Duke Predicted to be 2025 ACC Champs
Duke was voted the preseason favorite to win the 2024-25 Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Basketball Championship, following a vote of a select media panel. Ranked No. 7 nationally in the preseason Associated Press poll, the Blue Devils are the preseason ACC favorites for the ninth time in the last 12 seasons.
The media panelists selected North Carolina’s RJ Davis as the ACC Preseason Player of the Year, while Duke’s Cooper Flagg was chosen as ACC Preseason Rookie of the Year.
Duke claimed 42 of the 54 first-place votes, accumulating 956 points. No. 9 nationally in the preseason AP poll, North Carolina took second in the ACC preseason prognostications with 11 first-place votes and 924 total points. Wake Forest was third in the ACC poll with one first-place vote and 800 points as the Demon Deacons claimed their highest preseason ranking since 2009 when they tied for second in the preseason poll.
Coming off an NCAA Elite Eight appearance, Clemson (765 points) was picked fourth in the poll, while Virginia (743) was fifth. Miami (659) and Pitt (636) were right behind in sixth and seventh, respectively. Reigning ACC champion NC State, fresh off its first Final Four appearance since 1983, placed eighth in the preseason poll.
Louisville was ninth in the poll and was followed in 10th through 18th, respectively, by Notre Dame, Syracuse, Georgia Tech, SMU, Virginia Tech, Florida State, California, Stanford and Boston College.
The reigning ACC Player of the Year and a First-Team All-ACC honoree last season, Davis headlines the Preseason All-ACC Team and is joined on the first team by Duke’s Cooper Flagg, Miami’s Nijel Pack, Notre Dame’s Markus Burton and Wake Forest’s Hunter Sallis. Sallis also earned First-Team All-ACC honors for the 2023-24 season, while Burton was a third-team honoree and the 2024 ACC Rookie of the Year.
The second team consists of Clemson’s Chase Hunter and Ian Schieffelin, Florida State’s Jamir Watkins, Georgia Tech’s Baye Ndongo and Pitt’s Ishmael Leggett.
The reigning ACC Player of the Year, Davis was a 2024 First-Team All-American and the winner of the 2024 Jerry West Award, presented to the top shooting guard in the country. Davis is the first ACC Player of the Year to return to school since UNC’s Tyler Hansbrough for the 2008-09 season. He was the first Tar Heel to earn consensus first-team All-America honors since Justin Jackson in 2016-17. A 6-foot, 180-pound graduate student, Davis led the ACC in scoring last season, averaging a career-high 21.2 points per game. The White Plains, New York, native set the UNC single-season record with 113 3-pointers and recorded 23 games scoring at least 20 points. Davis is UNC’s all-time leader in free throw percentage (85.8%) and ranks second in 3-pointers (274) and fifth in scoring (2,088 points). Phil Ford is the only Tar Heel guard with more points.
A 6-9, 205-pound guard/forward from Newport, Maine, Flagg is a five-star prospect and the top-rated player in the 2024 class by both 247Sports and ESPN out of Montverde Academy in Florida. He is just the second Duke signee all-time with a 1.0000 rating from 247Sports, joining RJ Barrett. He was named the Gatorade National Player of the Year, Naismith Player of the Year and a McDonald’s All-American as a senior in 2023-24, averaging 16.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.7 blocks per game to lead Montverde to a 33-0 record and a national championship title. He elevated his profile even further this summer as the only teenager and lone collegiate player among the 15 athletes named to the 2024 USA Basketball Men’s Select Team, which trained with the USA Basketball Men’s National Team in early July as they prepared for the Paris Olympic Games.
The 72nd season of ACC men’s basketball begins on Monday, Nov. 4, with 15 of the league’s 18 teams in action. League play opens Saturday, Dec. 7.
The ACC continued to prove itself as the nation’s premier basketball conference last season with four teams advancing to the NCAA Sweet 16 and three to the Elite Eight, with NC State moving on to the Final Four. The ACC boasted the most teams of any conference in both the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight last season and now has had four teams advance to the Final Four in the last three seasons – also the most of any league. The ACC is 33-15 in the NCAA Tournament in the last three seasons, best of any major conference.
Since 2015, the ACC leads all conferences in Men’s Final Four appearances (9) and NCAA Tournament wins (111), with three national championships. Six different ACC programs have reached the Final Four since 2015 (Duke, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Syracuse). That is the most schools of any league in that span.
The ACC is 111-57 (66.1%) in NCAA Tournament play over the last nine tournaments (2015-19, ‘21-24). The 111 wins are 28 more than any other conference (Big 12, 83). Since the tournament expanded in 1985, nearly half of the ACC teams that earned NCAA Tournament bids have reached the Sweet 16 (105 of 214).
2024 ACC Preseason Poll
School, Points
1. Duke (42), 956
2. North Carolina (11), 924
3. Wake Forest (1), 800
4. Clemson, 765
5. Virginia, 743
6. Miami, 659
7. Pitt, 636
8. NC State, 550
9. Louisville, 518
10. Notre Dame, 462
11. Syracuse, 454
12. Georgia Tech, 433
13. SMU, 344
14. Virginia Tech, 252
15. Florida State, 251
16. California, 206
17. Stanford, 165
18. Boston College, 116
First-place votes in parentheses; 54 total voters
Preseason ACC Player of the Year
RJ Davis, North Carolina, 40 votes
Cooper Flagg, Duke, 10
Hunter Sallis, Wake Forest, 3
Maxime Raynaud, Stanford, 1
Preseason ACC Rookie of the Year
Cooper Flagg, Duke, 53 votes
Jeremiah Wilkinson, California, 1
Preseason All-ACC Team
First Team
RJ Davis*, North Carolina, 54
Hunter Sallis, Wake Forest, 52
Cooper Flagg, Duke, 52
Markus Burton, Notre Dame, 41
Nijel Pack, Miami, 37
Second Team
Ian Schieffelin, Clemson, 36
Chase Hunter, Clemson, 31
Jamir Watkins, Florida State, 26
Baye Ndongo, Georgia Tech, 21
Ishmael Leggett, Pitt, 20
*denotes unanimous selection