1. Streaking the Lawn: Here’s a cool visualization from Streaking the Lawn looking at the winners of every ACC game for home games versus away games. Right now the conference gives a slight edge to the home teams (which have won 23 of 40 games counting Syracuse’s win over Boston College), but it’s still a little early to put too much stock in this. Once all the teams have played each other, this will be a very interesting graphic. On its own it will still say as much about match-ups as it does home-court advantage, but charts are a quick way of getting into the M5.
2. Washington Post: College GameDay is coming to Charlottesville for the first time in its admittedly short history! It should be a really fun day with Duke coming to town in one of the more anticipated games of the regular season. The funniest part of this story is that ESPN host Karl Ravech accidentally slipped the news before the Worldwide Leader had officially announced it, but that game has been on everyone’s radar for a while so it’s not exactly a surprise. For the time being, though, I don’t have much insight on it (I’d favor Virginia, but Duke will win if it’s hitting threes).
3. Sporting News: Speaking of the Blue Devils, don’t immediately label Duke‘s recent dabbling with a zone a defensive cure-all. That said, this Duke team will likely need to play more zone than any other group under Mike Krzyzewski (they are too small and laterally challenged in the backcourt to make up for Okafor’s learning curve). In some games Duke’s man-to-man may do the trick (see the game at Wisconsin), but in other games, a zone might be the way to go (see the game at Louisville). Learning to play both competently will determine how tough this team is to beat in March.
4. Busting Brackets: Is Louisville overrated? It depends on how good you think the Cardinals are. What we know about Rick Pitino’s team is that it doesn’t have a consistent halfcourt offense. The Cards don’t shoot well and Montrezl Harrell isn’t your classic back-to-the-basket post player. That said, their defense is elite. Louisville will crush most undermatched teams on their defense alone, but they too will struggle to score against better teams. This is a really good squad, but it is missing some key offensive pieces that it has had over the last few years (as many expected coming into this season).
5. John Gasaway: Tuesday Truths are back! Unsurprisingly, Virginia is running away with the league from an efficiency standpoint. Look for Duke and another challenger (maybe North Carolina or Notre Dame?) to close the gap a little as the season progresses. The biggest surprises here were NC State and the Tar Heels taking the runner-up spots. Gasaway thinks North Carolina has the best shot at becoming a well-rounded team, but I worry about the Tar Heels’ ability to make shots.

In the headline match-up of the weekend, Duke ended its two-game losing streak with a surprisingly comfortable win at Louisville on Saturday. But the bigger surprise was how the Blue Devils did it, going almost exclusively with a 2-3 zone defense that was incredibly effective against the cold-shooting Cardinals. Notre Dame rallied from a 12-point second half deficit to beat Miami in South Bend on Saturday, keeping the Irish in second place in the league standings behind undefeated Virginia. The Cavaliers also had to mount a second half comeback to overtake Boston College Saturday afternoon in Conte Forum. In other games over the weekend, Syracuse dropped its first league game of the year at Clemson; N.C. State picked up a road win versus Florida State; and North Carolina and Pittsburgh each won home games against a pair of conference winless clubs, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. Here are some other highlights from over the weekend in the ACC.

Notre Dame’s Jerian Grant broke out in a big way in Saturday’s win over Miami. (USA Today Images)

• Most Outstanding Player: Jerian Grant had scored a total of only 26 points in his previous three games, but the senior guard broke out of his mini-slump with a huge effort against Miami on Saturday. The ACC Player of the Year candidate finished with an efficient 25 points that came on 8-of-10 field goal shooting. He also passed out eight assists and was part of a perimeter defense that held Hurricanes’ guard Angel Rodriguez in check. Rodriguez had torched Duke in his previous game with 24 points, but only managed four points on 1-of-10 shooting Saturday. Grant was also the difference down the stretch as his three broke a tie with 6:19 left and he also scored a layup and blocked a shot in the last minute to seal the win.
• Best Win: After looking nothing like a championship contender in its two prior outings, Duke got back on track with a mild upset at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center on Saturday. After an all-night coaches’ meeting following Duke’s home debacle versus Miami, Mike Krzyzewski abandoned the Blue Devils’ trademark pressure man-to-man defense to instead play a 2-3 zone against the Cardinals. While it was a big surprise to most of us, the zone was not totally unexpected by Louisville’s Rick Pitino, who said afterwards, “Duke is a team that never plays zone… and that’s what I would have done if I were in [Mike Krzyzewski’s] shoes.” Pitino is no doubt referring to his team’s lack of perimeter shooting, which finished a chilly 4-of-25 on three-pointers against the Devils. Ironically, Duke looked a lot more like a recent-vintage Syracuse team, with the Blue Devils playing deliberately on the offensive end to go along with the newly-installed zone defense.

