Putting Duke's ACC Tournament dominance in perspective

Duke invitational?

Before we begin talking about the NCAAs, I’d like to tie up some loose ends that show what an absolutely great basketball season Duke is having.

Word of warning. I will be using numbers. If you’re Chevy Chase channeling Gerald Ford on SNL, there will be math. Basic math.

And none of this will be discussing why North Carolina got into the Big Dance ahead of West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio State and probably some other entrants. But I never again want to hear the words “Quad 1 wins.” Your rules, NCAA. Adhere to them or get rid of them.

And yes, an 18-2 ACC team that defeated another 18-2 team in the ACC Tournament and led the nationally top-ranked team in lots of metrics well into the second half of the title game deserved better than an eight seed. Better than a seven seed, better than a six seed.

Anyway. Back to Duke.

The Blue Devils have 31 wins, three losses going into the NCAAs. We need to understand how truly special that is. The last Duke team to go into the tournament with fewer losses was the 1999 team, which was 32-1.

Thirty-one wins already is already in the top 15 in Duke history, with more to come, one would hope. A loss somewhere down the road--more likely than not--still would leave this team as only one of 11 Duke teams in the ACC era with four or fewer losses.

I should mention that Eddie Cameron’s last Duke team went 22-2 in 1942, which is pretty cool. And still wasn’t invited to the fledging eight-team NCAA Tournament.

Now, that’s getting snubbed.

The school record for wins in a season is 37. The 1986 team did it first, followed by that 1999 team. Both entered the NCAAs with 32 wins, made it to the finals but lost.

This team could-checks notes-equal but not surpass those 37 wins.

I think we’d take that.