By AARON BEARD
AP College Basketball Writer

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) --  For years, everything Duke and North
Carolina achieved - the conference championships, Final Four
trips and national titles - has been connected in a
back-and-forth game of one-upmanship.

These days the Tar Heels have the upper hand.

Since shortly after Roy Williams returned to his alma mater, the
Tar Heels have outperformed Mike Krzyzewski's Blue Devils in the
long-running race between college basketball's fiercest rivals.
North Carolina has two NCAA championships in the five seasons
since Duke last reached the Final Four. The Tar Heels have also
dominated the recent series, including four straight wins at the
Blue Devils' Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Of course both sides say they focus on themselves, but they
can't ignore what's going on a short drive down the U.S. 15-501
highway linking Chapel Hill and Durham, either. As North
Carolina fifth-year senior Marcus Ginyard put it, "There's no
question we want to be better than them."

"I think both programs have been very good for the other one,"
Williams said. "We do what we want to do because we think it's
best, and Mike does for his program what they want to do because
he thinks it's best. But also, I do believe there is something
where their success makes us want it a little more and our
success perhaps makes them want it a little more."

Right now, the Blue Devils are the ones left wanting.

North Carolina has won 86 percent of its games in the past five
seasons, with two Atlantic Coast Conference titles, three Final
Fours, and NCAA titles in 2005 and 2009. The Tar Heels have
failed to reach the NCAA's round of eight just once and are
coming off a dominating NCAA run that ended with a romp over
Michigan State in Detroit.

Things are rolling so well that North Carolina is ranked sixth
despite losing four-year star Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne
Ellington and Danny Green.

The ninth-ranked Blue Devils remain among the nation's elite,
yet haven't had the same success as the Tar Heels - or past Duke
teams under Krzyzewski, for that matter. They've won 80 percent
of their games in that same span, but they haven't advanced past
the NCAA round of 16 and have twice been eliminated in the
tournament's opening weekend.

Last year, Duke won its third ACC championship in five seasons,
but lost in the regional semifinals to Villanova by 23 points,
its most lopsided NCAA exit since the 103-73 loss to UNLV in the
1990 final.

While most programs pray for the Blue Devils' recent success, it
just doesn't feel quite, well, Duke-like. Krzyzewski has three
NCAA titles in 29 seasons there, though the last of his 10 Final
Fours came in 2004 - coincidentally Williams' first season in
Chapel Hill.

Not to mention North Carolina has won six of the past seven
meetings.

"As far as our motivation, we don't need North Carolina or
Maryland or anybody else to motivate us," Krzyzewski said.
"We're motivated by trying to win a championship.

"Last year, Carolina had great team ego and great team talent.
(When) you get that, that's tough, that's the ultimate. And
we've had that here, so I understand how they feel. But it
doesn't last forever. And that's why they play each season. They
start it over and they don't bring any records along with it."

Krzyzewski has been on the other side, too.

His program pushed ahead of Dean Smith's Tar Heels in the late
1980s with six Final Fours in seven seasons - including NCAA
titles in 1991 and 1992 - and three ACC crowns while the Tar
Heels had two ACC titles and one Final Four trip.

It's the ebb and flow of the rivalry, said Jay Bilas, an ESPN
analyst and a player on Krzyzewski's first Final Four squad in
1986. And neither program can afford to get caught up in
comparisons.

"The thing in the Duke-Carolina rivalry is it's inescapable,"
Bilas said. "Whatever team wins, their fans get to crow and
celebrate and have a good time, but the players have to get up
and go to practice. They've got another game after that.

"Neither school has a banner hanging in their gym saying what
their record is against the other. They don't hang banners for
that stuff."

Recruiting explains some of the current gap. Williams has nabbed
several players like one-and-done talents Marvin Williams and
Brandan Wright, and eventual NBA first-round draft picks Lawson
and Ellington, who stayed in school longer than many
anticipated. Then there's Hansbrough, who graduated as the ACC's
all-time leading scorer and North Carolina's top rebounder.

The Blue Devils have also ranked highly with recruits like NBA
lottery pick Gerald Henderson and junior Kyle Singler, the
preseason ACC player of the year. But they've missed on key
names like Kentucky's John Wall and Patrick Patterson, and
Georgetown's Greg Monroe that could have provided a boost, while
the NBA departures of Luol Deng after one season and
preps-to-pros guard Shaun Livingston didn't help, either.

"They've had good players in their classes," Dave Telep,
national recruiting director for Scout.com, said of Duke. "This
is not nearly as much of a conversation if the guys eight miles
down the road didn't do some amazing things with their classes.

"Duke has hit a couple of solo home runs and North Carolina hit
a couple of grand slams. Over the course of time, the runs add
up."

As for the players there now, they enter this season as
co-favorites in the ACC. And what happens this year is what's
most important to Duke's Jon Scheyer.

"I can only control what I've done since I've been here and
obviously they've been more successful," the senior said. "But
like I said before, you want to beat them. That's the main
thing: to beat them the next year."

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AP Sports Writer Joedy McCreary in Durham contributed to this
report.