For the first time in conference play, Duke couldn't escape their own issues, and we got one of the shots of the season. Bubble teams stayed on the bubble, while the bottom of the league showed why they're the bottom of the league, again. While the results didn't necessarily shock anyone, the ACC continues to put together some of the most fun hoops we've seen in years from this league.

The elephant in the room is can they translate this into wins in March?

18: Georgia Tech (11-13) 0-2 last week; Previous ranking (18)

Why: The entire thing about this team was supposed to be while they're a below average offensive team, they could at least drag you down defensively and frustrate you to no end. Their last three games have included letting UNC drop 91 on them, Cal score 90, and the culmination of this was allowing Ebuka Okorie to score 40 on his own while giving up 95 points on the whole against Stanford. What's their path to victory, hope a team forgets how to score?

17: Pitt (9-15) 0-2 last week; Previous ranking (17)

Why: Part of me just wanted to post this still of Jeff Capel during Saturday's loss against SMU as their blurb but that just wouldn't be fair. The Panthers went from only down 2 at half, at HOME, to losing the game by 19 thanks to a Roman Siulepa layup with 19 seconds left. This is shaping up to be a very bad week for them. They get to host a very angry Duke team before going on the road and playing a red-hot UNC team. Might get very, very ugly.

16: Boston College (9-14) 0-2 last week; Previous ranking (16)

Why: If I had to pick an upset this past weekend, it was going to be BC picking off Miami. Honestly, got a lot closer than Miami wanted it to be. This week is going to be massive for them in terms of their chances of making the ACC tournament. The Fighting Earl Grants get the California twins coming in, and there might not be anything more harrowing than going into Conte Forum after flying cross country. Could Earl's team mess around and find a 2-0 week?

15: Notre Dame (11-13) 0-2 last week; Previous ranking (15)

Why: You don't want to be super repetitive with these, but is there anything else to say about Notre Dame but, "close but no cigar?" Let a very winnable game against Notre Dame slip through the crack before having to fight all the way back against FSU before losing by three because they forgot how to play offense Looking through the rest of the schedule, Saturday's game against Georgia Tech might determine the rest of their season. If they can't beat them, do you trust them against either of Pitt or Boston College, both of which is on the road?

14: Wake Forest (11-12) 0-1 last week; Previous ranking (14)

Why: After the 9:48 mark in the second half, Louisville only made one field goal against Wake, that being a prayer from Kasean Pryor. It didn't matter because 1) Wake fouled eight times from that point on and 2) offensively they regressed from about 15 minutes in the second half of crisp ball movement to jacking up contested mid-range shots or threes in transition. This team has to grow up, and it has to do it in a hurry. If they can't beat Georgia Tech on Wednesday...

13: Syracuse (13-11) 0-2 last week; Previous ranking (11)

Why: So it probably shouldn't much of a story that Kiyan Anthony caught a DNP-CD on Saturday. He's been Syracuse's least efficient player by a country mile. Which is fine, he's a freshman and sometimes they need time to adjust. What can't happen is the fact that Donnie Freeman isn't really ever put into a good position to score. I usually hate the "they don't run offense" critiques because they're generally lazy. Cuse does run offense, it's just bad. This team is too expensive to have four conference wins and three of the four coming against the basement of the league. But hey, at least Melo is posting about his kid going through adversity? The vibes are rotten for this team, however they matchup so well against Cal and winning helps everything.

12: Stanford (15-9) 1-1 last week; Previous ranking (12)

Why: #MyACCROY Ebuka Okorie dropped 40 points on Saturday. The Cardinal continue to have one of the weirdest resumes possible for the NCAA Tournament. They're not even a Next 4 Out team right now, but have four Q1 wins and almost got a fifth if they were able to knock off Clemson earlier in the week. It's going to be fascinating 1) to see if they can avoid any other dumb losses and 2) how the committee chooses to evaluate them.

11: FSU (11-12) 1-0 last week; Previous ranking (13)

Why: FSU has quietly won three games in a row and four out of their last five. The offense for the most part is still extremely reliant on how well they're shooting from three, but they've really turned into a fun team. I'm trying to decipher if the defense had really started to come around, or if it's truly just a who they're playing situation.

10: Virginia Tech (16-8) 0-1 last week; Previous ranking (10)

Why: Mike Young's team is running out of resume-altering games. The second half against NC State, they gave themselves a shot, but couldn't overcome a first half where they scored 24 points. This offense is going to score 1.0 point per possession. It's truly remarkable how consistently average the offense has been game to game and a big part of it is they've been horrid in the first half during conference play. They get another chance at Clemson this week but they're staring to have the Wake Forest 2024 problem of if they can't win a big game, they really can't afford to lose to say Florida State, who is a fine team but numbers nightmare at home.

