The ACC hoops world, according to Luke DeCock: Promising outlooks for NC’s Big Four

If the ACC wants the respect on Selection Sunday it tends to retroactively deserve with its play in the NCAA tournament, it needs to win more big nonconference games and stop losing the ones it should win. You can argue whether that’s the way it should be or not, but that’s the way it is. That’s been the case since 2019. It remains the case now.

And that’s true not only of teams like Duke and North Carolina that should only have seeding to worry about or teams with realistic chances to make the tournament; it’s true of likely bottom-dwellers like California, Stanford and Boston College. The league is only as strong as its weakest link, and the closer those teams can get to the top 100 the better off the rest of the league will be.

So while marquee games like UNC-Kansas and Duke-Kentucky and Louisville-Tennessee leap off the schedule, the ACC can’t afford to have, say, BC lose to Loyola-Maryland or Stanford lose to Utah Valley. Even the bad teams have to win their winnable games, or they’ll drag everyone else down with them. The Wake Forests and Miamis of the world still have to win their way in, but they’ll have an easier time of it if they’re not dragging the same dead weight along that ACC teams have the past few years — and that was before Cal and Stanford arrived threatening to make things even worse.

The prescription is the same: Win more games in November and December and be rewarded come March. But it applies to all 18 teams, not just the dozen or so that actually have a shot to make the field of 68.

North Carolina

Armando Bacot, Caleb Love and R.J. Davis couldn’t recapture the magic of 2022 in 2023.

Bacot and Davis couldn’t recapture the magic of 2022 in 2024.

Davis has one last shot in 2025.

The fourth year of the Hubert Davis era begins with one holdover from the first, a legitimate superstar who has stuck it out for his entire career in the ACC, at one school, just like the old days. Regardless of what’s happened before, Davis has this season to completely define — or redefine — his legacy.

While Davis, Eliot Cadeau and Seth Trimble give North Carolina a versatile, veteran backcourt, it will be a different UNC team without Bacot as the focal point in the post. Could that allow for more fluid, five-out offense that allows Davis to shine as a shooter, scorer and creator? If Jalen Washington, Jae’Lyn Withers and Ven-Allen Lubin can hold their own on the boards and defend the post, there may be new, faster-paced possibilities for the Tar Heels with the ball, both in transition and in the halfcourt.

One thing hasn’t changed: The expectations remain as high as they ever were, and last year’s second-weekend exit doesn’t cut it, let alone anything that happened in 2023. Everything North Carolina does this season will revolve around Davis. This is his team. He’s unquestionably capable. Fairly or unfairly, he’ll get the credit. Or the blame.

ACC media poll: 2nd

Luke’s ACC prediction: 2nd

Luke’s NCAA seeding prediction: 2

NC State

Put aside, for the moment, N.C. State’s nine-game March winning streak that ended years of angst and finally delivered postseason success for long-suffering Wolfpack fans. No one expects that again, especially with the D.J.s Horne and Burns departed, among others.

But let’s also not forget the Wolfpack was playing on Tuesday in the ACC tournament, the product of a four-game losing streak to close out an up-and-down regular season. So postseason aside — and that’s a big aside — the shoes that need filling aren’t as big as they might seem otherwise.

Kevin Keatts has proven adept at remaking his roster on the fly, and has done well with multiple-year transfers, this year represented by returnees Michael O’Connell, Jayden Taylor and Ben Middlebrooks. And then there’s the usual wave of newcomers – hotshot freshman Paul McNeil, Louisville transfers Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Mike James, former North Carolina player Dontrez Styles and Marcus Hill, a volume scorer at Bowling Green. Someone from that group is going to have to step up and handle the scoring load.

Everything at this point suggests N.C. State will be right back on the bubble come March. They’ll all play under the new banners last year’s team earned, but they can do that team one better by leaving no doubt.

ACC media poll: 8th

Luke’s ACC prediction: 6th

Luke’s NCAA seeding prediction: 9

Duke

If there’s a program that won’t have to adjust to being in the white-hot spotlight Cooper Flagg will bring, it’s Duke. Even when there’s not a Flagg or Zion Williamson on the roster, even without Mike Krzyzewski on the bench, there’s no more polarizing or visible program in college basketball. With rare exceptions, the one thing people don’t feel about Duke is indifference.

So having the presumptive top pick in the NBA draft and potential player of the year for his one year in college isn’t anything new for Duke, but the pressure that comes with it will be. Just as Krzyzewski was under extraordinary pressure to get back to the Final Four in the Zion Year and in his final season, the combination of Flagg and a 3-2 NCAA tournament record makes this a San Antonio-or-bust season for Jon Scheyer.

That’s it. Even an ACC title won’t cut it without at least four wins to follow.

As always, there’s more than enough talent to do it, it’s just a question of who fills what roles after Flagg and Tyrese Proctor. (It’s easy to forget Proctor came in a year early; this is really his sophomore year by age.) Flagg is a versatile two-way forward who can play and guard multiple positions and Proctor will have the ball in his hands, but Duke has to find some shooters around them. Returnee Caleb Foster? Transfer Sion James? Freshman Kon Knueppel? That answer — veteran transfers Maliq Brown (Syracuse) and Mason Gillis (Purdue) are more limited, but known quantities — may determine Duke’s ceiling, but the floor is high.

ACC media poll: 1st

Luke’s ACC prediction: 1st

Luke’s NCAA seeding prediction: 1

Wake Forest

Always knocking on the door but never quite getting through under Steve Forbes, the Demon Deacons finally caught a program-changing break when Hunter Sallis decided to return. In a league without Davis or Flagg, he might be the preseason player of the year, and he gives Wake an impact scorer who can single-handedly win games on his own on any given night.

Add in returnees Efton Reid and Cameron Hildreth, and the Deacons have a core that has been through the wars together and won’t encounter any surprises in the ACC, and Iowa State transfer Omaha Biliew is a classic Forbes transfer, a top recruit lost in the shuffle at another program who could emerge as a front-court threat at Wake Forest.

This is the year for Wake Forest, which has finished .500 or better in the ACC the past three seasons but failed to earn an NCAA tournament bid. The Deacons have four nonconference opportunities to put themselves on the right side of the bubble: Michigan, Xavier, Florida and Texas A&M. Now is the time.

ACC media poll: 3rd

Luke’s ACC prediction: 4th

Luke’s NCAA seeding prediction: 7

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This story was originally published October 30, 2024 at 5:30 AM with the headline "The ACC hoops world, according to Luke DeCock: Promising outlooks for NC’s Big Four."

Luke DeCock

The News & Observer

Luke DeCock is a former journalist for the News & Observer.