ACC Basketball Preseason Expectations
Another Down Year? Plus tiers and accolades
We’re not really in “preseason” anymore since most teams have played a handful of games, but college basketball doesn’t really heat up until Feast Week. Here’s what we’ll cover:
Another Down Year
Preseason expectations and media rankings
Preseason Accolades
ACC Champ, Player of the Year, First Team All-ACC, Coach of the Year
Another Down Year
I’ve long been noodling on a post delving into why every year is now a “down year” for the ACC. The short version is basically that the ACC had a historically great stretch from 2015-2019 that included:
3 national championships
5 Final Four appearances (1 / year)
12 Elite Eight appearances (2.4 / year)
20 Sweet 16 appearances (4 / year)
21 top 4 seeds (4.2 / year)
8 number 1 seeds (1.6 / year)
38 NCAA tournament bids (7.6 / year)
One conference was consistently accounting for a quarter of the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and Final Four teams each year, and we weren’t sending that many teams. More than half of the teams that got tourney bids make at least the Sweet 16.
The consistent, sustained success came from three tiers:
The top of the league had national title contenders (UNC, Duke, UVA)
The second tier (the Lvilles, Notre Dames, Virginia Techs, Miamis, Florida States) rotated having at least one nationally relevant and competitive team
The third tier provided a few surprises (Syracuse as a double digit seed, Florida State as a 9 seed)
After such a high peak, the only direction the conference could go was down. Since that stretch, the conference has been ravaged by coaching retirements and the NIL/portal disruptions. The league is no longer getting contributions from all three tiers. The top of the league is generally competitive, but Duke and UNC have had down years, and UVA seems be on the downward trend. The second tier no longer produces annually. The ACC is still getting surprises (Miami as a 10 seed in 2022, NC State last year), at least.
I’m not here to argue that the ACC is as good as it was, but I also think we’re a perfectly competitive and competent basketball conference. The Big 12 is certainly the best basketball conference, but the death of the ACC has been greatly exaggerated.
However, this year will likely be emblematic of why the ACC keeps having “down years”: the top two look competitive nationally, the second tier is devoid of a nationally competitive team, and you can’t count on surprises every year.
UNC and Duke are legitimate national title contenders, but both have flaws and question marks. Bracketologists project 6-8 March Madness bids from the ACC, which is on par with the average number of bids from ‘15-’19 (7.6), but the quality teams that can make deep runs feel fewer and farer between.
I’ll save most of the notes for later sections, but I think this will be Yet Another Down Year for the ACC. But looking around college basketball, I don’t see the Big 10 or SEC1 as much different than the ACC, so maybe it’s simply Yet Another Year of Parity in the Portal Era.
Preseason Expectations
Grouping teams into title contenders, tournament/bubble teams and everyone else.
Title Contenders
Duke and UNC
The blue bloods are the clearcut favorites to win the ACC title and could compete for the national title. Both have question marks. For UNC, how will they replace Armando Bacot down low2? For Duke, how provides the veteran presence on a team relying so heavily on freshmen and transfers?
Wake could hang around, but they don’t feel that different from the 11-9 team from last year, so I’d be surprised to see them usurp the crown.
Tournament- (and Bubble-)Quality Teams
Wake, Clemson, Notre Dame, NC State, Lville, Miami
I abhor that Joe Lunardi is dropping brackets this early, but he has six ACC teams in his field and two on the outside of the bubble. I’ll draw my cut line slightly deeper.
Wake might not be good enough to claim the ACC title, but they should end their six-year NCAA tournament drought. Cohesion is rare in the portal era, so Hunter Sallis, Cameron Hildreth and Efton Reid offer stability that could allow them to build from last season.
Clemson matched their deepest tourney run in school history with last year’s Elite 8, but PJ Hall and a few other contributors are gone.
Notre Dame feels like they’ll go as far as Markus Burton will take them, which might not be too far unless he gets some more help.
NC State — coming off their unexpected Final Four run — lost its DJs (Burns and Horne) and didn’t score any major transfers to fill those gaps. Let’s also remember that they were a mediocre team before catching fire in the ACC tourney, possibly saving Kevin Keatt’s job in the process.
