NCAAB

College Basketball Preview: Will Duke Run Away With the ACC?

Duke is again ranked first in the preseason AP poll, but the Blue Devils are hoping for different results this season. How does the rest of the ACC look heading into the year?

The ACC is once again loaded at the top of the conference and should likely be the strongest league in the country. The usual suspects are back again in Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, and Notre Dame, ready to battle for the ACC crown.

North Carolina won the regular season last year before returning to the National Championship and claiming the school's third title under Roy Williams. The other ACC schools did not fair well at all in the tournament, combining to go 5-7, with none of them reaching the Sweet 16, even with three of them earning top three seeds.

Duke has jumped out as the favorites in the conference again and have been voted the top team entering the season by the Associated Press and the coaches polls, but it is not going to be that easy. The ACC has four other teams ranked in the AP top 25, the three other aforementioned teams along with the Miami Hurricanes. With the recent news of Louisville's freshman Brian Bowen being cleared by the FBI of any wrongdoing in the huge NCAA scandal, the Cardinals become that much more of a threat to the Blue Devils, if they decide to reinstate him.