ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament Preview
By Chris Brown
The ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament starts today and could see several major upsets.
The 2016 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament begins today with NC State taking on Wake Forest at noon. If the conference regular season is any indication, then fans can expect a lot of great games and possibly several upsets before the championship game on Saturday night.
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One thing to note is that the last four years is the longest stretch in which neither Duke nor UNC have won the conference tournament championship with the Blue Devils winning in 2011. Tt doesn’t seem like it will change this year with the venue moving from nearby Greensboro, N.C. to the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. before heading to Brooklyn the next two years.
The Blue Devils will be competing as the 5th seed which gives them a bye for the first round today but they will be in action tomorrow against the winner of the Demon Deacons and the Wolfpack. The ACC regular season showed us that there are no easy games, such as Virginia Tech beating a 7th ranked Miami team that could have earned a share of the regular season title with a win. Speaking of the Hokies, they are a team to look out for after surprisingly earning the 6th seed and have won their last 5 games in a row including victories over Miami and Pitt.
Duke has also had their fair share of upsets losing to Clemson and home losses to Notre Dame and Syracuse, so even though the Blue Devils have already beaten NC State and Wake Forest twice each this season, there’s still no guarantee in this year’s ACC Tournament. The last game against WF went down to the wire with Duke pulling away late with clutch free throws and you can never underestimate First Team All-ACC selection and the conference’s leading scorer Cat Barber from the Wolfpack.
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A win would match them up against the 4th seed and reigning ACC Tournament Champions Notre Dame, who beat Duke already during the regular season in a tight game where freshman Luke Kennard poured-in a career high 30 points. The Fighting Irish had an up-and-down season beating Duke, UNC, and Louisville but losing to Georgia Tech and Florida State, in addition to losing 3 of their last 5 games.
There is also the potential for a Duke-UNC Part 3, if both teams win out and advance to the semifinals. The regular season series split 1-1 with both teams winning close games on the road, and it would be interesting to see who wins on a neutral court.
One possible issue for Duke is the structure of the tournament, with the Blue Devils travelling to Washington, D.C. today and will have to win 4 games in 4 consecutive days to win the tournament. The team already struggles with depth so playing games back-to-back will not provide a lot of time for players to rest. When Mike Krzyzewski was asked about this, he said the Blue Devils will just take it one game at a time, “Let’s just play the first game and if we win, we get to play the second game”.
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Coach K also gave a brief injury report after the UNC game saying that center Marshall Plumlee tweaked his ankle and guard Grayson Allen was having minor issues with his foot. So the main priority now should be for Duke to get healthy in order to make deep ACC and NCAA tournament runs down the stretch.
Be sure to check out the Blue Devils as they compete in the 2016 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament this week starting tomorrow at 2:00 pm and we’ll make sure to keep you updated on all of your Duke Basketball news and updates throughout the tournament.