Mudville Analytics

Record: 27-7, 8-4 (2nd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national final
Final AP Ranking: 7
All-ACC Players: Jim Spanarkel (1st), Mike Gminski (1st), Gene Banks (2nd)
All-Americans: None

Let’s say you were to take a poll among ACC experts of the most memorable, compelling, dramatic, unexpected postseason runs by ACC teams. 1983 NC State is clearly at the top of that list, but who would finish second? My money would be on 1978 Duke.

It’s hard to imagine now, but coming into the 1978 season, Duke was just another program. They hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since Vic Bubas’ last Final Four team in 1966. The year before, they finished 2-10 in the ACC. They just weren’t on anybody’s radar coming into the season.

The first big sign that this team was different was a mid-January win over second-ranked Carolina. As the rest of the ACC schedule unfolded, it became clear that this was a very good Duke team, certainly the best since the Bubas era. They went undefeated at home. But there were some ugly losses along the way as well. The Blue Devils finished the regular season at 20-6, 8-4 and ranked 15th in the country. Up until the tournament, they were simply a good team having a good year.

The ACC Tournament broke right for them. #1 seed Carolina and #3 seed NC State lost early, so as it happened, Duke faced the three bottom-seeded teams on their way to the title, beating Wake Forest in the championship game.

That got the Blue Devils up to a number eight national ranking going into the NCAA Tournament. This was the last year of the 32-team tournament, and the last year before the seeding system went into effect. Prior to the seeding system, teams went into predetermined slots in the bracket based on conference finish. To be honest, the Blue Devils were placed into a very weak East region. The main threats were Ivy League champion Penn and Big 10 runner-up Indiana. Duke survived two tense games against Rhode Island and Penn, then dominated Villanova to reach the Final Four.

Suddenly the Blue Devils were starting to look like a team of destiny. In the national semifinal, they faced a Notre Dame team that had been ranked in the Top 10 all season and featured future NBA standouts Kelly Tripucka and Bill Laimbeer. That game was what really cemented the reputation of this team. The big three combined for 71 points on 25-for-43 from the field and 21-for-23 from the line, Gminski and Banks dominated the paint, and the Blue Devils withstood a furious second-half comeback to escape with a four-point win to advance to the national championship game. Unfortunately the fairy tale ended there. Kentucky’s Goose Givens went off, scoring 41 points, and it was too much for Duke to overcome.

Where do they rank among the great teams in ACC history? This team has received a tremendous amount of attention over the years. Part of that is due to John Feinstein’s book Forever’s Team. Part of it may be due to the fact that Spanarkel and Gminski have remained prominent and public figures in college basketball. And part of it, let’s be honest, is the fact that it’s Duke. Because I’ve heard so much about this team over the years, I started out thinking they would be possibly Top 25.

Well, they aren’t. The more I look at this team, the more I think the attention they have received over the years is somewhat out of proportion with their actual accomplishments. Is that unfair? I mean, they did win the ACC Tournament and advance to the national final. But take a step back and look at the actual record. Based on regular season alone, this team would not be one of the 100 best teams in ACC history. They went 8-4 in the ACC and they were ranked 15th in the country going into the ACC Tournament. A good year, to be sure, but hardly special or memorable by ACC standards.

What happened next is they took advantage of an unusually weak set of opponents over the next three weeks. The only good team they beat on their way to the national championship game was #6 Notre Dame.

I know you can only play who’s on the schedule, and I know that just because you’re favored doesn’t mean these games are easy to win, and I know they played an incredible game against Notre Dame to get to the final. I’m just saying, that run isn’t quite as special as I once thought. Contrasted to other teams that made similar runs – 1981 North Carolina, or 2016 North Carolina, or even 2004 Georgia Tech, for Pete’s sake – this team had an easier time of it.

