The ACC Basketball Tournament in Charlotte begins Tuesday, March 10th and concludes on Saturday, the day before Selection Sunday.
For one-bid conferences like the Horizon League, teams like UW-Green Bay and Wright State are battling for their season with the league champion getting in and everyone else being done for the year. Those conferences, the conference tournament is in some ways bigger than the NCAA Tournament — where a blowout loss to a team like Michigan is an anti-climatic ending to a championship season.
For the ACC, the conference tournament can offer a last gasp long-shot hope to teams that haven’t played their way in as an at-large yet. In 2024, NC State was the 10-seed in the ACC tournament and won five games in five days to win the ACC and make the NCAA tournament as an 11-seed — the first ever to do the impossible 5-0 run in the ACC. They continued that run to the Final Four. In 2022, Virginia Tech won four games in four days as the 7-seed beating 10-seed Clemson in their first game and throttling Duke by 15 in the championship game. That got them into the tournament as an 11-seed.
Those are exciting Cinderella stories, but in the last 20 years, it has only happened three times with the other occurrence coming in 2017 when Duke won it as a 5-seed. They were the first to do it by winning four games in four days. They earned a 2-seed and lost in the second round to South Carolina in the Gamecocks’ Final Four season, proving ACC tournament momentum doesn’t always do much for you in the NCAA tournament.
The ACC is primed to get at least seven NCAA tournament bids (listed below with projected seed-lines):
- Duke (1-seed)
- Virginia (3-seed)
- Louisville (5-seed)
- North Carolina (6-seed)
- Miami (7-seed)
- Clemson (8-seed)
- NC State (9-seed)
There are also four teams that need some sort of run to make an at-large bid. That leaves four teams that need to win the ACC tournament to get a bid and finally three that are already eliminated and their season is over. Let’s break it all down.
Out of the Tournament
Georgia Tech, Boston College, and Notre Dame all finished with 4 or fewer ACC wins. With 18 teams in the conference and only 15 making the tournament, their seasons are done and now turn to big decisions on if they will make a change at head coach. For what it’s worth, I love that the ACC doesn’t include these teams for many reasons, but a big one is that they’d put ACC bubble teams at risk of taking a bad loss in the tournament that costs them an at-large bid.
A shoutout to our friends at Section 103
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Tuesday Games
12. Virginia Tech vs 13. Wake Forest: The Hokies lost to Virginia on Saturday, putting themselves decisively on the wrong side of the bubble. Wake Forest meanwhile beat Cal to put the Bears on the wrong side of the bubble. It wasn’t a good Saturday for the ACC. Now the Hokies need to go on a run in Charlotte and that starts with a third game against Wake Forest. They lost close in Winston-Salem, they won big in Blacksburg, and now they must win in a neutral site to have any chance to make the NCAA tournament. They are currently 55th in the NET and only 2-9 in Quad 1 games.
11. SMU vs 14. Syracuse: SMU lost to FSU on Saturday — their fourth straight — to put themselves on the bubble. They seemed like a lock nearly all season, but this is probably an elimination game for them. It would definitely be better for the ACC if SMU can win this one. Boopie Miller is on a run of six straight 20-point games with 28+ in each of the last three. He is one of the more overlooked superstars in the country.
10. Stanford vs 15. Pittsburgh: The Cardinals beat NC State on Saturday to potentially give themselves a little life. They’ve won four in a row and have 20 wins. They’re 4-6 in Quad 1 and 8-8 in Quad 1+2.
Single Bye Teams
5. Clemson will face the winner of 12. Virginia Tech v. 13. Wake Forest. The Tigers had a double bye all but locked up before losing 5 of their last 7 games – they nearly lost to GT too! Interestingly, during the Tigers’ stretch of poor play, two of the more disappointing losses came against Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. In both cases, they got torched from 3. A rematch offers the perfect chance to right the ship and feel like things have corrected themselves.
Clemson has never won the ACC tournament and has struggled even in Coach Brownell’s best years. It just seems the team doesn’t elevate for this tournament. Coach Brownell is just 8-14 in the tournament and has never won multiple ACC tournament games. In fact, Coach Oliver Purnell went winless in his final two ACC tournaments, leaving the magical 2008 title run when they lost to North Carolina in the Championship game as the last time they won multiple ACC tournament games (2).
This game won’t do much for Clemson’s seeding and it frankly isn’t the end of the world if they lose (losing to Boston College two years ago was a blessing in disguise). A win however would give them a Quad 1 game against UNC which would feel like a big revenge matchup after last week’s close loss in Chapel Hill. That could move the needle a bit for seeding and change the momentum heading into the big dance.
One thing to monitor is player rotations. Butta Johnson has been getting more minutes and giving the team a boost. Late in the game against Georgia Tech, Ace Buckner was on the floor more than Dillon Hunter. Hunter has struggled immensely during Clemson’s past 10 or so games and Buckner has proven more trustworthy. Hunter is a beloved senior, but Ace is delivering more consistently.
6. Louisville will face the winner of 11. SMU vs. 14. Syracuse and anything can happen. Louisville is an enigma. After having a massive turnaround last year much like Miami’s this season, they entered year two under Pat Kelsey with high expectations. A lot of money was spent to lure top transfers Ryan Conwell (Xavier) and Isaac McKneely (Virginia) and highly rated freshman Mikel Brown, but they’re only 5-9 vs. Quad 1 including a 31-point loss to Duke, a 21-point loss to Tennessee, a 10-point loss to SMU, and a 5-point loss to Clemson that more realistically should have been double-digits if not for garbage time 3s.
