As we reach the pinnacle of Championship Week over the next few days, we’ll take a breath each morning to run down the top five storylines from the previous day’s action. There were 44 games spread across 18 conference tournaments on Friday — here’s the TL;DR version of what happened.

1. Which ACC Loss Was More Troubling: Duke or Virginia?

The story of Championship Week Friday is a complex one, but it has to open with what transpired in Greensboro last night. Top-seeded Virginia and second-seeded Duke were toppled in the ACC semifinals by North Carolina and Notre Dame, respectively; and both upsets, in their own ways, were startling. First, there’s Virginia, which in a 71-67 loss gave up more points than it had in any other contest in conference play. Despite a late Cavaliers’ charge, the Tar Heels led the game from wire to wire and made Tony Bennett’s team look frighteningly ordinary for about 35 minutes of action. In the nightcap, Notre Dame, a little over a month after being waxed by Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium, got its revenge. The Fighting Irish held the high-powered Blue Devils to 0.97 points per possession in a 74-64 win.

Notre Dame All Smiles and Hugs After Last Night’s Big Win (USA Today Images)

So which loss is more worrying? I’d have to say Virginia’s. Duke was outplayed by the Irish but the primary reason the Blue Devils lost was a 3-of-17 shooting mark from beyond the arc. On the other hand, Virginia doesn’t look like the same team it was earlier this year. The Cavaliers have continued to dominate lesser teams on the defensive end, but when they are coming face to face with teams that can match up with them physically, they don’t look nearly as special. Furthermore, Justin Anderson’s return — zero points in 26 minutes over two games — is troubling. Virginia fans should be somewhat worried.

2. Can Iowa State and Oklahoma Play Every Week?

The Cyclones and Sooners played another barnburner in the second Big 12 semifinals Friday night. Both regular season clashes had been instant classics, and while Friday’s meeting was maybe a tad more sensible — as in there were no 20-point comebacks or 59-point halves — it was back and forth all game long. In the end, Iowa State who pulled out a 67-65 victory when Ryan Spangler missed a bunny at the rim that would have tied the game. The Cyclones get a rubber match with Kansas Saturday, which will be another episode of Big 12 must-watch television.

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Three Key Takeaways.

Notre Dame Advanced to Its First ACC Championship Game (USA Today Images)

1. Notre Dame absolutely dominated the first half. The Irish hit some unbelievably tough shots and made Jahlil Okafor try to beat them on his own. As a result, Duke’s other players went 4-of-16 from the field and committed seven turnovers. Notre Dame may be the only team in the country with five guys who can consistently hit shots (although Duke has some lineups that also fit that description). The Irish smothered Duke by forcing the guards to play deeper than usual and fronting Okafor. They also hit shots, lots of them. Mike Brey’s team had a total of five and-ones in the first half alone. Five. When Duke went to its zone, Bonzie Colson just crushed the Blue Devils from the high post. When they went back to man, Demetrius Jackson got to the rim with incredible ease. Even in the second half when Duke started making its eventual run, Notre Dame’s ability to get to the rim (and the free throw line) felt like the reason Duke never got it back to a single-possession game.
2. Demetrius Jackson is destined for great things. This may be an obvious statement (Jackson was a McDonald’s All-American, after all), but Jackson is a fantastic young player. He brings an athletic dimension to Mike Brey’s team that has been somewhat missing over the years. Jackson frequently broke Duke’s three-quarter court pressure like no one was there with his quick bursts of speed and playground dribbling moves in traffic. He also got to the rim with ease, finishing the evening with five assists and only one turnover in 39 minutes of action. If there’s a reason to still be bullish on the Irish next season without Jerian Grant, it’s because the sophomore Jackson is ready to take over the team.
3. Mike Krzyzewski was remarkably calm. Coach K has a reputation of being curt and snippy in his pressers after Duke losses, but other than a defensive response to a question about last year’s team not meeting expectations, he was remarkably measured. I have a few theories on this attitude. The most likely idea is that he felt like Duke would have won the game if Quinn Cook hadn’t been gassed (Krzyzewski said on Thursday that Cook had been fighting off an illness). Cook went 1-of-10 from three on mostly good looks (0-of-8 in the second half) and he did a good job defending Jerian Grant, but it just looked like he wasn’t playing at 100 percent. The other theory is that Krzyzewski really liked the way Justise Winslow and Okafor fought back after horrible first halves.

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ACC Microsite writers Matt Patton and Brad Jenkins will be reporting live from Greensboro at the 2015 ACC Tournament throughout the week.

