum was full in her second year, she then understood the magnitude of the matchup.

“I think the fans play a huge part in determining if it’s a big game or not,” Perez said.

Two things can be true. The rivalry has certainly lost some of its intensity on the court in the transfer era. But at the same time, it’s a feud that stands the test of time because of the passion of the two fanbases.

“You lose a little bit of that familiarity with the players,” Jordan said. “But still, the idea of the rivalry is going to remain the same no matter who’s putting on that uniform.”