Record: 28-7, 9-5 (3rd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national semfinal
Final AP Ranking: 5
All-ACC Players: Danny Ferry (ACC POY)
All-Americans: Danny Ferry (2nd)

Duke, as everyone knows, went to five consecutive Final Fours in the late 80s / early 90s, culminating with the national championship teams of 1991 and 1992. That run started with this team.

Looking back at those teams, they weren’t as dominant as I remembered. Apart from the 1992 team, none of them was a favorite to reach the Final Four. None was a #1 seed. They were ranked 5th, 9th, 15th, and 6th respectively in the final AP polls.

In light of that, it makes their run that much more impressive. This 1988 team was a good example. They were very good, ranked in the Top 10 all season, but they lost three straight tough road games in late February and wound up third in the ACC standings behind Carolina and NC State. As it happened, those were the very teams that Duke had to face to win the ACC Tournament. The semifinal against NC State, who had swept the regular season matchups, was a nail-biter that came down to some missed free throws in the last few minutes by the Wolfpack and a lob into Charles Shackleford that was mishandled on the last possession.

In the final, the tables were turned in the sense that Duke had swept the Tar Heels in the regular season. The predictable narrative was how hard it is to beat a good team three times (is there any evidence for that, by the way?). It was an ugly, defensive kind of game, as tournament championship games often are, but the Blue Devils held on.

The pivotal moment in the NCAA Tournament was the regional final against Temple. The Owls came into the game with a 32-1 record, ranked #1 in the country, and winners of 18 straight. The Atlantic 10 at the time was what we would think of as a mid-major league. Temple hadn’t played a lot of top teams, but when they had, they fared well: a one-point loss at UNLV, a 12-point win over Villanova, and most impressive of all, a 17-point blowout of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Both teams shot poorly in the first half. Duke trailed 31-25 early in the second half, but over the next 12 minutes or so, Temple went on one of the worst scoring droughts you ever saw. Danny Ferry, Kevin Strickland, and Quin Snyder got it going offensively. By the six-minute mark, the Blue Devils led 50-35, and the game was effectively over. Duke dominated the game defensively, harrying All-American freshman Mark Macon into a dismal 6-29 shooting performance.

In the national semifinal, they ran out of steam. They didn’t shoot well, and they had no answer for Danny Manning, who was on his way to one of the all-time great NCAA Tournament performances.

This wasn’t one of those Duke teams like 1999-2002 or 2019 that had a superabundance of talent all over the floor. Yes, Ferry is an all-time great, and Strickland was a good player who probably should have been second-team All-ACC over Jeff Lebo. Beyond that, Robert Brickey was the only other double-figure scorer, and that just barely. But they had quality supporting players in Snyder, John Smith, Phil Henderson, Alaa Abdelnaby, Greg Koubek, and defensive wizard Billy King. And a pretty good coach.

Record: 29-8, 10-4 (2nd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national championship
Final AP Ranking: 6
All-ACC Players: Al Wood (1st), James Worthy (2nd)
All-Americans: Al Wood (2nd)

Trivia Question: who are the only coaches to lose more than two NCAA championship games?

Trivia Answer: Mike Krzyzewski, 4; Dean Smith, 3; Roy Williams, 3

Is this one of the 50 greatest ACC teams? They didn’t look like it in the regular season. They won the Great Alaska Shootout and had a huge early season win over Indiana but also lost to Wake Forest in the Big Four Tournament and lost consecutive non-conference games to Minnesota and Kansas just before ACC play started. They swept a very good Maryland team but lost twice to Virginia, dropped another game to Wake Forest, and lost to Duke on Gene Banks‘ Senior Day in overtime. It added up to a 22-7 record and a #12 ranking going into the ACC Tournament. That’s when magic started happening.

