The Toughest ACC Home Courts

It may not be exactly what you expect

Go ahead and name the four toughest ACC courts for visiting teams.

Cameron Indoor Stadium immediately comes to mind, an impression reinforced by the Blue Devils’ record at home against league opposition, not to mention Duke’s perennial strength overall. Virginia, an annual regular-season power, comes close.

Lately, particularly under Hubert Davis, North Carolina has matched UVa for home prowess, even leading the ACC last season with a 9-1 record at the Dome of Dean.

Then whom else do you pick among the very toughest to visit? Under Steve Forbes Wake Forest has statistically supplanted Clemson at the forefront of ACC home court powers, matching UNC and UVa in home wins over the past three years combined.

That’s a distinct departure from recent days of somnolent, half-empty Joel Coliseum. Danny Manning’s lackluster tenure, coming on the heels of the Jeff Bzdelik’s juiceless reign, cost the Deacs the ambient excitement of the Dave Odom-Skip Prosser-Dino Gaudio years (1990-2010). During the ensuing decade losses mounted, attendance tumbled, and spectators appeared sedated by the gasoline fumes of the motorcycle driven pointlessly, pollutingly around the court by the Demon Deacon prior to games.

None of this is to say visitors can expect to venture onto other ACC courts and fare well. For instance, just measuring since 2022, a visit to Blacksburg has been as bracing as going to Clemson. But Duke, Carolina, Virginia and Wake have been notably potent at home, and going to their arenas figures to be an especial challenge this season and beyond.

(We chose to examine only the past three seasons because a small sample size is warranted. Given the numerous coaching changes, as well as player and school shuffles, a discrete period is necessary to find valid comparisons. Just in those three years a third of the ACC’s coaches have gone.)

Just for the record, Duke plays on each of the statistically toughest floors in the conference. Including its own, though that’s only for practice in an empty gym.

Duke also plays UNC and Wake home-and-home, a gratifying throwback to another era when North Carolina’s Big Four rivalries and round robin play added character, familiarity and intensity.

NC State, the fourth member of that hoary quartet, plays at Duke and takes on UNC and Wake twice each. The Wolfpack also gets to visit Virginia, giving the Wolfpack the unmatched privilege of playing at the ACC’s four toughest arenas.

Syracuse, on the other hand, plays at none of those places in 2024-25. How nice for the Orange.