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One week ago, the storyline surrounding Duke‘s visit to Louisville was that Mike Krzyzewski would most likely be going for win #1,000 in his illustrious coaching career. How quickly things change in the world of college basketball! Today, after two discouraging beatings by unranked teams, the Blue Devils head into a Noon ET (ESPN) showdown wondering if they can beat just about anybody right now. So what’s going on with the team that won each game handily on its way to a 14-0 start, including that huge early December win at Wisconsin that seems like ages ago?

Mike Kzyzewski Had No Answers in Tuesday’s Loss to Miami.
(Grant Halverson / Getty Images)

Whenever a team goes through a bad stretch, there are invariably multiple reasons for the slump. In Duke’s case, much has been made of the team’s poor defensive play and with good reason — both N.C. State and Miami torched the Blue Devils with over 1.2 points per possession. Duke’s defense struggled in almost every area in both games: off the dribble; perimeter shooters; poor rotation; transition; at the rim. That’s too many areas to fix with strategic adjustments alone. On offense, the team that has ranked first nationally in offensive efficiency for most of the season has suddenly gone ice cold. Senior Quinn Cook is the only perimeter player who can make a jump shot right now, which allows defenses to concentrate on surrounding Jahlil Okafor without paying the price. Consider this: Cook has made 8-of-14 shots from three-point range in the two losses, but the rest of the team is 6-of-35. Perhaps all of that cold shooting is a big reason for the defensive meltdowns that took place in the second half of each loss (see tables below).

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Conference play got under way for the ACC roughly two weeks ago, and the early games have lived up to their lofty billing in providing us with valuable insights. Some teams are clearly playing up to their potential and possibly even beyond it, while several others are already searching for answers for disturbing trends. Welcome to this week’s ACC Stock Watch, the first since the ACC’s teams started beating up on each other.

Trending Up

• Virginia. It would be hard to imagine that a team entering ACC play at 12-0 could be trending up after just two weeks of action, but the Cavaliers have the look of a serious national title contender. The only team boasting both a defense and an offense among the top 10 in efficiency metrics, the Cavaliers have shown a keen ability to win games in a myriad of ways. It’s not just an elite defense carrying Tony Bennett’s team, as it showed in its awesome 89-80 double-overtime win over Miami two weeks ago. Virginia has already toppled the Hurricanes and Notre Dame and have shown no signs of slowing down.
• North Carolina. With the best of the Tar Heels’ non-conference wins losing some luster (Ohio State, Florida), North Carolina badly needed a marquee win in conference play. Last weekend’s victory over Louisville qualified as such, and holding on to beat NC State in Raleigh on Wednesday night showed the team may have regained some of the toughness that was so sorely lacking. Could a 3-1 ACC start propel North Carolina to bigger things?

Marcus Paige and North Carolina are off to a very promising ACC start (newsobserver.com)

• NC State. A 3-2 start in the ACC may not blow anyone away, but the Wolfpack’s demolition of Duke and their near-win over a surging North Carolina team shows Mark Gottfried’s group is capable of making some noise this year. Add in a blowout win over Pittsburgh an is there a reasonable argument that NC State belongs with the heavyweights?
• Miami. There were plenty of questions about the direction in which the Hurricanes were heading when they closed the non-conference schedule by losing three of four. But Angel Rodriguez and company have answered the bell in the ACC, pushing Virginia to double-overtime and handling Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium. With Notre Dame and NC State up next, we’ll know even more about Miami by this time next week.

