NCAA: N.C State is the ACC Favorite Not Duke or UNC!

 Though the Tar Heels and Blue Devils are staying put, expectations in Raleigh have been ratcheted up as high as they have been since Jim Valvano roamed the sideline. The Wolfpack stand poised to upset the hierarchy in a conference in which the only difference between the top two schools in the standings often is the shade of blue.

Four starters return from a team that made an improbable run to last season’s Sweet 16 — the school’s first tournament appearance since 2006 — en route to winning 24 games, its most since 1988.

And despite a three-point loss to eventual national runner-up Kansas, Gottfried says his team was capable of competing with any team in the nation, even Kentucky, last year’s national champion. Add three McDonald’s All-Americans, and the Wolfpack are in prime position to challenge for their first ACC regular-season title since 1989.

“It has been a perfect storm for (N.C. State),” Maryland coach Mark Turgeon says. “They have had some good young players, and Mark has done a nice job with them. They have recruited well, and they played well in the NCAA tournament. Usually when you come off all that, it is a perfect storm that leads to all this hype.”

No one is predicting that North Carolina and Duke will be relegated to playing in the National Invitation Tournament in March. Though they saw a combined six players taken in the first round of the NBA draft, both programs should be near the top of the league standings.

Duke returns three of its top five scorers, including senior Mason Plumlee, and added two dynamic freshmen in Rasheed Sulaimon and Amile Jefferson.

The Tar Heels have 25 points a game returning, but sophomores James Michael McAdoo and P.J. Hairston should thrive.

That said, the annual Duke-North Carolina games might not be the most anticipated matchups in the Research Triangle this season, much less in the nation. And that’s refreshing to Wolfpack point guard Lorenzo Brown, who has long hated the hoops conversation being dominated only by chatter about the storied North Carolina-Duke rivalry.

Written by Eric Prisbell read more on USA Today