WASHINGTON — Conference tournament drama was practically invented by the ACC, and this year’s no different. That will be on display Wednesday at Verizon Center, with two teams (Pittsburgh and Syracuse) and possibly a third (Florida State) likely fighting for their NCAA lives on Day 2.
But enough about that … here’s Duke.
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Mike Krzyzewski's bunch is always intriguing for the usual reasons, but this year it’s for a few different reasons. Start with the fact they’re playing on Day 2, with the bubble teams and also-rans and dreamers, a place they’re not accustomed to being.
The defending national champs normally don’t appear on the scene until the quarterfinals, but this is a reminder that this hasn’t been a normal season.
This year's Blue Devils arrive as the fifth seed (and that by the grace of Louisville’s self-imposed postseason ban), without their accustomed double-bye, ranked 19th, and carrying seven conference losses. On Wednesday afternoon they'll face an N.C. State team that edged Wake Forest on Day 1 and didn’t embarrass itself in its two regular-season losses to Duke.
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How often does Duke “need” wins in the ACC Tournament, except when a win or a loss could decide a No. 1 seed? It is comfortably in, but in Sporting News’s latest NCAA Field of 68 projection, it's a No. 5 seed, which means that a loss before, say, the semifinals, could knock it back further.
It has been a while since the Blue Devils were in such a spot — 2007, to be exact.
That was the last time they played this early in the ACC Tournament, and they lost their opener … to N.C. State. They entered the NCAAs as a 6-seed. They lost their first game, to VCU, one of the more memorable first-round upsets in recent years.
They had lost some notable pieces from the previous year then, too: J.J. Redick and Sheldon Williams. The newcomers (Jon Scheyer, Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek) helped build the 2010 national championship from those ashes. But until then — like the unpredictable, somewhat flawed core of this year’s team — they had to answer a lot of questions about being letdowns.
Many of the questions were asked a year after the VCU loss, in 2008. Duke went into the NCAA Tournament, barely survived Belmont, then lost to West Virginia in the second round.
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Those games were in Verizon Center. It’s just a coincidence, but not a particularly positive one.
Taking anyone, much less the next opponent, for granted isn't an option. The 12th-seeded Wolfpack have ACC scoring champion Cat Barber, and freshman Maverick Rowan, who hit six 3-pointers in Tuesday’s win.
Duke’s likely opponents after that: fourth-ranked Virginia, 11th-ranked Miami and seventh-ranked (but does that even matter?) North Carolina.
Before it thinks of getting there, though, Duke has to play on Day 2 of the tournament. That makes the day much more fascinating than it usually is.