With Selection Sunday almost upon us, here’s a quick look at how things stand for ACC schools moving forward. The four teams still playing in Greensboro are battling for NCAA Tournament seeding at this point. Most bracket experts seem to think that if #2 Duke and #3 Virginia both make it to the ACC championship game on Saturday night, each would earn a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The other two ACC semifinalists — #11 Notre Dame and #19 North Carolina — have locked in protected NCAA seeds, but could still move up the seed lines with huge wins tonight. Among the schools no longer alive in Greensboro, two are regarded as either locks (Louisville) or very probable (N.C. State) to receive invitations to the Dance. Miami appears to be the only ACC bubble team that remains. Below is a look at where each school’s NCAA Tournament prospects are as of today with regard to seeding and potential advancement.

Jim Larranaga hopes to hear Miami’s name called out during Sunday’s NCAA Selection show.
(Photo by Liz Condo, theACC.com)

Each team is listed with its current overall record along with projected NCAA seed per ESPN‘s Joe Lunardi and CBS Sports‘ Jerry Palm.

• Virginia (29-2, ESPN: #1, CBS: #1)  The big story with the Cavaliers is the return of Justin Anderson and what that means going forward. With so little time left to get back into season form, Anderson needs immediate minutes and the Cavaliers need immediate production. The Cavaliers’ offense is not good enough to reach the Final Four without a healthy and productive Anderson in their lineup. Though unlikely, there’s a small chance that a semifinal loss to North Carolina tonight would knock Virginia off the #1 seed line, depending on how the other conference champions like Villanova, Wisconsin and Arizona play this weekend.
• Duke (29-3, ESPN: #1, CBS: #1) The Blue Devils are playing as well as any team in the country right now, but they need to win at least one more game this week, and perhaps two, to assure themselves of hanging on to that #1 seed. Mike Krzyzewski’s new defensive scheme – a three-quarter court zone press and some half-court matchup zone – has been effective at cutting down guard penetration, a profound defensive weakness for the Blue Devils. With the nation’s top offense on the other end of the floor, that should be enough to avoid the early upset bug and make for a deep NCAA run.

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As we reach the pinnacle of Championship Week over the next few days, we’ll take a breath each morning to run down the top five storylines from the previous day’s action. There were 60 games spread across 18 conference tournaments on Thursday — here’s the TL;DR version of what happened.

1. Who Wants to Make the NCAA Tournament? Anybody?

Monte Morris Lifted Iowa State to a Thrilling Comeback Win Over Texas (USA Today Images)

It was a big day for bubble teams all around the country, as many were facing possible “win-and-in” situations but a shocking number of them played like teams under suffocating pressure. Illinois looked downright disinterested in a blowout loss to Michigan. Texas got out to a big lead over Iowa State and had all but locked up a spot when it was up 10 points with under four minutes remaining, but the Longhorns crumbled late. Miami and NC State lost to better teams, but both came out flat. And two much-discussed SEC bubblers, Texas A&M and Ole Miss, found ways — for the Rebels, that way was fouling a desperation three-point shooter with a second left — to lose to Auburn and South Carolina, respectively. Even Iowa, though not really a bubble team, was awful in a Big Ten Tournament loss to Penn State. That makes wins for Indiana and UCLA (and off days for Purdue, LSU, and others) all the more important.

2. The Stage is Set in the ACC…

Upsets are fun. But really good basketball is even more fun, and that’s exactly what we’ll get in the ACC Tournament this evening. All four favorites held serve yesterday in Greensboro, giving us a regional-worthy treat between four top 20 teams. First we’ll get Virginia, which labored through its game yesterday with Florida State, taking on a North Carolina team that appears to be improving. The Tar Heels started slowly but were impressive for the final 25 minutes against Louisville on Thursday. The other semifinal pits Duke against Notre Dame, another fabulous matchup. Thursday wasn’t a memorable day at the ACC Tournament, but because of that outcome, Friday could be.

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ACC Microsite writers Matt Patton and Brad Jenkins will be reporting live from Greensboro at the 2015 ACC Tournament throughout the week.

Three Key Takeaways.

