ACC Basketball: 5 key questions and storylines for 2021-22 season

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 20: Head coach Mike Krzyzewski (L) and associate head coach Jon Scheyer of the Duke Blue Devils direct their team against the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the second half at Madison Square Garden on December 20, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Lance King/Getty Images) /

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ACC Basketball Pittsburgh Panthers head coach Jeff Capel Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports /

4. Which coach is on the biggest hot seat heading into the season?

Anderson

Mike Brey’s seat has to be scorching hot as Notre Dame basketball heads into another year. All eyes will be on him to improve after going 7-11 and finishing 11th in ACC basketball action. Paul Atkinson will be his go-to guy to turn things around.

Loose

Among the ACC coaches, it’s Jeff Capel whose seat is the hottest. He enters year four in his effort to turn things around at Pittsburgh but has three uninspiring seasons to show for it, none of which were above .500. A fourth such season would almost certainly lead to a change in leadership for the Panthers.

Travis

This is a very difficult question to answer for a plethora of reasons, you have a couple of schools that obviously aren’t firing their head coaches this year, even if they fail to win a single game, those schools obviously being Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Syracuse, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Louisville, Clemson, Wake Forest, and Boston College, you have a couple of schools who LIKELY wouldn’t fire their coaches no matter what happens, with those schools being Miami, NC State, Notre Dame, and Pitt.

That being said, I can’t say with absolute confidence that there is a single coach on the hot seat heading into this season. The easy answer would have been Steve Forbes for Wake Forest, but he’s only going into his second season there, so I couldn’t imagine they get rid of him so quickly, Boston College has a new coach in Earl Grant, so he isn’t going anywhere, Kevin Keatts is under contract through 2026, Brad Brownell just signed a two-year contract extension, and the rest of the schools seem to have a good situation going for them.