DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA — Black tier tenting began January 18 at Duke University for the March 7 Duke-North Carolina basketball game, with students required to pass a basketball trivia exam to compete for camping spots. In the 2024-2025 season, more than 230 groups competed for 70 black tent spots and over one-third of the student body signed up for the entrance exam.

Students form groups of 10 to 12 people to qualify for black tenting. If fewer than 80 groups sign up for black tenting, an entrance exam is not required. When demand exceeds ticket availability, attendees must pass the basketball trivia exam to earn a plot to pitch their tents in K-Ville.

The entrance exam is administered by line monitors in near-total secrecy, and only two monitors ever see the final questions. Aida Anderson co-wrote the entrance exam in 2023 and 2024 and spent months crafting questions. During the 2018–2019 season, student demand for tenting led line monitors to introduce a tenting entrance exam.

The basketball trivia exam includes questions that ask students to list every current Duke Men's Basketball player's jersey number, position, and hometown. The exam includes questions asking what color dress Neal Begovich's date wore to his senior prom. Other questions ask, according to Cooper Flagg's mother Kelly, what time Cooper Flagg was born and as a bonus what time his brother Ace was born. The exam also includes questions asking, according to her LinkedIn, what month and year Kyle Filipowski's girlfriend's American Red Cross certification expired.

Students prepare for the tenting entrance exam using Quizlets, flashcards, library study sessions, study guides with over 100 sections, memorizing statistics, and rewatching games. "I probably worked harder on studying for this exam than any other exam this semester," said Anmol Sapru, a Duke senior. "It's very similar to the energy of taking an SAT," said Camille Stecker, a Duke junior.

"The reason the student section is always so wild and invested in games is that it's a meritocracy," said Camden Reeves, a Duke senior. "It rewards those who are willing to be the most committed, to sleep in K-Ville the longest or study for the test the hardest." Duke University offers three tenting tiers—white, blue, and black—with white tier requiring a campuswide scavenger hunt and black tier often requiring passing an entrance exam.