Marshall Plumlee provided a big lift off the bench in Duke’s win. (Photo by Sara D. Davis, theACC.com)

1. Duke came to Greensboro with a purpose. The Blue Devils haven’t won the ACC Tournament since 2011, a fairly long drought by Mike Krzyzewski’s standards. Based on the Blue Devils’ first game of this year’s tournament, though, it looks like they are focused on ending that streak. N.C. State was expected to be a tough matchup since the Wolfpack came in as a hot team that had beaten Duke handily in their only prior meeting. But that was a long time ago, and Duke is obviously a better team than it was back in early January. Even Duke’s weakness has been much improved lately, as the Devils have held four out of their last six opponent under 0.97 points per possession. Krzyzewski used a three-quarter court zone press that fell into a matchup zone against the Wolfpack to slow down and confuse their potent guards.
2. N.C. State can play with anybody, just not always. The Wolfpack found out the hard way that you have to be ready from the tip against elite teams or you can get buried early. They have wins this year over Duke, Louisville, and North Carolina — two of those coming on the road — and they came very close to beating Virginia and Notre Dame. That means that N.C. State has either beaten or almost beaten all five of the ACC’s heavyweights this year. Combine that kind of tough-game performance with their explosive perimeter and you have a team that could cause problems in the NCAA Tournament. They won’t last long at the Dance, however, if they start games as passively as this one.
3. Duke’s bench is really playing well. Much has been made about Duke’s relative lack of depth with only eight scholarship players, but while the quantity isn’t high, the quality certainly is. Freshman Grayson Allen in particular has given the team a huge boost lately. Allen had 11 points, three boards, three assists, two blocks and multiple floor burns in 21 minutes of action tonight. Marshall Plumlee has also improved to the point that Duke doesn’t suffer a dramatic dropoff when he replaces Jahlil Okafor on the floor. Plumlee successfully converted all six of his shot attempts against N.C. State and blocked three shots in 21 minutes.

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ACC Tournament Wednesday is in the books. Brad has you covered on North Carolina’s Marcus Paige and NC State’s Cat Barber. In other games, Clemson and Florida State played a compelling final few minutes as Leonard Hamilton’s team held off a furious onslaught (see below) from a Tigers team that had been down 20. Despite the near-comeback, the story of that game was the Seminoles’ Xavier Rathan-Mayes (30 points on 11-of-19 shooting). I mistakenly left him off my players to watch this week even though he boasts the most impressive performance of the year. He’s fearless (sometimes to a point of fault), but he’s capable of putting up huge numbers when his shots are falling. The freshman has his work cut out to score against the pack-line defense of Virginia (12:00 PM, ESPN), but if he’s making his threes, Rathan-Mayes should be just fine. Still, to beat Virginia, the Seminoles as a whole need to play a great game. Their biggest problem will be limiting the Cavaliers’ possessions, so Florida State’s tendency toward turnovers (21.9%) must be addressed. The bottom line is that the Seminoles will need everything they can get from Rathan-Mayes and still need the relatively inefficient Virginia offense of late to show up in Greensboro. It’s still undecided whether Justin Anderson will play today, but don’t expect him to immediately return at the level he was at the time of his injury.

The other games today also feature plenty of intrigue. Lots of eyes will also be on North Carolina‘s rubber match with Louisville (2:00 PM, ESPN), as the Cardinals are still looking to prove they can consistently compete without Chris Jones, and North Carolina will again be without Kennedy Meeks. Personally, I’m still interested to see if Louisville’s win against Virginia was a fluke or if Rick Pitino has found the answer for his team’s late-season swoon.

The most compelling game of the day will be the rematch between NC State and Duke (7:00 PM, ESPN). Trust me, a lot of teams invited to the NCAA Tournament will be watching this tape if the Wolfpack win. On paper, NC State has the primary pieces that give Duke’s defense fits: dynamic guards and inside length. Both teams look to be playing better than when they first met and the crowd will be heavily for NC State. Can Barber, Trevor Lacey and Ralston Turner carve up the porous Duke defense a second time this season? Or will the more talented Blue Devils run away with things?

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The ACC Tournament gets started in Greensboro today and the microsite will be there throughout the week to provide coverage all the way through Saturday night’s championship game. Let’s tease the next five days with some storylines, players to watch and a not-so-wild prediction.

Three Important Narratives

• #1 Seed Drama (and the Battle for a True ACC Champion): Duke and Virginia both look like #1 seeds if the season ended today. But there’s one problem — the season isn’t over. Wisconsin and Arizona are both nipping at their heels and if both win their conference tournaments, chances are that the Selection Committee thinks pretty hard about dropping one of those ACC teams to the second line. If either Duke or Virginia wins the ACC Tournament, that team is a lock for the top line. If the Cavaliers and Blue Devils meet in the finals, the loser still has a really good chance. Lose before then, though, and all bets are off. The more important storyline from a conference perspective is the crowning of the true champion. One issue with the unbalanced ACC schedule is that regular season wins and losses aren’t directly comparable anymore. Virginia had the easiest conference strength of schedule of any ACC team (in part because it can’t play itself), but the Cavaliers only played Duke once (at home), North Carolina once (away), Louisville twice, and Notre Dame once (away). Duke, on the other hand, got Virginia once (away), North Carolina twice, Louisville once (away), and Notre Dame twice. The Blue Devils only played one extra game against the top five teams, but that extra game was on the road. What I’m trying to say here is that if we want to crown a true ACC champion with no regrets, Duke and Virginia need to meet on Saturday evening for a neutral-court rematch.