After an easy opening round win over NC State, the Tar Heels faced #11 Wake Forest for the fourth time in the semifinals. With 40 seconds left, the Tar Heels had the ball down by one. The ball was deflected into the backcourt and a scramble ensued in which Jimmy Black did everything but put a full nelson on Mike Helms as they battled for it. No foul was called, the Tar Heels recovered the loose ball, and they were able to get an open look for Mike Pepper who hit the game-winner. That set up another one-point win in the final over Maryland, who had blown out top seed Virginia in their semifinal. With the game tied at 54, Maryland turned it over on three straight possessions and the Tar Heels were able to take advantage and grab a lead that they would not relinquish, though the game was not decided the final seconds.

The Tar Heels were sent out West as the #2 seed. It turned out to be a favorable draw as #1 seed Oregon State lost right away. After the Tar Heels survived a tough Sweet 16 game against a Utah team featuring future NBA players Tom Chambers and Danny Vranes – in Salt Lake City no less – they had no trouble with Rolando Blackman and Kansas State in the regional final.

That set up a showdown with a Virginia team that had started 22-0, lost 3 of 5, then seemingly righted the ship with three easy wins to get to the Final Four. The Cavaliers had swept the regular season matchups, but they say it’s hard to beat a good team three times. Al Wood must have thought so. He exploded for 39 points – still the record for a national semifinal – and led the Tar Heels to 13-point win. A national title was not to be – Bob Knight, Isiah Thomas, and Indiana made sure of that – but it was a stirring run.

It wasn’t a deep team. They basically played six guys. Wood, James Worthy, and Sam Perkins were the stars; Jimmy Black, Mike Pepper, and Matt Doherty were the supporting cast. That’s something you notice about Dean Smith teams. There were certain invariants – they got the ball inside, they rebounded, they played unselfishly, they played defense without fouling – but there were other areas where he adapted to what he had. If he had ten good players, he played ten; if he had six good players, he played six. They got very little scoring from their backcourt. They had no true center. Didn’t matter. Dean figured it out.

Record: 28-6, 13-3 (2nd place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinals
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Sweet 16
Final AP Ranking: 5
All-ACC Players: Steve Francis (1st), Terence Morris (1st), Laron Profit (3rd)
All-Americans: Steve Francis (2nd)

One of the great teams that nobody remembers. They had a swarming, smothering defense that could overwhelm opponents, as evidenced by their 67-point win over Western Carolina, their 75-point win over North Texas, their 31-point win at Georgia Tech, and their 46-point win over NC State. (If you’re wondering, the ACC record is 84 points by UNC over Manhattan in 1986).

With the important caveat that steals and turnovers did not become official stats until the mid-1970s, this Maryland team is the all-time ACC leader in the relevant categories:

ACC Single-Season All-Time Leaders, Total Steals:

1. Maryland 1999, 431
2. Duke 2001, 411
3. Duke 1991, 362
4. North Carolina 2005, 362
5. Duke 1986, 360

ACC Single-Season All-Time Leaders, Steals per Game:

1. Maryland 1999, 12.7
2. Clemson 2006, 11.0
3. Maryland 1996, 10.97
4. Clemson 1977, 10.9
5. North Carolina 1977, 10.8

ACC Single-Season All-Time Leaders, Turnovers Forced per Game:

1. Maryland 1999, 21.6
2. Clemson 1977, 21.4
3. Wake Forest 1978, 21.0
4. Maryland 1994, 20.1
5. Maryland 1996, 20.0

This was Steve Francis’ only year in the ACC after starring in junior college. He was surrounded by a skilled, athletic roster with a good balance of experience and youth and quickness and size. Senior Terrell Stokes was the other guard opposite Francis. He was a pass-and-play D point guard who allowed Francis to play off the ball at times. Senior Laron Profit was an athletic wing who could score and defend. The frontcourt consisted of senior center Obinna Ekezie and talented sophomore Terence Morris, who was the second-leading scorer and made first-team All-ACC. Their bench consisted of a trio of terrific freshmen in Juan Dixon, Dan Miller, and Lonny Baxter.

