Through January 3, only four ACC men’s basketball teams have won 11 games this season. The Duke Blue Devils, led by freshman superstar [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag], are one of those four, but they play two of the other three in the next four days.
Duke hits the road for a Saturday afternoon game against the 11-2 SMU Mustangs before returning to Cameron Indoor Stadium for a Tuesday matchup against the 11-2 Pittsburgh Panthers, the two teams tied with the Blue Devils atop the conference in win percentage. (The Clemson Tigers have also won 11 games but lost three times).
The Mustangs have only played four of the top 100 teams in the KenPom rankings, leaving them 219th in strength of schedule, but SMU did beat the LSU Tigers by 10 points last month. Under former USC Trojans head coach Andy Enfield, the Mustangs beat Virginia 63-51 in their first conference game as members of the ACC before thumping Boston College in a 103-77 blowout.
Pittsburgh, KenPom’s second-highest ACC team at No. 24 in the national rankings, already has three statement wins on its resume. The Panthers also took down LSU, a 74-63 win in November just one week after a 24-point triumph over West Virginia, and they outlasted the Ohio State Buckeyes in overtime at the end of the month.
Duke should still be favored over both programs by some margin, but if a surprise challenger should arise in the ACC, it will surely come from one of the next two teams on the schedule.
The Blue Devils tip off against SMU at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time on The CW this Saturday.