Don’t forget about the Wolfpack. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

• Bubble Bath: Heading into Greensboro, the ACC bubble situation is pretty straightforward this year. Pittsburgh needs to walk away with the trophy. NC State is mostly safe (not that the Wolfpack should think about losing to Pittsburgh on Wednesday). Miami is on the outside of the bubble but can definitely play itself into the Big Dance. The Hurricanes need a splashy win (alas, the winner of Wake Forest and Virginia Tech won’t cut it). A win over Notre Dame on Thursday might just tip the scales. Beating Duke a second time would make it a sure thing, and beating any other opponent to make the championship game would probably be enough as well.

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1. uproxx: Martin Rickman writing about the ACC? Sign me up. Rickman, one of the best bloggers in its truest form, does a great job chronicling his recent trip to watch Duke beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He teleports you to the world as a normal person experiences it. Not a media member with a parking pass ready to complain about baseline seating, but a normal person milling around Franklin Street from pregame revelry to postgame letdown. It’s refreshing.
2. Syracuse Post-Standard: The Post-Standard’s coverage of the Syracuse scandal has been phenomenal. This article really stuck out, though, because it gets into the nitty gritty of the athletic department’s subversion of the rules. For the record, most NCAA rules are ridiculous, but requiring student-athletes to remain in good academic standing is generally pretty important if you’re selling the system on education. Syracuse went to great lengths to keep Fab Melo eligible. What’s got to be terrifying for the NCAA is there’s absolutely no way Syracuse’s situation is unique… and there’s still North Carolina’s academic scandal to deal with.
3. Pittsburgh Tribune Review: John Harris thinks Pittsburgh‘s recent swoon is because of fatigue and that’s a reason to not trust Duke going forward. The key difference is that Duke’s two players logging ridiculous minutes are guards who have a wealth of other options. Jamel Artis and Michael Young, on the other hand, have to carry a lot of the burden on their own. Part of the Panthers’ recent letdown may have also had to do with a growing realization that they were on the outside looking in for the NCAA Tournament. A team like Pittsburgh expects to get there just about every year, so when they don’t, it’s bound to be a letdown.
4. BC Interruption: How do the final conference standings look compared to the preseason media poll? Not all that similar, actually. Notre Dame, Miami, Clemson and Virginia all overachieved. Pittsburgh and North Carolina didn’t fare as well.
5. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Marcus Georges-Hunt‘s season ended with a broken foot, but he’s not going to let it get him down. It may let head coach Brian Gregory down, though, as he likely needs a miraculous performance in the ACC Tournament to keep his job, and Georges-Hunt was the team’s most important offensive player.

The ACC regular season has come to a close, which means it’s time for conference tournament play and postseason dreams that stretch deep into March. For now, though, it’s a great time to look back at the standout performers and performances of the regular season that was. Here are your 2014-15 ACC superlatives:

RTC All-ACC Team

• Jahlil Okafor, Duke. Okafor lived up his immense preseason billing and single-handedly turned a dangerous Duke team into a dominant one. Okafor was the conference’s second-leading scorer (17.6 PPG), third-leading rebounder (9.2 RPG) and top shooter by field goal percentage (66.8%). His ability to make the team a dual threat instead of the perimeter-reliant teams of yore means these Blue Devils have a very high ceiling come NCAA Tourney time.
• Jerian Grant, Notre Dame. The remarkable year that the Fighting Irish enjoyed can be traced to the return of Grant from a suspension related to academic improprieties. In addition to his highlight-reel dunks and numerous clutch baskets, Grant was a stat-sheet stuffer for a vastly improved Notre Dame team, logging 16.8 PPG, 6.7 APG and 1.8 SPG on the season. He also shot an outstanding 49.4 percent from the field.
• Rakeem Christmas, Syracuse. The Orange ultimately had little to play for because of their self-imposed postseason ban, but they may have produced the best on-court individual success story of the year. Christmas’ amazing improvement from his junior to senior season (17.5 PPG, +11.7; 9.1 RPG, +4.0) proved he could flourish as the team’s primary option. He served as the lone bright spot in an otherwise disastrous season for Syracuse hoops and has positioned himself for a bright future in the professional ranks.

