Three teams, one conference and a world of questions to answer entering the ACC tournament. Is North Carolina the best team no one’s been talking about? Has Duke hit the wall? Is Virginia Tech collapsing? We’re about to find out.
North Carolina
At the close of the fall semester, as UNC was limping to a 7-4 start and freshman Harrison Barnes was looking like, well, a freshman, the Tar Heels weren’t on anybody’s national championship radar. Since then, they’re 17-2 and Barnes — a preseason All-America selection — is averaging a shade over 15 points a game. More importantly, he’s making clutch shots. Down one late against Florida State, Roy Williams cleared the floor for Barnes, who calmly hit a game-winning 3-pointer. Three days later, it was Barnes making big shots in traffic against Duke to lift UNC to the ACC regular-season title. The Blue Devils have hogged all the ink on Tobacco Road this season — and rightfully so — but North Carolina should get serious consideration for a top seed if it wins the ACC tournament.
Virginia Tech
Seth Greenberg’s Hokies took all the momentum from their win over Duke and flushed it down the toilet by losing two straight to close the regular season. Once considered a near lock to reach the NCAA tournament, Virginia Tech now needs at least one more win. A troubling fact: The Hokies were 0-3 against Boston College and Clemson, two teams with similar resumes and easier first-round games in Greensboro.
Duke
Perhaps it just took until now to realize how critical the loss of Kyrie Irving was to the Blue Devils’ chances to repeat as national champions. A few factors to consider: Nolan Smith has been sensational, which helped mask the loss of Irving. But even Smith — who took a quantum leap forward this season in his ability to create his own shot — is still more of a shooter than a facilitator. It’s also been a terrible season for the ACC. In any other year, in a typically strong and deep conference, this Duke team likely would have two or three extra losses and we would have seen the cracks earlier. Bottom line: The Blue Devils have dropped two of three and didn’t look very convincing against Clemson either.
