ACC Basketball: Expectations for each program for 2019-20 season

What are the expectations for ACC Basketball teams after not returning a single player from the All-ACC 1st or 2nd team? Who will rise to the top this season?

Expectations for ACC Basketball as a whole this season are low compared to years past. This is due largely to the fact only two members of last season’s All-ACC teams return to their respective schools and none of which were part of the first or second teams.

This creates a much more wide-open league than fans have been accustomed to in previous seasons, which is a good thing if you’re a fan of any team located in the top to the middle of the conference. In all the expectations for the ACC is to get at least six teams in the NCAA tournament and as many as nine teams could be vying for a spot in the big dance.

Boston College

Under Head Coach Jim Christian, Boston College has shown spurts where they can beat very talented teams (Duke 2017) but also have shown they can play flat and lose to just about anybody. In previous seasons they’ve been able to rely on go-to scorers from North Carolina in Jerome Robinson and Ky Bowman to get them wins and the thought was they would rely on sophomore guard Wynston Tabbs to shoulder the load of scoring.

This thought process changed September 4th when it was announced that he would miss the entire season after having surgery on his left knee. Without Tabbs this team will rely heavily on former 5-star grad transfer Derryck Thornton and rising senior Nik Popovic. With the expectations of being a bottom third ACC team yet again, Jim Christian will likely be coaching for his job this season.

Clemson

Clemson a year ago came into the season with high hopes as they were tabbed as the 22nd best team in the country in the preseason according to the Associated Press. This season it’s the complete opposite for Brownell’s team as they have little to no expectations to be in the NCAA tournament. A team that was going to be much younger than usual took a huge blow in the offseason when they lost returner Clyde Trapp to an ACL tear, although it is unclear when he can return it is assumed he will miss the entire season.

With Trapp’s injury, the Tigers return just one of their top six scorers from last year’s NIT squad. At best this team will be an NIT team yet again but there shouldn’t be any cause for concern for the future of the program because they have landed two top-100 recruits in the past few days.

Duke

Year in and year out Duke churns out top-4 ACC finishes and NBA stars. This year might be a little different as preseason mock drafts do not include a single Duke player inside the top 10, however, multiple Duke players are likely to be first-round selections. After bringing in the 3rd best recruiting class according to 247sports the expectations for the Blue Devils are high once again. However, those expectations might not lead to being the 1 seed in the conference tournament.

Since 2004 Duke has only won the regular season “championship” twice despite having won the conference tournament seven times during this stretch. Duke is likely a top-3 ACC team that will be competing for a championship yet again. Joey Baker seems like a forgotten piece of this Duke team as he played just 18 minutes as a freshman a year ago. He reclassified up out of high school and was considered to be a high-end 4-star prospect in the 2018 recruiting class, look for him to have a drastically different role than he had on last years team.