The Terps had the misfortune of playing in the same conference as one of the greatest teams of all time, 1999 Duke, and they got spanked both times by the Blue Devils. Other than that, their only regular season losses were at Kentucky and at Wake Forest. They swept North Carolina in the regular season and also notched neutral court wins over #10 UCLA and #5 Stanford.

But they caught a bad break when Ekezie ruptured his Achilles in early February. Baxter moved into the starting lineup and played well, but it definitely hurt their rebounding and depth. They responded well by winning their last six games before the ACC Tournament, where they lost to a North Carolina team that was able to take advantage of the Terps’ weakness inside. They were a candidate for a #1 seed, but wound up with a #2 in the South. After cruising through the first two rounds, their season came to a screeching halt in the Sweet 16. Facing a St. John’s team that featured Ron Artest, Bootsy Thornton, and Erick Barkley, the Terps played a rotten game, scoring a season-low 62 points, shooting 35%, and committing 21 turnovers and 27 fouls.

This was a tremendously disappointing loss for Gary Williams. He had shown the ability to consistently reach the NCAA Tournament – this was their sixth consecutive appearance – but they couldn’t seem to get past the Sweet 16. With the Francis addition, Williams thought this was the team to get over that hump. Francis swore he was coming back, and he probably meant it at the time, but it didn’t happen. He entered the draft and was the second overall pick. That 2000 team would have been something else if he had returned, but it wasn’t to be. On the bright side, Francis’ departure gave Dixon a chance to show what he could do and gain experience that would be valuable for the 2001 Final Four and 2002 national championship teams.

Record: 29-6, 10-4 (2nd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Final Four
Final AP Ranking: 4
All-ACC Players: Rick Fox (1st), Pete Chilcutt (3rd)
All-Americans: None

This is a fascinating team. The first thing that strikes you about the roster is the lack of a superstar. Rick Fox was the best player, and he was very good, but there’s no Worthy, no Jordan, no Jamison here. Then there’s just the sheer number of players. They returned five key guys from the year before (Fox, Pete Chilcutt, King Rice, Hubert Davis, George Lynch). They had a monster recruiting class – Eric Montross, Derrick Phelps, Brian Reese, Clifford Rozier, Kevin Salvadori, and Pat Sullivan – many of whom were ready to play as freshmen. Throw in some decent sophomores (Henrik Rodl, Kenny Harris, Matt Wenstrom), and you had 14 guys who were legitimately competing for playing time.

And Dean kept trying stuff, all year long. Nobody started every game, and 13 different players started at least one game. (Challenge: find another college basketball team, anywhere, ever, where 13 different guys started a game during the season.) Scott Cherry, Kenny Harris, and Pat Sullivan each started a game. Nobody started every game. Ultimately there were 10 guys who averaged 9 minutes a game or more: Fox, Chilcutt, Rice, Davis, Lynch, Montross, Phelps, Reese, Rozier, and Rodl. Dean was still playing around with the lineup in the tournament. Montross started the first round game but was supplanted by Lynch in the remaining games. The one guy who didn’t work out was Rozier. The highly touted recruit fell out of the tournament rotation and transferred to Louisville after the season.

They had a lot of skilled players. Fox was versatile and skilled and an underrated defender, Davis was a great shooter, Lynch was the leading rebounder and interior defensive anchor, Chilcutt was sneaky good, Rodl was a deft passer, Phelps was a great perimeter defender. Dean figured out how to put them all in positions to be successful.

A few other observations about this team. One, this was the year that State and Carolina played on back-to-back nights in early February. Their first scheduled game in January had been postponed and preempted by President Bush’s address to the nation announcing the opening of the Gulf War. State won the first game 97-91 behind 37 from Rodney Monroe and 28 from Tom Gugliotta. Carolina won the rematch 92-70.

Another observation is that this was Carolina’s first Final Four since 1982. Since then, they’d had a run of great teams that ultimately didn’t get it done in the NCAAs. What changed? Mostly their luck. After several years where they kept running into other great teams in the bracket, in 1991 everything fell their way. The #2, #4, #5, and #7 seeds in Carolina’s region lost in the first round, and there were other upsets later. As a result, the Tar Heels didn’t have to beat higher than a #9 seed to make the Final Four.

