DALLAS — Black hats might as well be part of the Duke basketball uniform.

Tyrese Proctor said he knew a little bit about the hate generated on anybody associated with the Blue Devils. It wasn't until he joined the program that he really understood the magnitude of it.

"Guys prepared me for it, stuff like that," Proctor said. "But I mean, going through it firsthand, you see it for yourself."

Kyle Filipowski knows it all too well. Some consider him to be the latest Blue Devil in a long line of reviled college basketball players, joining the likes of Grayson Allen, J.J. Reddick and a slew of others. Some of it has come from the court-storming incident at Wake Forest, then came up again with the tripping incident at North Carolina.

Still, Filipowski knows his role in the college basketball universe. He's the villain, and he's accepted that. He's also bracing himself for being the Thanos in Sunday's Elite Eight showdown with NC State, which features March Madness darling DJ Burns, Jr., who might as well be Captain America at this point.

"I think it's clear that DJ Burns is a fan favorite," Filipowski said Saturday. "I mean, I'm even a fan of DJ Burns, but definitely from past games cheering him on and rooting against us, that's kind of the norm of it."

Likewise, Burns admires the talent of his Duke counterpart.

"I'm a fan of his as well," Burns said of Filipowski. "Anybody who's that big and can be a three-level scorer at the rate that he does it, it's pretty amazing.

Burns and Filipowski have been at their respective schools for two years, play two different styles but share at least one similar trait: they love to play to the crowd. The difference is when Burns does it, fans swoon and want more. When Filipowski does it, he adds to the narrative of ego that follows Duke players around like cat hair on a black sweater.

Sunday's showdown in the Elite Eight will be the fifth meeting between the two, the third in this season alone. Duke has a good sense of what Burns is capable of, and Filipowski said it's a tricky task in slowing down the 6-foot-9, 275-pound big man.

"He's obviously a big body," Filipowski said, "but he's very agile and he can spin on your real quick. You just got to be prepared for whatever. He's got a great IQ with passing out of the post as well. He's gonna throw something at you and there are times where he's gonna make a really, really hard shot even when the defense might be perfect in that situation, but you've just got to live with it and have that next-play mentality."

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This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Duke basketball's Filipowski admits he's a fan of NC State's DJ Burns