Can A Young Duke Team Run The Table In The ACC?

Possibly, but it doesn't happen very often and it won’t be easy

We might as well deal with it now, unlikely as it may be. Raleigh’s News and Observer already posted a story exploring the possibility. “Can Duke basketball go unbeaten in the ACC?” the headline read on the let’s-be-first-to-print-it article. “Odds are strong; Blue Devils are that good.”

Not sure how strong “the odds” are, though, no matter how weak or strong the rest of the ACC is.

Sure, there have been undefeated ACC teams before. Eight to be exact, as the chart below indicates. But only one went through its ACC schedule without a blemish since 1987, the same Duke team that’s the one and only winner more than 14 times in a season without tasting defeat.

Those ’99 Blue Devils, arguably the ACC’s best in modern times, lost to Cincinnati in November 1998, then won 32 straight before falling to UConn in the national final. They were among the five eligible teams without an ACC loss that failed to win an NCAA title.

The unbeaten Gamecocks of 1970 lost in double-overtime in the ACC Tournament final with their star guard, ACC Player of the Year John Roche, severely handicapped by an injured ankle. Back then a single team per league, in the ACC’s case its tournament titlist, advanced to the NCAAs.

NC State went 57-1 over two seasons behind David Thompson, still the ACC’s best player ever. But the undefeated 1973 squad couldn’t advance past the ACC Tournament due to an NCAA probation related to Thompson’s recruitment.

One survivor, the ’57 Tar Heels, put ACC basketball on the map after surmounting a number of very-close calls. Their unblemished season had to survive a double-overtime result at Maryland, a last-minute escape against Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament, and consecutive triple-overtime wins in the Final Four.

Eight other ACC teams navigated a regular season with a single loss, most recently Virginia, 17-1 in 2018.

All of which shows how difficult it’s been, even for extraordinary teams, to go through an ACC season without a loss. Then add the likelihood of winning an unprecedented 20 regular-season league games without a loss; the resilience to surmount almost-unavoidable injuries to key personnel; inevitable lulls in concentration; and the pressures sure to intensify as waves of attention engulf a team heavy with underclassmen; and about a third of the way through the regular season a march to perfection seems rather against the odds.