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1. Seminoles.com: Florida State has posted a list of current alumni playing professionally. After going down the page, looking at all the different places around the globe with ex-Seminoles on pro rosters, one notices that there is a fairly prominent league that currently features no former players from Florida State. In a bit of a surprise, despite having put together a solid ACC program over the last decade, Leonard Hamilton has no former Seminoles on NBA rosters right now. I thought for sure Al Thornton, just 32 years old now, would still be in the league and when he wasn’t on this list, I figured it was a mistake. After a quick search it was found that the former 1st Team All-ACC performer recently signed with a club in Puerto Rico. Perhaps this shows that the difference between having a solid college program and one that is a national title contender is having future NBA talent on your roster. Interestingly, the only other current ACC member with no current NBA players is Notre Dame, a similar program success-wise. Like Florida State, the Irish have been pretty consistent winners, but never have had enough star power to make a deep NCAA postseason run. At least in Notre Dame’s case, the Irish have a likely future NBA-baller this year in Jerian Grant.
2. Clemsontigers.com: While Mike Krzyzewski is getting plenty of attention on his approach to 1000 wins, Clemson’s Brad Brownell just recently reached a coaching milestone of his own. Saturday’s 71-62 Tiger road win over Pittsburgh was Brownell’s 250th career victory. That brings his record at Clemson to 83-64, and while he is well regarded by the media and fellow coaches, eventually Brownell needs to get Clemson back to the NCAA Tournament, where they haven’t been since 2011, Brownell’s first year at the school. Despite’s Saturday’s upset win over the Panthers, making the Big Dance this year may be a reach for this Tiger team, which would be four straight seasons with no NCAA bid. Just ask Steve Donahue and Jeff Bzdelik how that same streak worked out for them.
3. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: This article looks at a surprising weakness of this year’s Pittsburgh squad: rebounding. Toughness on defense and on the boards have been the cornerstones of Jaime Dixon’s program for years, but that has certainly not been the case this season. In Clemson’s aforementioned win Saturday, the Panthers were thoroughly whipped on the glass by a margin of 17, the most of Dixon’s tenure at Pitt. On the season, the Panthers now rank #236 in the nation in defensive rebounding percentage. Undoubtedly, that has a lot to do with Pittsburgh’s current #162 ranking in adjusted defensive efficiency, which is eerily similar to the performance of Pitt’s 2012 defense, which ended up #149, the only season that Pitt’s defense was not ranked in KenPom’s top 65. Not coincidentally, that was the only year Dixon’s team missed out on the NCAA Tournament.
4. Louisville Courier-Journal: In this piece, the consequences of Rick Pitino’s short bench are examined, namely in the form of late game fatigue. Against North Carolina, three Louisville starters played almost 40 minutes and possibly wilted down the stretch in the Tar Heels’ 72-71 comeback win. It’s certainly not Pitino’s preferred way to play, but at this point in the season he obviously just doesn’t trust his young reserves enough to give them meaningful minutes. One wonders if this means the Cardinals will have to dial back some of their famous pressure defense just to keep their core guys fresh. Pitino certainly isn’t coddling his young players and perhaps is trying to send them a message with his public comments, saying, “This is a very unusual group because they’re weak physically, they’re weak emotionally and they’re weak basketball-wise.” Coaches know that the players hear every public word spoken by their coach, but it remains to be seen if they are capable of earning Pitino’s trust anytime soon.
5. Ramblinwreck.com: Georgia Tech is trying what they call an innovative pricing program for their final two home games this season. They call it the Ramblin’ Rates program, and describe it as a descending-price auction that makes sure that fans pay the lowest market price for the games. The two games in question just happen to be versus Louisville and North Carolina, obviously the two biggest drawing events of the season to be held at McCamish Pavilion. While the plan tries to paint itself as a great benefit to the fans, it’s pretty obvious that the school thinks the demand for tickets for those attractive opponents will drive the “lowest market price” above normal game pricing and bring in extra cash by getting their patrons to bid-up the cost. I don’t think it’s a scam and if the tickets all sell, then the market will have been responsible and that’s OK. But one could legitimately ask, why doesn’t the market get to decide things when Alabama A&M comes to town?

The first two months of the college basketball season are all about landmarks. Okay, they’re not all about landmarks, but they are about building up to something more important, and landmarks help us track the progress. First there are Midnight Madness and the season’s opening weekend. Then, the Champions Classic followed by all the holiday tournaments. More recently we’ve celebrated the return of conference play and the first full Saturday of games. Now, we’ve got one final landmark to pass before we hit full stride: the return of ESPN’s College Gameday. The festive travelling Saturday pregame show is back for good this weekend when Rece Davis and the crew travel to Ames for Iowa State’s match-up with Kansas, and it returns with some tweaks. First of all, Seth Greenberg replaces Digger Phelps as one of the three studio analysts; but more importantly, flex scheduling has been introduced, which means ESPN can choose its destination a week in advance to ensure it relocates to the most intriguing game of the weekend (just like the football version). With the eyes of the college sports world now fully trained on the hardwood, a more interesting Gameday experience is just another of many things to look forward to in 2015.