The Final Four was full of compelling storylines. UNC and Kansas, two blueblood programs, the Jayhawks just three years removed from a national championship run under Larry Brown, Roy Williams facing Coach Smith and Carolina for the first time, Smith back in the Final Four after coming up short so many times. The other semifinal was the Duke-UNLV rematch with all that entailed. Then, in the unlikely event that Duke beat UNLV, there was the possibility of a Duke-Carolina final. In the end, Kansas and Duke flipped the script. The Tar Heels couldn’t overcome a dismal shooting performance, and their season was over.

I’m not sure how a team whose best players were Rick Fox and Pete Chilcutt managed to be one of the 50 best teams in ACC history, but I think about it this way. Duke won the national championship, and I don’t see that Duke is very far ahead of this team. Duke did sweep them in the regular season, but the Tar Heels crushed them in the ACC Tournament final and wound up ranked higher in the polls. Duke obviously gets lots of credit for winning it all and beating UNLV, but an ACC title, a #1 seed, a #4 national ranking, and a Final Four run are too much to leave out.

Record: 24-5, 10-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Lost in regional final
Final AP Ranking: 5
All-ACC Players: John Lucas (1st), Mo Howard (2nd), Owen Brown (2nd), Brad Davis (2nd)
All-Americans: John Lucas (1st)

The ACC of the mid- to late 1970s. Talk about a meat grinder. From 1974 through 1979, I defy you to find a bad team. There were teams that lost games, mind you; that’s going to happen, because even if everybody is good, somebody has to lose. But there is not a truly bad basketball team anywhere in that six-year span.

Nobody got caught in the gears of the meat grinder more than Lefty Driesell and Maryland. It was a unique confluence of circumstances that conspired to keep them always near the top of the mountain but just below the summit. Their very best years – 1973-1975 – happened to coincide with the years that the greatest player in ACC history was king of the court over in Raleigh. But I’ll save a more complete account of that for later. Let’s look at Maryland’s 1975 team.

Maryland was coming off a year in 1974 where their excellence was exceeded only by their frustration. Try as the might, they could not get over the hump with the Wolfpack, despite being obviously one of the five best teams in the country. To add insult to injury, the ACC received only one bid to the NCAA tournament. So when Thompson, Burleson and Co. once again dashed the Terrapins’ dreams in the ACC Tournament final – the “greatest game ever played” – their season was over. Just like that.

Coming into 1975, it may have seemed that Lefty’s Terps had shot their bolt. Their dynamic frontcourt duo of Len Elmore and Tom McMillen had moved on to the NBA. But they still had John Lucas, and they still had Lefty. It may have been one of his best coaching jobs. Lucas was an All-American. All the returning players – Owen Brown, Mo Howard, Brad Davis, Steve Sheppard, and Tom Roy – got better. And Brad Davis was one of the nation’s best freshmen. I am not certain of this, but I believe that 1975 Maryland and 1989 UNC are the only teams in ACC history for which six players averaged double figures. For the season, they converted on 54.7% of their field goal attempts, behind only 1986 North Carolina (55.9%) and 1980 Maryland (55.1%) in ACC history. It was a beautiful team to watch.

The only blemishes were an early loss to UCLA and consecutive January losses at Clemson and at North Carolina. Both of those losses were avenged in the rematches at Cole Field House. And, most importantly, Maryland finally vanquished DT and the Wolfpack, winning easily at home and surviving a one-point 98-97 game on the road. The Terps finished the season 10-2 in the league and with a two-game lead over North Carolina, Clemson, and NC State, who all finished 8-4.

