ACC preview: Rivals Duke, North Carolina early conference favorites

Jon Scheyer's third season at No. 7 Duke begins as the Atlantic Coast Conference favorite, even while adding 10 newcomers and preparing to lean on a freshman earning All-America recognition before ever playing a college game.

Ninth-ranked North Carolina has its typically lofty status and the nation's only returning first-team Associated Press All-American in RJ Davis.

Beyond that, the ACC needs someone — multiple someones, actually — to step up.

The ACC has spent months working to counter questions about its top-to-bottom quality amid lower-than-expected returns with bids to the NCAA Tournament and examining how to change that trajectory. Yet even as the league continues to outperform peers in March, it's the November-to-February part that needs bolstering as the ACC opens with only the Blue Devils and Tar Heels in the preseason AP Top 25.

“There is some pointing, about, 'Hey, take a look, our teams not only get into the tournament but more importantly they perform at the highest level that you can imagine,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips told The Associated Press.

Yet the work to change that narrative starts in November as league teams take on nonconference matchups that will be the building blocks to Selection Sunday resumes.

That puts the burden on teams like Wake Forest, Clemson — which reached its first Elite Eight last year since the tournament's expansion to 64 teams in 1985 — Virginia, Miami or a Pittsburgh team that fell on the wrong side of last year's bubble. Or N.C. State, which last year made an improbable run to its first ACC Tournament title since 1987 and first Final Four since 1983.

And there are plenty of opportunities in the first six weeks for the league to help itself, starting at the top with Duke (No. 1 Kansas, No. 10 Arizona and No. 11 Auburn) and UNC (Kansas and No. 2 Alabama).

The list goes on for teams picked in the top half of the league like Wake Forest (No. 13 Texas A&M), Clemson (Kentucky), Virginia (No. 12 Tennessee), Miami (No. 16 Arkansas) and N.C. State (Kansas, No. 14 Purdue and No. 19 Texas).

“Now it’s just about playing the games and taking advantage of our opportunities, right?” second-year Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “Especially early in the year. You know, change the narrative of everybody by playing really well in November and December so people are talking about our league in a positive light before we get to conference play.”

Attention at Duke will focus on star freshman Cooper Flagg, named to the preseason AP All-America team and was being discussed as a potential No. 1 overall NBA draft pick before ever getting to campus.

For Scheyer, it's about more than Flagg's potential.

“The most talented teams haven't necessarily won the biggest. The most together teams have," Scheyer said. "That's why for us, this spring and summer, you need to have enough talent, no question. But the connectivity, the embracing of different roles and the blending of different talents is the most important thing.”

Davis, last year's ACC player of the year, led the conference in scoring (21.2 points) and posted the program's fourth-highest points output (784). If he matched that in his fifth year of eligibility, he would tie program great Tyler Hansbrough for the ACC's career scoring record (2,872).

“That's not my main focus,” Davis told the AP. “I feel like if I pride myself on trying to make the scoring record, things are not going to go as planned and may not go as well.”

Virginia faces a major shakeup on the eve of the season with the sudden retirement of coach Tony Bennett, who was the ACC's only active coach with a national championship after recent retirements of Hall of Famers like North Carolina's Roy Williams (2021), Duke's Mike Krzyzewski (2022) and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim (2023).

Assistant Ron Sanchez, who resigned as Charlotte's coach in June 2023 and returned to Bennett's staff, is the interim coach as the program tries to move forward.

Stanford, Cal and SMU are the new additions to the league in its expansion to a coast-to-coast footprint, which required changes to manage travel demands.

The league has set up a 2-for-1 scheduling approach: play two games for every one cross-country trip and essentially alternate weekends playing at home versus on the road, typically on Wednesdays and Saturdays before following with a home game.

There are three new coaches on the men's side beyond Sanchez's interim status.

Pat Kelsey left College of Charleston to try to end years of struggle at tradition-rich Louisville. Andy Enfield left USC to take over at SMU in time for its exit from the American Athletic Conference, and he'll see a familiar opponent with former Pac-12 peer Stanford under former Washington State coach Kyle Smith.

“It is ironic to go to SMU and then have (Cal and Stanford) come and be the three new teams here in the ACC,” Enfield said.

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