It's been clear for a while that the 2024 edition was not your father's, or even your older brother's, ACC. With North Carolina struggling just to make the NCAA Tournament, recent powers like Virginia and Syracuse lost in the wilderness and the traditional middle class (NC State, Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, Miami) refusing to get its act together, the conference was less nationally relevant this season than it has been in a very long time. Just three teams were ranked in the AP Top 25 entering the Big Dance.
But while we knew things weren't great, we still weren't expecting ... this. To say that the ACC fell flat to start the tournament would be an understatement: 8-seed Louisville responded to perceived selection committee disrespect by getting run out of its own backyard against Creighton, and then 5-seed Clemson flat no-showed in an embarrassing loss to 12-seed McNeese. It's not just that two of their four teams in the tourney went down in the first afternoon; it's that they were completely overmatched.
Which begs the question: What does that mean for the one team in this conference that hasn't underachieved this year? Duke enters the dance as one of the favorites to win it all on the heels of a very impressive regular season. Based on how the ACC has fared so far, though, it's fair to call that resume into question.
Does ACC's awful start to NCAA Tournament bode poorly for Duke?
Of course, it's also fair to point out that the Blue Devils are in a class of their own physically, with Player of the Year frontrunner Cooper Flagg leading an army of long, switchable defenders that have smothered everybody they've faced this season. And that includes teams from outside the ACC, as their non-conference schedule included wins over Arizona and No. 1 overall seed Auburn.
But it also included losses to Kansas and Kentucky, two good but certainly not great teams. Clemson and Louisville were the only two teams to give Duke much of any problems during conference play — the Tigers even handed the Blue Devils their lone ACC loss this year — and both looked very much not ready for prime time. Duke may still make a run to the Final Four, but at this point it seems clear that their overwhelming regular-season performance was at least as much a product of who they were playing.
We'll find out just how real this Duke team is in the coming days. While 16-seed Mount St. Mary's won't offer much resistance, the Devils' path through the East region features potential matchups against either Baylor (with future lottery pick VJ Edgecombe) or Mississippi State from the rugged SEC, and then possibly a rematch with Arizona or a matchup with 5-seed Oregon from the Big Ten in the Sweet 16. And if they make it past that, 2-seed Alabama could be waiting with one of the country's most impressive resumes.
Again, no one should be shocked if Duke proves that they're elite no matter what conference they're playing in. We should have some doubts, though, based on what we've seen so far.