Three for the Money

This Was the View the Last Time These Two Teams Met

• Kansas at Iowa State | Saturday, 9:00 PM EST, ESPN. If Kansas and Iowa State are worthy of Gameday’s attention, they’re certainly worthy of ours. Assuming that the Jayhawks get past Oklahoma State at home on Tuesday – by no means a foregone conclusion – they’ll have successfully shrugged off questions and will have started Big 12 play 3-0 for the ninth consecutive year. On the other side of things, Iowa State is one of the most enigmatic teams in the country. On some nights the Cyclones look offensively un-containable, but on others, they look completely out of sync. One thing for which they can be counted on though is a healthy sprinkling of Hilton Magic. Iowa State has only dropped two games over the past three calendar years in their building, but both, however, came against Kansas. Both were also barn-burners. Count on another one this Saturday. 
• Duke at Louisville | Saturday, Noon EST, ESPN. The Jayhawks and Cyclones got Gameday, but this early tip-off between the Blue Devils and Cardinals should garner just as much attention. NC State played the role of narrative-killer on Sunday when its upset meant Coach K won’t have an opportunity to win his 1,000th game here, but perhaps now the game will take on a little added importance. The key will be how Louisville’s guards keep Duke out of the lane and how well they recover to the three-point shooters. Jahlil Okafor will clearly be a factor underneath, but if Terry Rozier and Chris Jones can make things uncomfortable for Quinn Cook and Tyus Jones, the Blue Devils could fall short of their customary offensive output.
• Utah at Arizona | Saturday, 7:00 PM EST, Pac-12 Network. Saturday could go a long way to deciding the Pac-12 crown this season. And while it’s a shame that this game is buried on the Pac-12 Network, it’s a huge occasion. Utah is the insurgent, rising to power from the ashes, while Arizona is still king until proven otherwise. The Wildcats’ throne will be seriously threatened on Saturday. After a stunning loss to Oregon State — coming only three games after a defeat at UNLV — there are some issues in Tucson. Sean Miller still hasn’t found consistent enough offense from his talented group, and one worry is that he must sacrifice defense to get his best offensive five on the floor. Delon Wright, Utah’s do-everything combo guard, will look to take advantage of a physically underwhelming Arizona backcourt. Find this one on a stream somewhere.

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1. Syracuse.com: The Orange received crushing news yesterday that freshman Chris McCullough will miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL. While his season had been inconsistent to this point, there’s no denying that this is a huge loss for Jim Boeheim’s team. His potential has been well-documented and he’s shown flashes of what he’s capable of at times this season. Perhaps the biggest development from this news, however, is how much his loss further depletes Syracuse’s depth. Syracuse may be the rare ACC team with an easier start to the conference slate, but its overall chance of a promising season took a big blow with this injury.
2. ESPN.com: North Carolina’s thrilling victory over Louisville on Saturday had to do wonders for the team’s confidence, and more importantly, may have finally given the Tar Heels the early signature win they needed. One of the more interesting items from this article, though, is that Marcus Paige has been dealing with plantar fasciitis in his right foot for several weeks. This could help shed some light on the reason for his inauspicious start to the season, and also lend some credence to how impressive his heroic second half against the Cardinals really was.
3. Fayetteville Observer: NC State’s pummeling of Duke on Sunday is one of the biggest headlines of the young ACC season to date, but what the Wolfpack accomplished in the paint may be the real storyline here. While it has been Mark Gottfried’s perimeter players who have gotten most of the corresponding attention, Kyle Washington and BeeJay Anya were the keys to the big upset win. NC State’s post players’ abilities to hold their own against Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow bode very well for the Wolfpack as the season progresses. This is a team that has been on a roll since conference play started, and it looks to continue its hot start in another rivalry match-up with North Carolina on Wednesday.
4. Streaking The Lawn: A suddenly vulnerable-looking Kentucky team is no longer a unanimous No. 1 in the Associated Press poll, as Virginia wrested two votes from the Wildcats in this week’s rankings following its big win at Notre Dame over the weekend. The Cavaliers appear to be a legitimate title contender and threat to capture the ACC crown despite all the preseason hype about Duke, North Carolina, and Louisville. According to KenPom, Virginia is the only team in the country ranked among the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency (sixth-best offense; fourth-best defense).
5. ESPN.com: Duke’s loss to NC State could be attributed to a number of different things — namely defensive lapses and poor three-point shooting — but C.L. Brown keeps it simple: They’re led by freshmen. Despite Okafor’s big game, there were many signs that the youngsters leading this Blue Devils’ team still have much to learn about life in the ACC. Point guard Tyus Jones has not contributed nearly the gaudy numbers he posted prior to conference play, and Okafor and Winslow did little to slow the Wolfpack’s frontcourt (with Winslow eventually fouling out). It’s probably a good time for everyone to remind themselves that they’re watching a Duke team that hasn’t started three freshmen since 1983 for a reason.

