Emotions for fans of North Carolina’s four Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) schools are certainly varied as the college football regular season has come to an end. Tar Heel fans just had their season end by getting pummeled in their rivalry game by “little brother,” while Duke fans just had their promising head coach hired away by a better program and Wake fans watched their team have a miserable season that snapped their seven year streak of making bowl games. The reality is that State fans are probably the only ones happy after football season, as their team will have a chance to finish with a 10 win season despite dealing with significant adversity at the quarterback position.
Regardless of whether it was a good, bad or outright miserable football season, the good news for all of these fans is that the North Carolina schools of “Tobacco Road” are all best known for basketball, not football. Six games into their non-conference slate, each of the four teams are already developing their own unique storylines.
Duke
Head coach Jon Scheyer is in his second year as the successor to legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski after leading the Blue Devils to an ACC Tournament Championship in his first season. Duke’s ‘22-’23 season ended with a second round exit from the NCAAT at the hands of Tennessee, culminating in a final record of 27-9. With four returning starters, an unusually high number for Duke, and the No. 2 ranked incoming recruiting class, the Blue Devils entered this season among the national title favorites and were ranked first in the ACC Preseason Poll. Led by ACC Preseason Player of the Year Kyle Filipowski, they are off to a 5-3 start and sit at No. 22 in the AP Poll. Thus far, sophomore guard Tyrese Proctor has not quite taken the leap many expected, while freshmen guards Jared McCain and Caleb Foster have taken on big roles early, as the fifth starter (with the four returnees) and sixth man respectively.
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
UNC is fresh off one of the most disappointing seasons in college basketball history, as the ‘22-’23 Tar Heels became the only preseason No. 1 team in history to completely miss the NCAA Tournament. Hubert Davis, in his third year as head coach succeeding Hall of Famer Roy Williams, thrilled Carolina fans with his miraculous first year run to the national championship, but now faces significant pressure to perform after the drastic underperformance in his second season that many blamed him for. Led by two key returnees in fifth year senior center Armando Bacot and senior guard RJ Davis, Hubert Davis filled out much of the remaining Carolina rotation with transfer portal additions, including Stanford transfer forward Harrison Ingram and Notre Dame graduate transfer guard Cormac Ryan. Selected as the preseason third place team in the ACC, the Tar Heels are currently 7-1 and the ACC’s highest ranked team at No. 9 in the AP Poll. Perhaps the most vital piece to Carolina’s success this season is freshman point guard Elliot Cadeau, whose ability to continue to run the offense at a high level could be the deciding factor in how far the Heels will be able to go this year.
NC State
Now in his seventh season, head coach Kevin Keatts survived a hot seat season last year by leading the Wolfpack to their first NCAA Tournament since his first year as coach in 2017-2018. Losing their two top scorers, Keatts went heavy into the transfer portal to fill out his roster. Thus far, State’s main nine player rotation this season includes five transfers, just three returnees and one freshman. Of the limited returnees, the most important are two fifth year seniors, guard Casey Morsell and center DJ Burns Jr., who are both among the team’s top three leading scorers thus far this season. The two best transfers for the Pack so far have been Butler transfer guard Jayden Taylor, and Arizona State transfer guard DJ Horne, while Dennis Parker Jr. (ranked outside of the top 100 in his class) has been a standout freshman playing on the wing. Coming into the season as the Preseason No. 7 in ACC rankings, the Pack are 5-2 through their first seven games with losses to BYU and Ole Miss.
Wake Forest
After winning ACC Coach of the Year in the 2021-2022 season, head coach Steve Forbes led his Demon Deacons to a middling 19-14 record year. Picked in the preseason to finish sixth in the ACC, the Deacs have begun the season with a 4-3 record, most recently picking up a key victory at home against Florida. Missing two of their top players so far this season, Wake has seen over 87% of their total points scored by just four players who are each averaging 16+ points per game. Among those four are returnees in junior guard Cameron Hildreth and senior forward Andrew Carr, along with arguably the ACC’s most impactful transfer thus far in Gonzaga transfer guard Hunter Sallis. The two big missing pieces for Wake are returning senior forward Damari Monsanto, still recovering from a torn left patella tendon (knee) suffered in February, and Gonzaga transfer center Efton Reid III, awaiting a two time transfer waiver appeal from the NCAA. The ability and timing of those two players’ return to the court will likely prove to be vital in deciding the fate of this year’s Demon Deacons squad.