With only seven teams in the league at the time, the Terps as the top seed got a bye to the semifinals of the ACC Tournament – where NC State was waiting. This time, the Wolfpack jumped out to the early lead. They pushed the lead to 17 in the second half before Thompson had to leave the game with severe cramping. With Superman out, the Terps launched a furious comeback. They used a 16-0 run to take the lead on two Howard free throws with nine seconds left. But Mo Rivers found freshman Kenny Carr for the game-winning bucket with just one second left.

The disappointment must have been unbearable. But Maryland, in a sense, got the last laugh. In part as a result of the injustice of Maryland’s 1974 team being left out, the NCAA had finally relaxed the rules to allow at-large teams into the Tournament. North Carolina received the ACC’s automatic bid after beating NC State in the ACC Tournament final. Maryland was selected as an at-large team. They survived tight games against Creighton and Notre Dame to reach the regional final where they faced #3 Louisville.

It would have been an amazing redemption story for Maryland to reach the Final Four, but Louisville did not cooperate. The Cardinals ran away with a 96-82 victory.

It wasn’t the last good team Lefty had at Maryland, but it was probably the last great one. He never got another chance to play for a Final Four berth. But despite the sense of missed opportunity, there’s nothing to criticize here. They were a great team and deserve to be recognized as such.

I’m about 18 months removed from the completion of my ACC 100 Greatest Players series. As I was working on that series, I became interested in the question: what are the greatest teams in ACC history?

This topic doesn’t need much of an introduction, but I do want to say a few things. First, I decided on 50 teams. There’s no magic to that. There have been about 700 teams in league history. 50 teams means we are looking at the top 7% or so. 50 means we have room for all the national championship teams, most of the Final Four teams, most of the 30+ win teams, and a good number of the ACC Tournament champions. The idea is to draw the line such that any team that one might conceive as truly great is included, but a team that was merely good but didn’t do anything genuinely memorable is not. If I erred, it was probably on the side of having too many teams rather than too few.

Secondly, I decided to look at each team-year individually. Sometimes you have great teams – let’s say NC State 1972-73 and 1973-74 – where they have a two- or even a three-year period of excellence that is built around a common core of players. One way to do it would be to consider those groups as one team. Is it possible to draw meaningful distinctions between NC State 1973 and 1974?

Well, as a matter of fact it is, and ultimately I was led to the conclusion that the only fair way to do it is to consider each team-year individually. No team is exactly the same from one year to the next. For example, you know the 1973 and 1974 NC State teams were built around David Thompson, Monte Towe, and Tom Burleson; but the fourth- and fifth-leading scorers on the 1973 team were seniors Rick Holdt and Joe Cafferky. In 1974, Holdt and Cafferky were graduated and replaced by newcomers Phil Spence and Mo Rivers. Not the same team.

You find similar situations with other teams. 1967-1969 North Carolina kind of looks like one team, but when you look at the stars, the ’67 team had Bob Lewis and Larry Miller, the ’68 team had Larry Miller and Charlie Scott, and in ’69 Miller was gone. Not the same team. 1981 Virginia had Jeff Lamp and Lee Raker; 1982 Virginia had Jim Miller and Tim Mullen; 1983 Virginia added Rick Carlisle and subtracted Jeff Jones. Even Duke from 1991 to 1992 – about as close to coming back with the exact same team as I could find – swapped out Greg Koubek for Cherokee Parks.

Unfortunately for me, that approach requires that I draw some very fine distinctions among those team-years. The 1967-1969 North Carolina teams had virtually identical results. How do you distinguish among those teams? I’ve done the best I could.

Finally, a word about how I approached comparing teams from different eras. In short, each team was considered in the context of its own era. In other words, I didn’t try to figure out whether 1957 North Carolina would beat 2015 Duke if they could meet in some basketball fantasy world. My answer is a) no, they wouldn’t and b) who cares? It’s completely irrelevant to how we evaluate 1957 North Carolina. Every team is situated in a particular time and context, and their objective is to beat the teams they are actually playing, not some hypothetical team from 60 years later.

With that, let’s get on to the list.