Off the cuff: The Duke Blue Devils, who return junior All-America guard Grayson Allen and senior starting guard Matt Jones from last year’s team that finished 25-11 and earned the program’s 21st consecutive NCAA Tournament berth, received 85 of 91 first-place votes in the preseason poll. UNC was chosen second.
ACC Operation Basketball 2016-17 Preseason Poll (First-place votes in parenthesis)
Team & Points
1. Duke (85) - 1359
2. North Carolina (6) - 1239
3. Virginia - 1125
4. Louisville - 1034
5. Syracuse - 905
6. NC State - 772
7. Notre Dame - 716
8. Florida State - 705
9. Miami - 650
10. Virginia Tech - 645
11. Clemson - 623
12. Pitt - 511
13. Wake Forest - 309
14. Georgia Tech - 199
15. Boston College – 128
2016-17 Preseason All-ACC Team
(votes in parenthesis)
First Team
Grayson Allen, Duke (87)
Jaron Blossomgame, Clemson (70)
Joel Berry II, North Carolina (45)
London Perrantes, Virginia (36)
Dennis Smith, Jr., NC State (34)
Second Team
Justin Jackson, North Carolina (22)
Jayson Tatum, Duke (21)
Tyler Lydon, Syracuse (20)
Dwayne Bacon, Florida State (16)
Michael Young, Pitt (14)
ACC Preseason Player of the Year
Grayson Allen, Duke (70)
Jaron Blossomgame, Clemson (7)
London Perrantes, Virginia (5)
Joel Berry II, North Carolina (5)
Dennis Smith, Jr., NC State (2)
Andrew White, Syracuse (1)
Davon Reed, Miami (1)
ACC Preseason Rookie of the Year
Dennis Smith, Jr., NC State (51)
Jayson Tatum, Duke (20)
Harry Giles, Duke (10)
Tyus Battle, Syracuse (5)
VJ King, Louisville (2)
Jonathan Isaac, Florida State (2)
Josh Okogie, Georgia Tech (1)
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The regular season begins for all 15 ACC teams the weekend of November 11. In addition to an 18-game regular-season conference schedule, the 64th annual ACC Tournament will be played for the first time at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, tipping off with first round games on Tuesday, March 7, and concluding with the Saturday night championship game on March 11.
Tar Heels 95, Tulane 75 Heels start season hot in romp at Tulane
North Carolina got career nights from guys they'll need career years from if the Tar Heels intend to compete for another ACC title and have another chance at a national title. Justin Jackson scored a career-high 27, Joel Berry scored a career-high 23 and Kennedy Meeks hauled in a career-high 15 rebounds as Carolina romped over Tulane 95-75. (11/11)
The Tar Heels opened up a close game in the last few minutes of the first half, leading 46-32 after stretching a two-point margin to 17 earlier. Berry provided the spark scoring 10 points during the six-minute run.
Tulane's Cameron Reynolds scored a career-high 21 points, hitting five of six from 3-point land. It never got closer than 13 in the second half as Jackson matched Tulane's three pointers by scoring 15 of his points. The Tar Heels made nine of 20 from beyond the arc on the night, and shot the ball well from other parts of the floor as well as they ended shooting nearly 50 percent from the floor.
"It was ugly at times but when you look at the stats, some things look really good," UNC coach Roy Williams said.
Coach Williams said he wanted to give a lot of players significant minutes and he did just that as 10 Tar Heels played 10 minutes or more. Freshman Tony Bradley was the first sub off the bench and he finished with 10 points.
Bradley scored six of those points during a minute and a half stretch early in the second half 68-48. The margin stayed between 15-20 the rest of the way except when Jackson scored inside with under five minutes left to give the Heels their largest lead at 90-69.
"(We) did some good things and did some things we can learn from," Coach Williams said.
He said it was a good sign that Hicks, now a starter rather than coming off the bench, stayed out of foul trouble and contributed 16 points. Meeks, on the other hand, had trouble scoring as he made just four of 13 shots but he did have seven offensive rebounds.
The Tar Heels outrebounded the Green Wave 51-39 on their way to the season-opening win.
Carolina plays it's first home game of the season against Chattanooga Sunday at 4 p.m.
