ACC Basketball: Analyzing each team’s returning impact players for 2023-24
By Cade Haak
The 2012 Kentucky Wildcats were able to achieve the impossible, they won the NCAA tournament while being led by Freshman. The Wildcats, led by the duo of Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist were able to surmount every other team and cut down the nets that season. They were the last team with freshmen at the helm to complete this task, and with the way that the landscape of college basketball looks at this point in time, it seems that it will remain this way for the foreseeable future.
In the past 11 seasons since Kentucky’s win, it has become more and more evident each year just how important it is to have leadership on the court. While coaches have established themselves as the true stars of college basketball, it’s clear that even the best coaches need a well-balanced roster to find themselves victorious at the end of the season.
We’ve seen teams with plenty of star freshmen such as the 2018-2019 Duke team fall short of glory despite immense levels of talent. And ACC Basketball has proven to be no different, with three teams from the conference winning a National Championship in the past decade, (Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia) the conference has established itself to be one of the very best in college hoops each and every year (even when teams disappoint like UNC this past season.)
With that being said, this article is set to highlight the best-returning players for each of the 15 teams in the ACC.