OREGON vs CAROLINA FINAL FOUR: THE CITIES

Sports show off the cities when teams meet on the biggest stage.

And who doesn’t like learning about new places?

A game like an Oregon vs Carolina Final Four gives fans a chance to play Would You Rather.

Would you rather live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, or live in Eugene, Oregon?

A few statistics always helps.

“Chapel Hill is North Carolina’s best-educated city, proportionately, with 77% of adult residents (25 and older) holding an associate degree or higher, and 73% of adults possessing a baccalaureate degree or higher.^“

Right away you feel the learning in Chapel Hill.

These are people with good educations.

They want you to know they’re not backward.

The US Office of Management and Budget also includes Chapel Hill as a part of the Raleigh-Durham-Cary Combined Statistical Area, which has a population of 1,749,525 as of Census 2010.

Not so small after all, so there’s someplace to escape with 1.7 million pressing around Chapel Hill.

Or live in Eugene, Oregon?

This is the place everyone around goes when they say, “Let’s go to the city,” and it still feels like the middle of nowhere.

“Like the rest of the Willamette Valley, Eugene lies in the Marine West Coast climate zone, with Mediterranean characteristics.”

You won’t mistake Eugene for the Riviera. It hasn’t changed much since it’s beginning.

In 1846, Skinner erected the first cabin in the area. It was used as a trading post and was registered as an official post office on January 8, 1850. At this time the settlement was known as Skinner’s Mudhole.

The players for an Oregon vs Carolina Final Four.

There’s something extra about an Oregon vs Carolina Final Four match up.

One guy from Texas, one from Maryland, another from Kansas, the rest come from the North Carolina (6), or a neighbor state.

From goheels.com:

And Coach Roy is just a kid breathing the healing air of the Blue Ridge Mountains down the road a piece from Shenandoah Valley.

(A side note on directional states: You got two states on the same name, the Viginias, Dakotas, Carolinas, because of the mess they made with the postage stamp sized Northeast. A skinny Vermont next to skinny New Hampshire? Jewelry box sized Connecticut next to ring box Rhode Island? By the time people staked out the real west things opened up.)

Players come to the mud hole dreaming of an Oregon vs Carolina Final Four.

The Ducks have one player from Oregon, the others moved here.

It’s hard for observers to imagine what it’s like for guys from California and Arizona in cold, wet, Eugene.

“Eugene is slightly cooler on average than Portland.”

From city life to a former logging/farming village? Who does that?

Guys from Canada, guys from England and Israel, from Chicago and Washington, show up in Eugene and land in the Final Four?

They can say they expect it, but not like Blue Blood basketballers at Kansas and Kentucky and UCLA. At Duke.

Instead of players coming through the rotating door, the Ducks fly and flock together.

Carolina beat Syracuse in this game last year before to losing to Villanova in the final.

Oregon Ducks are no Orangemen.