According to Evan Miya, they have one of the biggest opponent adjustments in the ACC, meaning they annihilate the bad teams – padding their stats and metrics in the process – but lose to the good ones. The NET and KenPom love them, but their heavy 3-point reliance makes them volatile. Despite KenPom ranking their defense highly, I don’t believe in it. Their 85-95 loss to SMU scarred me. That was a horrific defensive basketball game and we’ll probably see a rematch.
7.NC State will face the winner of 10. Stanford vs. 15. Pittsburgh. According to Evan Miya, nobody has a bigger opponent adjustment than NC State in terms of playing better against bad teams. The Wolfpack have lost 6 of 7 after losing to Stanford on Saturday. Their only win in that stretch came at home against UNC when they didn’t have Henri Veesaar. Luckily for them, the NET doesn’t discount the win for that. They also own wins over Clemson and SMU. They’re probably safe, but perhaps they could slip into a play-in game if they lose this game. At minimum, they need to change the momentum.
8. Florida State vs 9. California: In this weird 15-team format (It should be 14!), there are two teams that get a single bye, and then play each other rather than a team that played on Tuesday. This year it will be the red hot Seminoles against the bubbly Cal Bears. Florida State was so bad the first half of the year they were 7-11 (0-5) and essentially eliminated from the NCAA tournament. They then went on a tear that undermined the ACC’s postseason fortunes. They beat Cal, Stanford, Virginia Tech, and SMU during that stretch. Oh, if they had only played them earlier all would have far better outlooks. Now, they’ll likely give the Cal Bears their final death blow in this 8 vs 9 game. In their season-ending win over SMU, Chauncey Wiggins scored 31 points. Where was this guy last year when he played for Clemson?
Double Bye Teams
1. Duke is the 1-seed and prohibitive favorite according to FanDuel odds. Not only do they have an elite offense, but this version of the Blue Devils is actually a defense-first squad. They play suffocating, elite man-to-man defense. They’re my favorite to win not only this tournament, but the NCAA tournament. Jon Scheyer deserves Coach of the Year. I had previously thought the honor would go to Coach Brownell, but the Tigers spiraled late in the season. Virginia’s Ryan Odom and Miami’s Jai Lucus are extremely deserving, but if Scheyer doesn’t win it this year then coaches of top blue blood programs simply cannot win it.
2. Virginia is a rock solid 2-seed. They’re super balanced, deep, and formidable. They have the third-best offense (behind Duke and Louisville) and the third best defense (behind Duke and Clemson) in the conference according to Evan Miya. They don’t have a singular superstar like Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson, or Ebuka Okorie (Thijs De Ritter is close), but they play team basketball. I don’t think they can beat Duke if Duke is healthy and playing near their average-level, but you could say that about anybody in the ACC, even the more up-and-down teams with high ceilings like Louisville and NC State who both got slaughtered by the Blue Devils.
3. Miami has been a wild turnaround story under Jai Lucus. They were 7-24 (3-17) last year. Coach Lucus came in from Duke where he was an assistant and rebuilt it in one offseason. That’s the magic of the portal. They brought in Tre Donaldson from Michigan, Malik Reneau from Indiana, Ernest Udeh from TCU, and Shelton Henderson from high school. Like Duke, they’re good offensively but better defensively. Unlike Duke, their record is boosted by a relatively light schedule that included only 2 top 75 non-conference opponents (per KenPom) and did not include Duke in the ACC slate. Still, they are consistent and difficult to upset. They have no bad losses all year (Cal and FSU being their worst two). I was a bit surprised to see them end their season with a home loss to Louisville where they surrendered 92, but the Cardinals shot 50% from 3 and that’s hard to beat.
4. North Carolina was primed to be a sneaky March Madness pick before this news broke:
UNC has done an incredible job battling through injuries all season. They were without their best guard, Seth Trimble, for most of non-conference play. Henri Veesaar, the transfer from Arizona, has been excellent. He is a true post player but can also stretch the and knock down a 3 if you fall into drop coverage. He is 33-80 (.412) from 3 on the season. He missed two games which is largely to blame for their loss to NC State. The Caleb Wilson injury is the biggest news though. He already missed time with a broken hand and was primed to return vs. Duke but broke the thumb on the other hand in practice. With him out, they are unlikely to knock off the teams ahead of them in the seeding here or in March. A rematch with Clemson at a neutral site will be fascinating after a final possession type win over Clemson in the Dean Dome last week.
Final Thoughts and Predictions
I don’t mean to be doom and gloom, but Duke getting crowned on Saturday feels inevitable. What will be most interesting will be to see if at least one of SMU, Virginia Tech, Cal, or Stanford can make a run and save their season. SMU may just need to win one to put themselves in a good spot for Selection Sunday but the other three need to do something more memorable. Clemson and NC State also need to win some games to change their momentum — if momentum is something you believe in. I’ll pick Clemson to win a game, and I do like the idea of rematching UNC, but I won’t pick Clemson to win multiple ACC games simply because they haven’t done it in nearly 20 years.