I explain some more of my Louisville hype below, but they’re my pick to exceed their preseason ranking, assuming that Pat Kelsey’s talented transfer guards mesh well with his uptempo style.
Miami would be my second pick to exceed expectations, as Nijel Pack, Jalen Blackmon and Lynn Kidd make an intriguing core. Miami didn’t live up to the hype following their own Final Four run in 2023, but they could ascend in an open ACC.
Not Worth Writing About
Everyone else
The bottom half of the league could be really bad. For example, Syracuse beat Le Moyne and Colgate by a combined six points so far this year, then needed double OT to beat Youngstown State. Undoubtedly, a team will make some noise and rise up the standings, maybe even teasing an NCAA tournament bid.
It’s too early to get angry about Quad-n wins and NET ratings, but the bottom of the ACC could pull down many of the advanced metrics that factor into teams’ resumes. Adding Cal and Stanford is doing no favors to a league that could struggle to amass quality wins during conference play. Whereas seemingly every Big 12 matchup will be a Quad-1 or -2 win, NET ratings in the 100s will be an albatross for the ACC.
Accolades
ACC Champs (Regular Season): Duke
I hate writing this, and maybe it’s just an emotional hedge. Between Duke and UNC, the regular season title will come down to: i) who wins the head-to-head matchups, ii) who drops fewer games against teams they should beat.
Despite having the reigning POY in RJ Davis, an upgraded Elliott Cadeau who can shoot 3s and Seth Trimble, UNC’s core feels more likely to drop the random weekday road game than Duke’s freshmen and transfers. Duke feels like it has a handful of players who can catch fire and deliver a W. They also feel like they’ll have stingier team D. Those factors give them the edge over Carolina, who lack a rim protector and a take-over player (apart from RJ).
Player of the Year: RJ Davis
RJ won the award on a Carolina team with Armando Bacot, Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan — in other words, other dudes who could make the big shots. Now, RJ’s best sidekick is the pass-first Cadeau, so he’ll be relied on even more for getting the tough and clutch buckets (see: KU ending).
Cooper Flagg is obviously drowning in early-season praise, and he could easily win the award. However, he’ll likely get more support from his Duke teammates — particularly gunslinger Kon Knueppel — so RJ should put up bigger counting numbers (although efficiency is a concern).
Davis and Flagg aren’t just favorites for ACC POY, they’re favorite for National POY, too.
It would be hard to overcome the frontrunners, but Hunter Sallis and Terrence Edwards could also put together monster seasons.
All-ACC First Team
RJ Davis, UNC
Cooper Flagg, Duke
Ian Schieffelin, Clemson
Hunter Sallis, Wake
Terrence Edwards Jr, Lville
The preseason team includes a wing (Flagg) and four guards (Davis, Sallis, Nijel Pack, Markus Burton). A big man should be included3, and my pick will be Clemson’s Ian Schieffelin. Despite once calling him an oversized elf, I think he has the well-rounded game and spunk to put up numbers and become (remain?) and fan- and media-darling.
For the guards, I’m all aboard the Lville train and think Edwards will outperform Pack and Burton.
Coach of the Year: Pat Kelsey
When Kelsey was hired this spring, I wrote
Given the complete roster overhaul and Kelsey’s jump to the big leagues, I expect Lville to remain in the bottom half of the league next season
Now, with essentially zero real games since then, I’ve come all the way around and think Lville will be a top four ACC team and Kelsey will finish with some hardware.
This might be an snap reaction to another fun, fast and high-scoring team joining the ACC (basically, the anti-UVA). There’s not too much to be excited about in the ACC this season (apart from UNC, obviously; I’m already sick of the Cooper Flagg hype), but I’m genuinely excited to see how Kelsey’s team performs.
Ron Sanchez — stepping into a difficult position — has a chance to earn this, as well, but I don’t think UVA is very good.
Read the Rest of the Fan Guide
Cliff notes on every team (basketball version)
[You are here] ACC preseason expectations
Transfer projections for the biggest ACC transfers [re-post]
The ACC’s new coaches (plus Ron Sanchez) [re-post]
UNC-Fans Only:
The Big 12 will be a wagon, though, with the potential become the type of three-NCAA-one-seeds that the ACC was in its heyday
To be fair, Schieffelin missed preseason first team by one vote