Sometimes, less is more. Sometimes, there is nothing to be said. After a weekend like the one that just transpired, this is probably one of those times. You saw the games. Or at least you saw the results. I didn’t even see much of it because life gets in the way, and because, let’s be honest, who would mark their calendars to make a point to catch a late Sunday night Arizona vs. Oregon State game? Or Wisconsin against Rutgers at the same time that Peyton Manning is perhaps playing his last football game… ever? I hate to be repetitive, but man, crazy stuff happens in college basketball. And the craziest part is that that crazy stuff often happens at crazy times when you least expect it.

Upsets, Upsets, and More Upsets!

It Was That Kind of a January Sunday in College Basketball (USA Today Images)

The strangest aspect of Saturday and Sunday was that all of this happened on a weekend without many marquee match-ups. Sure, we had two headliner games in the ACC, but many of the results that ended up leading SportsCenter weren’t the focus of the weekend previews. Wisconsin was matching up against arguably the worst team in the Big Ten; Arizona was playing a bottom-four team in the Pac-12; and Duke was playing a middle-of-the-pack ACC squad. All three left with losses, and it didn’t stop there. Kentucky, everybody’s #1 team in America, was pushed to the brink by a Texas A&M outfit that nobody thinks all that much of; and Oklahoma, which might have succumbed to the RTC Podcast jinx (if such a thing exists), looked bad in a home loss to Kansas State. Huh? Overall, six of the USA Today top 10 went down last week – five over the weekend – and two others came very close to dropping their first games of the season. For some – Louisville (at UNC), Texas (at Oklahoma State) maybe even Duke (at NC State) – the losses were reasonable enough for conference play. But for others – we’re looking at you, Wisconsin and Arizona – the upsets were completely confounding. A little less than two weeks ago, Rutgers lost to Northwestern at home, scoring only 47 points; not long after that, Wisconsin beat that same Northwestern team in Evanston by 23. How do you explain that? Some will try by point to the absence of Frank Kaminsky. But you just don’t… you just can’t.

The ACC Bloodbath Has Commenced

It began last Monday night when Notre Dame went to Chapel Hill and knocked off North Carolina and it spilled over into the weekend. There are five ACC teams among the top 20 of the polls, and there really could be five in the top 15, maybe even top 10, but of that group, four already have a conference loss. How do the five stack up? After Virginia’s impressive win at Notre Dame, the Cavaliers have established themselves atop the pack for now (for analysis from South Bend, check out Walker Carey’s postgame takeaways). Duke is probably still a close second despite giving NC State students another insane court rush. But realistically, any of the trio of Louisville, North Carolina and Notre Dame could be third. It seems harsh to punish the Cardinals for a one-point road loss, but Rick Pitino’s team only has one top-40 win at this point (over a puzzling Ohio State team). Then there are the Tar Heels, which just knocked off Louisville but are exhaustingly erratic. Notre Dame of course won at UNC but struggled with Georgia Tech and only has one other quality win on the entire season (Michigan State). For now, I’ll rank this group as such: 3. Louisville, 4. Notre Dame, 5. North Carolina. But I’d be willing to bet they’re in a different order this time next week.

