After spending decades as a perennial basketball powerhouse, the Atlantic Coast Conference hit rock bottom last year.
Heading into the 2025 NCAA Tournament, the ACC had sent a record-low four out of 18 schools (22.2%) to the 68-team field — its lowest percentage of bids in the league’s entire history. Out of those four teams, only one survived the first weekend, with Clemson, Louisville, and North Carolina falling in the first round and Duke being the sole program to advance to the Round of 32.
Last year’s dismal showing marked the first time the conference had one or fewer teams alive past the first game since the expansion of March Madness in 1975.
Fortunately, the shortcomings appear to be short-lived, and as the ACC gears up to tip off conference play on Dec. 30, its overall success over the first two months of the season have indicated it will return to its former perch as one of college basketball’s most elite leagues.
Miami is one of the reasons why.
Not even halfway through this year’s schedule, the Hurricanes (11-2) have already shattered their win total from their catastrophic 2024-25 season, when they finished with a 7-24 record, tying for the most single-season losses in the program’s lengthy history.
They are one of the many teams in the conference that have performed a complete turnaround from last year, helping to restore the ACC’s national prominence after taking a backseat to the SEC in 2025, which sent a record-breaking 14 out of its 16 member teams to the NCAA Tournament.
Under new head coach Jai Lucas, whose roster approach of assembling a sunshine syndicate of local Florida talent injected the tonal shift in culture and chemistry the group had been lacking last season, Miami was humming through November and December. In 13 non-conference games, the ‘Canes have won 11 of them, a complete turnaround under Lucas.
With its only losses coming to current national champions Florida and No. 10 BYU and its offensive and defensive dominance highlighted in key statistical categories, the Hurricanes seem to be checking all the boxes of an NCAA Tournament-caliber team early on.
But the true test still awaits.
For Miami, the full picture won’t be painted until it begins conference play, which will provide the real measuring stick to determining the team’s true ceiling as to if they’ll be capable of playing into March.
As it stands, not a single team enters its ACC schedule below .500, proving just how unforgiving and cutthroat the league remains. With that in mind, here’s a comprehensive look at the juggernauts that lie ahead for Miami over its final 18 regular-season games.
The teams to watch
Duke
The Duke Blue Devils are still at the top of the totem pole and will once again be the team to beat in the ACC.
Fortunately for Miami, the reigning ACC champions are the only team not on the Hurricanes’ schedule this season, meaning Jai Lucas’ reunion with his former team will have to wait another year.
The Blue Devils were by far the conference’s most successful representative last year, advancing to the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament while being led by Cooper Flagg, the generational freshman sensation who garnered ACC and National Player of the Year accolades.
Despite losing a player of his pedigree, Duke hasn’t missed a beat, sitting at 11-1 and ranked No. 6 in the country after non-conference play.
A major factor of their sustained dominance from one season to the next has been their ability to replace the irreplaceable. To the rest of college basketball’s chagrin, Duke has seamlessly transitioned from one NCAA superstar to another, swapping Flagg for Cameron Boozer.
The highly-touted freshman and Christopher Columbus High School product is picking up right where ‘The Maine Event’ left off, leading the race as the clear-cut favorite for Freshman of the Year and National Player of the Year.
Boozer has been a force on both ends of the court, profiling as one of the nation’s most complete prospects in terms of both output and skillset. The son of longtime NBA star Carlos Boozer, Cameron leads the country in scoring and has proven to be a winner at every level he’s competed.
Although not one of the flashiest players in this year’s loaded freshman class, the domineering forward entered the scene with top-three expectations and has lived up to all of the hype. If he can continue to produce at the same rate over the remainder of the season, Boozer has a legitimate path to becoming the number one overall pick in next year’s NBA draft.
The Blue Devils looked invincible through their first 11 games, going unbeaten while rolling past four elite programs in Kansas, Arkansas, Florida, and Michigan State. But they couldn’t stay undefeated through Christmas, choking a 17-point second-half lead against Texas Tech at Madison Square Garden to suffer their first loss of the season in the final tune-up before their ACC opener.