9: Miami (18-5) 1-0 last week; Previous ranking (9)

Why: My sneaky take is this team feels destined for a first round exit in the NCAA Tournament, that is if they make it there. This week is one to watch for just to see what their offense looks like. They haven't played a top 50 team since mid-January and they couldn't score 60 points. Now they get UNC tomorrow, who magically only had one foul in the second half against Duke. Then go to an NC State team, who they should be able to bully on the boards, but that's about it. Any team that can match Reneau's size is going to give them real issues.

8: Cal (17-7) 1-1 last week; Previous ranking (8)

Why: Never change, Cal Castaways, never change. After surviving Georgia Tech, they just didn't stand a chance against Clemson in Berkeley. Size has been an issue for this team, and a team like Syracuse could really make a game ugly against them. They are what they are on defense, but it's going to come down to the offense which has been boom or bust. Cal has six games of scoring 1.09 points per possession or better in conference play, going 5-1 in those games. Their other five games have been under 1.0 PPP, with four of them being under 0.9 PPP, all five were losses.

7: SMU (16-7) 1-1 last week; Previous ranking (7)

Why: If SMU could've found a way to win at home against NC State, you'd really start to believe this team could make some noise, especially with the guard play they have. But right now, eh? You know they're going to score, especially with a backcourt as ferocious as they are. But their bigs just frighten me.

6: NC State (18-7) 2-1 last week; Previous ranking (6)

Why: I had an entire blurb ready to go about how this NC State team had truly turned the corner and were going to be one that even the upper echelon of the conference needed to respect. They soiled it by making me have to do a Monday night update because they lost by 41 points in a game where only two Louisville players scored in double figures. Be better.

5: Louisville (18-6) 3-0 last week; Previous ranking (5)

Why: Speaking of the team that beat NC State by 41 points, what a performance from Mikel Brown Jr. and Ryan Conwell. Brown had 45 with 10 threes while Conwell added 30 to really twist the knife against NC State, in a beating so bad it got flexed off ESPN for the 9pm game to start.

4: Clemson (20-4) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (3)

Why: Boring isn't the right word for this team, methodical is. This defense just makes life so frustrating for everyone they play against. Not to look too much past Virginia Tech, everyone is circling the game on Valentine's Day against Duke. We now know the Blue Devils aren't impenetrable in conference play. Can the immortal coach vault his team from one that's simply, "yeah that's probably a Sweet 16 squad" to one that should be talked about more as a potential Final Four team with the right draw?

3: Virginia (20-3) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (2)

Why: There can't be a team that's kicking themselves more this season, but still overall thrilled with where they are than Virginia is. Their two conference losses are in triple overtime to VT and UNC having to have one of the best comebacks of the year. Talk about taking care of business, they've done that and more this year in conference play, but this week can't get away from them. FSU is feisty, as mentioned above, and they get a neutral site game against Ohio State. If they want to keep being respected, they need to keep taking care of business.

2: Duke (21-2) 1-1 last week; Previous ranking (1)

Why: Down goes Frazier! Life is extremely simple here, that they're doing on offense isn't going to work. In the second half against Boston College and UNC, they've scored a combine 52 points. Averaging a tick over 25 points in a half isn't going to cut it. It's certainly not going to cut it when your best player makes a really bad defensive play on the UNC's final possession. This isn't a season defining loss, but just another in the notch that reminds you this team isn't inevitable and if they do cut down the nets, it'll be due to a hell of a coaching job.

Duke also isn't getting out of this without something on courtstorming. There's a way to keep these thing civil. There are bad actors in everything that happens in life, especially given we have video of someone launching a bottle and it looks to be right at Jon Scheyer. But the court storming complaints are tiresome. That's part of being villains, when you lose, you will get court stormed. It's truly inevitable. We can fix the bad actors from doing dumb stuff. You need to either not lose games if you don't want the court to get stormed or deal with it like the other top teams in the country do.

1: North Carolina (19-4) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (4)

Why: To my UNC friends who I saw tweeting and texting me that they wanted even year Hubert Davis fired, I hope you filled out your apology form and will be bringing on Saturday to the Pitt game. A lot of the talk from the game revolves around Caleb Wilson showing he's more than just someone who dunks. But this was just another step in Derek Dixon becoming a solid point guard and Seth Trimble being the good in college basketball. You can develop if you stay at places, and when given the opportunity, young guys can grow up.

I'd like to see if they do get another half this year if they foul once in 20 minutes though!