Duke won its seventh consecutive conference game Tuesday, blasting Miami, 89-54.
While the Hurricanes offered no resistance, is it too early to predict the Blue Devils’ chances of posting the first-ever 20-0 regular season in ACC history?
Duke‘s 1998-1999 team went 16-0 in the ACC regular season, the last time a team posted an unblemished regular season mark.
The Blue Devils already beat Louisville, perhaps the league’s second-best squad, 76-65, on Dec. 8.
Yes, I know all about the storied rivalry with North Carolina, and the two will square off twice over the final month of the season, but have you seen UNC this season?
They could play 10 times, and Duke wins all 10. Carolina has no answer for Cooper Flagg.
Clemson and Wake may give Duke a game for a half, but can they contain Flagg for 40 minutes?
Still, I predict Duke will fail to make it a perfect 20-0 run.
It won’t result from an opponent getting hot on a random night, but rather from Duke’s boredom.
I call it Duke 19-1.
Is the ACC as bad as everyone is saying?
The one-word answer here is yes.
Most so-called experts state that the ACC may be near the bottom of the Power 5 conferences.
It’s hard to argue that.
Duke sits alone at the top.
Louisville and Clemson are good; Wake Forest, Pitt and UNC are up-and-down.
The rest of the conference is less than competitive compared to some other major conferences.
Many ACC teams struggled against strong non-conference opponents, and the league would rather forget the drubbing the SEC dished out in the ACC-SEC Challenge.
But guess what? This isn’t a one-off.
The decline of the ACC has been going on for the last five years.
Since 2020-21, the league has finished fifth, fifth, seven and fifth in KenPom’s conference rankings.
You can argue the analytics all you want, but the latest debacle against the SEC was just a disaster for the eye test.
We all grew up with the ACC, but it’s evident that the league has now contorted itself into a group of completely unrelated brands.
Are Northern California schools spending a week on Tobacco Road really a part of the ACC?
Which schools get left out of the ACC Tourney?
Here’s the skinny on the upcoming ACC Tournament: the top four teams in the regular season get a double-bye into the tournament’s quarter-final games.
The bottom three teams get left home.
The race for the top four is almost a foregone conclusion, with over a month of games remaining.
Duke, Clemson, Louisville and Wake Forest are 8-0, 8-1, 8-1, and 7-1 respectively, two games ahead of the rest of the field.
But the battle for the stay-home trio is wide open.
Miami and Boston College are occupying two of the three spots.
The Hurricanes, who saw head coach Jim Larranaga cry uncle and step away from the team a month ago, are awful.
Boston College?
If you were one of the few who braved the cold Tuesday night and witnessed the Virginia-BC game, you know all you need to know about the Eagles.
BC players are already booking spring break trips.
How about that third team that gets a participation trophy but not a tourney spot?
Unfortunately, there are plenty of candidates.
Virginia, Notre Dame and NC State have won only twice in conference action, while five other schools are between 3-5 and 3-6 in league action.
Eight schools are essentially fighting to finish above 13th place in the conference.
There will be some ugly basketball in the conference in February and early March.
Krzyzewski, Williams, Bennett, Larranaga, who’s next?
Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams retired after long, storied careers at Duke and North Carolina.
Tony Bennett at Virginia and Jim Larranaga at Miami gave up trying to be the round peg in the square hole.
Who’s the next coach in the ACC to step away?
My insider says not to be surprised if Clemson’s Brad Brownell isn’t the next ACC head coach domino to fall.
Brownell, 57, is now the league’s most veteran coach, having led the Tigers since 2010.
Brownell signed a contract extension in 2024, and while Clemson has fared well in the era of the transfer portal, the rigors of a yearly roster turnover build may be the culprit.
Just because a head coach signs a contract extension doesn’t mean he will honor it.
It seems like I remember that happening somewhere recently.
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