ACC Basketball Primer: It's Duke's League Then Anyone's Guess

Filed under: ACC

It's time to press play on the conference season in most conferences across the college basketball landscape.

In the ACC, it's time to hit fast forward.

Or, for that matter, snooze.

O. Henry, put down your pen, a season of plot twists the 2011 ACC race won't be. Duke will win the league. It will be about as dramatic as an oil change. On a bicycle.

The top-ranked Blue Devils are undefeated through 13 games, 1-0 in the ACC and on the way to something in the neighborhood of 14-2 in conference play. After Duke, however, it gets awfully then awfully fast. The ACC hasn't had a second ranked team since North Carolina fell out of the rankings shortly after Thanksgiving. A few teams have exceeded expectations -- Boston College, Virginia -- while most everyone else has played below

So, the league, which in past years has usually been home to a few top 10 teams and a few more spread throughout the top 25, has one great team, a team likely to return to the top 25 in North Carolina and a mosh pit of mediocrity in the middle.

Team to Beat: Duke. Outside of the world's most famous toe, that is, the injured hallux (Latin for big toe; we vow to be educational if repetitive) belonging to freshman star Kyrie Irving, which has left the team somewhat SOL (French for, well, you know) everything has gone right for the Blue Devils this season. Mike Krzyzewski has skipped past a pair of legendary coaches, Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith, on the all times wins list, and trails only his mentor, Bobby Knight. His team has yet to receive a prolonged challenge. Six players have lead the team in scoring, four in assists. The Blue Devils are arguably the nation's best 3-point shooting team with a player some expect to be a lottery pick, sophomore Mason Plumlee, agreeably alternating double-digit point nights with two point, 10-rebound efforts out of Brian Zoubek's playbook. The Blue Devils still have to guard against settling for jumpshots, or of asking Smith to do it all as a lead guard. Liberty transfer Seth Curry will likely to continue to see heavy minutes as a second point guard on the floor to keep the pressure off Smith.

Without Irving, they're still likely the national championship favorites, but, if we may use a cycling metaphor, they're at the head of the peloton, rather than riding alone out front.

 

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