Duke basketball: Top 10 ACC players for 2020-21 season
By Matt Giles
How many Duke basketball players are among the top 10 in the ACC this year?
In each of the 40 Duke basketball seasons under Mike Krzyzewski, at least one Blue Devil has landed on the All-ACC First Team or Second Team. Remarkably, the program’s streak in this respect dates all the way back to the 1974-75 season, representing by far the longest such mark in conference history.
During this span, even North Carolina failed to produce any of the league’s 10 best individual campaigns in 1990, 2002, 2003, 2010, and 2015.
Also worth noting, for two years in a row now, the All-ACC First Team has included two Blue Devils (Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett in 2019, Tre Jones and Vernon Carey Jr. in 2020). And at least one Blue Devil has earned First Team honors every year since 2008 and in all but six seasons since Krzyzewski’s arrival in Durham in 1980.
ALSO READ: Ranking all 40 Duke teams under Coach K
Plus, Duke is the only school to have ever seen three of its guys on one All-ACC First Team (2002 via Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy, and Carlos Boozer).
So do the Blue Devils stand any chance to match that record amount at the end of the 2020-21 regular season? Will there be even one Duke name to make the First Team? Or might the 46-year streak, of at least one Dukie on either the First Team or Second Team, now be in jeopardy?
Well, let’s attempt to find out those answers in advance here by forecasting the top 10 ACC players…