It remains to be seen if the late-game implosion was a microcosm of what’s to come down the line for Duke or if it was just an inexplicable fluke. Nevertheless, they are yet again positioned to be a national contender and the outright ACC title favorites for the second straight year.
North Carolina
Following a tumultuous 2024/25 season that thrust North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis onto the hot seat, the Tar Heels are back to playing up to its expected level as one of college basketball’s most fabled blue blood programs.
UNC was unceremoniously bounced from the first round of March Madness nine months ago after a lackluster 23-13 regular-season record was controversially just enough to earn them a spot in the dance as the No. 11 seed.
However, it has become eminently clear that this year is a different story.
North Carolina is 12-1 and off to their best start in 17 years. The No. 12 Tar Heels have not had 11 wins in their first 12 games since they won the national championship in the 2008/09 season. Over this stretch, they’ve defeated the likes of Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio State, each of which were ranked within the preseason top 30.
While Cameron Boozer continues to be one of the best players in the country and projects as a top-3 draft pick, the gap between him and UNC’s five star freshman Caleb Wilson is not as wide as one might think.
The 6’10, 216 pound forward leads the Tar Heels in points and has registered an ACC-best 11 rebounds per game. He has also recorded nine games with more than 20 points, the most by any freshman in the country. Based on his performances up to this point, Wilson could easily challenge Boozer as the top first-year player across all leagues as the season progresses.
Last season’s adversity clearly lit a fire under Davis and North Carolina, and the group is playing with a new sense of energy and urgency because of it. The Tar Heels are more dangerous than ever, and they are rapidly emerging as a team that no other ACC school will want to play against over the ensuing months.
Louisville
If Duke and North Carolina are the traditional blue bloods that have long reigned at the top of the ACC, the Louisville Cardinals are the new kids on the block looking to disrupt the natural balance of power.
Second-year head coach Pat Kelsey has transformed Louisville from rags to riches, going from an ACC-worst 8-24 in 2023-24 to challenging for the conference title with a 27-8 overall record last year in his first season at the helm.
Entering ACC play, the No. 16 Cardinals are 10-2 with ranked wins against Kentucky and Indiana.
Elite freshman guard Mikel Brown Jr. and transfer portal acquisitions Ryan Conwell and Isaac McKneely have led the charge over this 12-game span.
Kelsey and his squad will look to take the next big leap for the program and capture their first ever conference regular season or tournament title in school history.
As for The Big Dance, Louisville will aim to seek its first tournament win since 2017 after a first-round exit left a sour note on an otherwise resoundingly successful 2024/25 season.
Virginia
It’s a new era in Charlottesville, and year one of the Ryan Odom regime is off to a promising start.
Virginia was thrown into turmoil in its 2024/25 campaign, stumbling to a losing record after the sudden retirement of legendary head coach Tony Bennett just a week before the season began.
For his replacement, the Cavaliers turned to former UMBC coach Ryan Odom, the man responsible for the first 16-over-1 upset in NCAA Tournament history, stunning top-seeded UVA and forever etching his name into March Madness lore and Virginia infamy.
That is, until the school hired him on March 21.
Through the first two months, the Hoos have found lightning in a bottle on the scoring end, leading the ACC in three-point shooting and ranking third in field goal percentage.
Much of Odom’s first-year success can be attributed to Virginia’s influx of talent over the offseason. The Cavaliers added key contributors in Malik Thomas, Dallin Hall, and Jacarri White by way of the transfer portal along with true freshman standouts Chance Mallory and Johann Grünloh to the rotation, amplifying their offensive firepower.
But possibly their biggest impact player this season has been Thijs De Ridder, the star freshman forward from Belgium who leads the team in scoring. De Ridder headlines the latest wave of international players to make the jump from professional leagues overseas to the collegiate ranks of NCAA Division I basketball in America.
Standing at 11-1 before their first conference clash against in-state rivals Virginia Tech, No. 21 Virginia will look to build on their early momentum in the hopes of punching their ticket to the NCAA Tournament in March.
Miami will begin ACC play on Tuesday, Dec. 30 against the Pitt Panthers (7-6). Tipoff at the Watsco Center is set for 7 p.m. and will air on the ACC Network.
Liam Hickey
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