Why the Triangle teams’ resurgence is good for women’s basketball

Courtney Banghart remembers when she was first allowed to stay up late to watch an entire North Carolina-Duke men’s basketball game. Growing up in New Hampshire, she didn’t know exactly how close the schools are located, but she was well aware their rivalry was mammoth.

“If they had a 9 p.m. tipoff, I couldn’t see the end of it,” she said. “Then I turned 11, and I got to watch the whole thing. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would actually be a part of it. But I have felt a part of it even when I wasn’t.”

She is now right in the middle of it as the North Carolina women’s basketball coach. Thursday, her No. 17 Tar Heels host No. 13 Duke (8 p.m. ET, ACC Network) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Just before that game, the other team in the Triangle, No. 20 NC State, hosts Miami (6 p.m. ET, ACC Network) in Raleigh.

The Triangle is probably the most famous area in college sports for the proximity, rivalries and distinct personalities of the three schools in a 25-mile radius. Men’s basketball has been the nationally defining aspect of the Triangle in sports — last year’s UNC-Duke matchup at the men’s Final Four in Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final season being the most recent of countless epic meetings — but women’s basketball has a vast and successful history in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, too.

And when all three programs are doing well, it benefits women’s basketball as a whole.

“Anything that can grow our game — and that’s often still a collective — is important,” Banghart said. “This area has sports fans who are fans of these rivalries in general, and that brings them to women’s basketball. And they say, ‘Wow, this is good basketball!’ You feel a difference when it’s time to play these games.”

Duke (16-1 overall)…