North Carolina schools are favorites in ACC tournament

The ACC Tournament kicked off yesterday with opening round action. Today, the four main contenders will be facing off against the winners from yesterday’s round. The top four seeds: Duke, North Carolina, Boston College, and N.C. State are the frontrunners to win the tournament.

The bottom eight seeds of this tournament have much slimmer odds because the top four seeds get an extra day of rest on Thursday. While this may seem unimportant after a week-long break for all the teams going into the tournament, there are no teams this season that have played four games in a row.

Coming into the tournament, the biggest game of the regular season perhaps happened in Durham, N.C. this past Saturday night, as the North Carolina Tar Heels continued their hot streak by beating the Duke Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium 83-76.

The Duke Blue Devils come in with the No. 1 seed and have only lost two conference games this season. While being led by ACC Player of the Year J.J. Redick and Defensive Player of the Year Shelden Williams, the Blue Devils have only lost three games all season long. They won the ACC regular season title. However, they have stumbled some over their past two games by losing a nail biter on the road against Florida State, and at home against North Carolina.

The North Carolina Tar Heels might be the hottest team coming into the ACC Tournament. They finished the season with a 12-4 conference record which was good enough to get the 2nd seed. At the beginning of this season, many considered it a “rebuilding” year for North Carolina. Their performance has been so good, however, that Roy Williams was named ACC Coach of the Year. They have been led this season by a stellar freshman. Tyler Hansbrough was named ACC Rookie of the Year this past week, and has stepped up in a big way for the Tar Heels.

The Boston College Eagles came into their first season in the ACC with high expectations. With everyone else in the ACC losing key players from last year’s teams, the Eagles were supposed to be the team to stop Duke in the ACC. The Eagles got off to a rocky start in the early going by losing their first three conference games in a row. They rebounded to finish the year 11-5. This team is very physical, and could be potentially very dangerous in this tournament. The team’s star players are senior power forward Craig Smith, junior small forward Jared Dudley, and freshman point guard Tyrese Rice.

The N.C. State Wolfpack has been disappointing coming into the tournament. They started off as a challenger to first-place Duke, but they finished the season on a three-game losing streak, including a loss to bottom feeder Wake Forest (the only non-power team from North Carolina) by 13. This team will be looking for someone to step up and break them out of their current skid. That leadership could come from their senior group of Cameron Bennerman, Ilian Evtimov and Tony Bethel.