It’s always a little foolish to crown a conference champion before the turn of the calendar, but through 12 games in the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season, it seems like the Duke Blue Devils might enforce their will upon the ACC.
Duke, off to a 10-2 start thanks to its current six-game winning streak, stayed No. 4 in Andy Katz’s national power rankings on Monday. The lack of movement makes sense given that the Blue Devils didn’t play a game last week, but Katz did offer a resounding sentiment about the conference in his latest piece.
“The Blue Devils are the class of the ACC,” he wrote. “This is their league title to lose.”
The North Carolina Tar Heels have already lost five games this season, and Wake Forest lost by double-digits four times in its first 13 games. The 10-3 Clemson Tigers (No. 21 on Katz’s board) look like a genuine threat with a win over the Kentucky Wildcats, but back-to-back overtime losses to Memphis and South Carolina slowed them down.
The Auburn Tigers, Tennessee Volunteers, and Iowa State Cyclones remained in the three spots ahead of the Blue Devils. Duke gets the chance to extend its winning streak to seven games against the Virginia Tech Hokies on Tuesday afternoon.