College Basketball Betting: 2021 Atlantic Coast Conference Preview

The 2021-2022 college basketball season will be a momentous one in the ACC for one very simple reason: It will be Mike Krzyzewski’s last season as a college basketball head coach. Coach K will retire after this year is done and hand the baton to former player Jon Scheyer. Roy Williams of North Carolina has already retired, so when Coach K hangs up his whiteboard at the end of this upcoming season, it will truly be the end of a golden era of college basketball in the ACC.

Team Likely To Surprise

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have struggled profoundly in the past few seasons. Coach Mike Brey has been at Notre Dame for over 20 years. He has given that school a lot of great basketball moments, but there has been a sense in recent years that he is running out of steam and ideas. Many people in the college basketball industry think that Brey is coaching for his job this season. There is a significant group of Notre Dame fans who think he needs to make the NCAA Tournament this season, or at least come very close, in order to justify remaining on the job for another year into 2023. Notre Dame upset Florida State late last season when the Seminoles were trying to win back-to-back ACC regular-season championships. That game from the Fighting Irish showed that the players still care about Mike Brey and want to do well for him. With the 2022 season being less disorganized and chaotic compared to the pandemic season which ended this past April, Notre Dame might be able to regroup and rebound, putting together a strong season which reestablishes trust in Mike Brey, and the feeling that he is still the right man for this job.

Team Likely To Disappoint

The North Carolina Tar Heels have a reasonable amount of depth from last season, and they could put together a solid year under first-year head coach Hubert Davis. However, Davis has to prove he is worthy of the leadership position in Chapel Hill. He has to show that being a Roy Williams assistant has fully prepared him for the far more enormous task of being the head coach and the face of a blue-blood program. Doubts about Davis are warranted. What is also worth noting is that big man Walker Kessler, a raw but promising talent with a lot of untapped potential, began to play really well late last season. His transfer to Auburn is a significant blow for this team. UNC is likely to fall short of expectations this season.

Conference Champion

The Duke Blue Devils will want to make this a great sendoff for Coach K, but that’s not enough of a reason to pick Duke as the ACC champion. What is important to note is that Virginia, last season’s ACC champion, loses a lot of offense from its 2021 team. Virginia is in an in-between position and is not in great shape to defend its conference crown. North Carolina has Hubert Davis replacing Roy Williams. Florida State is a good-but-not-great team. The stars really are aligned for Coach K, who has elite freshman Paolo Banchero to carry the Blue Devils to one more ACC title in Durham.