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Two years ago, the debate raged. Did Gonzaga, the #1 team in both polls on Selection Sunday, really deserve a #1 seed? It was a question rarely faced by teams towering over the polls at such a late juncture, but the Zags’ 31-2 record didn’t impress everyone. Critics brought up the weak WCC. They pointed out an unflattering RPI ranking of #8. More anecdotally, they looked up and down the Gonzaga roster and asked — other than Kelly Olynyk — where all the pros were. The Zags claim to a #1 seed was as energized a debate as any on Selection Sunday in March 2013.

Mark Few, Kevin Pangos and Gary Bell Are Steering Gonzaga Towards Yet Another Dominant Regular Season Finish. Will The Zags’ Disappointing 2013 NCAA Tournament Showing Impact This Team’s Placement Within The Bracket?

That story’s ending shouldn’t have escaped memory yet (Cliff Notes: #1 seed granted, but Sweet Sixteen appearance sold separately) and it may have more damage to deliver the Bulldogs. This season boasts an equally dominant Gonzaga outfit and a similarly helpless WCC, which puts Mark Few’s team on a crash course for a familiar Selection Sunday predicament. After easily knocking off San Francisco on Thursday night, the 15-1 Bulldogs look as poised as ever to rip through a soft WCC and reach Selection Sunday with just one loss, an overtime defeat at Arizona (who is kind of good!). Early results indicate competition for the four #1 seeds is likely to be even fiercer this season than it was two years ago, but this Gonzaga group also looks to be stronger as well. Dominoes in the race for a #1 seed will be falling from now until March — in both Spokane and elsewhere — but round two of the great Gonzaga debate is coming. There’s no reason not to begin considering the question now: Will the kings of the WCC deserve to be on the bracket’s top line?

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1. Miami Herald: Miami is off to the greener pastures of apparel company Adidas. While that means more money for the school, it’s no secret that Nike is considered more hip and arguably more structurally sound with their basketball shoes. There’s also the corollary fact that AAU basketball is run by the shoe companies. While recruits are in the habit of regularly switching allegiances, the move could affect who Miami recruits in the future. The Hurricanes will join NC State and Louisville under the Adidas brand — the other ACC non-Nike schools are Notre Dame and Boston College, which are with Under Armour, and Georgia Tech, with Russell).
2. Syracuse Post-Standard: Syracuse guard Ron Patterson has been told to “keep shooting” despite his early struggles. He definitely wasn’t alone in that struggle against Georgia Tech last night (the two teams combined to go 33-of-109 from the field), but Jim Boeheim needs Patterson to contribute this year because Kaleb Joseph isn’t an instant standout like Tyler Ennis last season. If the Orange’s shooting woes continue, Syracuse will be looking at a very uncomfortable Selection Sunday.
3. Louisville Courier-Journal:. Their playing styles couldn’t be more different, but Louisville, Virginia and Duke have a lot in common in that all three are top-five teams nationally that have recently put up questionable performances. While the bottom of the ACC isn’t very good, there aren’t any free games where you can mess around for 30 minutes before hitting the gas and winning easily. Wake Forest just missed pulling off a couple of upsets over the Cardinals and Blue Devils, and Virginia has gotten a bit too cute against Miami and NC State. All three teams are assuredly works in progress, but the coach who can get the most consistent effort from his team will likely wind up on top of the league this season.
4. Duke Basketball Report: Six ACC teams currently have more turnovers than assists on the season. That’s… not good. The better news is that four of those six teams have an assist/turnover ratio above 90 percent and could still improve (because your stats usually get better in conference play?). Unsurprisingly, Clemson clocks in with the worst such ratio (0.85) and Florida State — a team that has struggled with turnovers the last few years — brings up the rear (0.87). But Louisville (0.94) and NC State (0.94) both need to improve if they want to make something of the postseason.
5. Deadspin: Ken Pomeroy took a look at the odds that Virginia or Duke will finish as the last unbeaten team in college basketball (instead of Kentucky). Kentucky is the favorite to turn the trick by far, but the results were closer than I expected (although Kentucky’s chance at an undefeated regular season is currently at 18 percent, which is much higher than Virginia or Duke’s). Through the lens of efficiency margin, Duke and Virginia offer pretty similar profiles, so the Cavaliers’ advantage is likely from getting to play Duke at home and avoiding Louisville until the last game of the season.