Rakeem Christmas was the bright spot in an otherwise bleak Syracuse season (USA Today Images)

• Malcolm Brogdon, Virginia. Brogdon’s inclusion on this list speaks to his ability to play whatever role Tony Bennett asks of him. With Justin Anderson stealing the early headlines, Brogdon was content to act as the team’s best on-ball defender and late game shot-maker. When Anderson fell to injury, Brogdon resumed his role as a primary offensive weapon. He averaged nearly 14 points per game while shooting 34 percent from three and 86 percent from the line. Traditional statistics never do Virginia players much justice, though, but Brogdon’s intangible ability to meet the demands made of him showed his true value to the ACC regular season champs.
• Olivier Hanlan, Boston College. Hanlan played on a mediocre Boston College team but his offensive prowess was rivaled by none in this year’s ACC. The conference’s leading scorer at 19.4 points per game, he remained a deadly offensive weapon despite playing the point guard position for the first time in his career. He scored 30 or more points four times, including a stellar 39 points on just 20 shots against Pittsburgh.

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1. Syracuse.com: By now, most people know that Jim Boeheim skipped the postgame press conference after Syracuse wrapped up their 2014-15 season with a loss at North Carolina State on Saturday. Instead, the embattled coach sent out long time assistant Mike Hopkins to face the media rather than have to personally take questions in public for the first time since the NCAA announced their findings and punishments for the Syracuse program after a lengthy investigation. Most basketball media viewed Boeheim’s refusal to appear as cowardice, but this article claims that Syracuse’s administration told him not to attend. Perhaps they recognize that Boeheim has a tendency to be confrontational and defiant when faced with harsh questions about how his program is run, and sometimes says more than he should – like his initial reaction to the Bernie Fine situation.
2. Stateoftheu.com: If Miami can get past the winner of Wake Forest/Virginia Tech they would be a formidable match-up for third-seeded Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals. The Hurricanes and the Irish are similarly constructed as both are perimeter oriented offensively. So that game could come down to who makes the most 3-pointers, and don’t be surprised if that team is Miami, after they drilled 15-of-25 from deep against Virginia Tech in Saturday’s regular season finale. This article wonders if the Hurricanes are actually better off without injured point guard Angel Rodriguez, who has been in an icy shooting slump for quite a while. While it’s true that his replacement, Manu Lecomte is clearly the superior shooter, the Hurricanes probably still need Rodriguez’s defense and creativity to beat elite teams.
3. Fox Sports Carolinas: In this piece, Lauren Brownlow has a pretty good take on the current status of North Carolina State, as the Wolfpack head into Greensboro as a very dangerous 7-seed. As she points out, sophomore center BeeJay Anya is a big key to the Wolfpack’s success. When he is playing well – protecting the rim, grabbing offensive boards, and finishing alley-oops, N.C. State has shown they can compete with elite teams. When Anya is not as aggressive, or in foul trouble, the Wolfpack is more vulnerable in the paint to teams with good interior players. Another interesting factoid presented here is that Mark Gottfried and N.C. State have amassed an impressive 4-and-1 record this season in games against teams with active Hall-of-Fame coaches.
4. Louisville Courier-Journal: Probably the most surprising hero in college basketball this past weekend has to be Louisville‘s Mangok Mathiang, who knocked down the game-winning jumper to take out Virginia. Afterwards, Rick Pitino joked that “Mangok was the 64th option” on the play, but when the Cardinal’s Terry Rozier got trapped and passed him the ball, Mathiang calmly knocked in only his second field goal in the last month. Unlike the first meeting between the two teams – when Virginia only committed two turnovers – this time the Louisville pressure defense forced 13 Cavalier miscues. That defensive effort, and a big game from Montrezl Harrell were enough to send the Cardinals into postseason on a much higher note than seemed possible just two weeks ago, when Chris Jones was dismissed from the squad.
5. USA Today: It certainly has been the season of good will in what is widely acknowledged as the best rivalry in college basketball: Duke and North Carolina. First came the moving tribute to Dean Smith in the first match-up in Durham in mid-February, when the coaches/players locked arms and knelt together in a moment of silence. Then before Saturday’s rematch in Chapel Hill, Roy Williams and his team captains – Jackson Simmons and Marcus Paige – met Mike Krzyzewski at midcourt to honor him for becoming the first coach to reach 1000 career wins. In his postgame press conference, Krzyzewski discussed the uniqueness of the rivalry with the level of respect between the two programs. By comparison, think how laughable it is to imagine Nick Saban being honored by Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium, or Urban Meyer receiving a standing ovation at the Big House.