There may not be a team in the county hotter than Duke. The Blue Devils (25-8) have won eight straight games and will take on Virginia (25-6), Saturday night in the ACC Tournament championship with hopes of making in nine. During the streak Duke has defeated every team that beat them earlier in the season – Virginia Tech, NC State and Miami. Next up on the revenge tour is a Cavalier team who the Blue Devils, 69-62, at Paul Jones Arena on February 11th.
Duke vs Virginia
- Duke and Virginia have only met once before in the ACC title game, with the Cavaliers winning 72-63 in 2014 behind MVP Joe Harris.
- Virginia won the regular-season meeting 69-62 in overtime on Feb. 11 in Charlottesville.
- Duke leads the overall series, 123-54.
About Duke
- Duke, which is the all-time winningest program in the New York Life ACC Tournament with 109 wins reached the finals for the 35th time, tying North Carolina for the most in league history. The Blue Devils will seek to add to their current conference record of 21 ACC Tournament titles on Saturday night.
- The Blue Devils’ Jon Scheyer will attempt to become the third first-year head coach in league history to guide his team to the New York Life ACC Tournament championship. Scheyer would join Duke’s Vic Bubas (1960) and North Carolina’s Bill Guthridge (1998).
- Duke is in the title game for the second straight season, the fourth time in the last seven years and the 35th time overall, which matches the ACC record for most title games.
- Duke is now 101-40 all-time at the Greensboro Coliseum and is 43-18 all-time in ACC Tournament games played at the venue.
- Duke has held opponents below their season scoring average 29 times (25-4 in those games) and the Blue Devils are second in the conference in scoring defense (64.4), second in threepoint field goal defense (.306) and second in field goal defense (.411).
About Virginia
- Virginia is 46-64 all-time in the ACC Tournament and 20-24 in Greensboro. The Cavaliers are 16-9 in the ACC Tournament under current head coach Tony Bennett and 10-16 in ACC Tournament semifinals
- The Cavaliers are now 8-4 all-time as the tournament’s No. 2 seed.
- Virginia’s 25 wins are the most for the program since the NCAA Championship team of 2019 won 35. It is the Cavaliers’ sixth 25-game win season under current head coach Tony Bennett.
- The Cavaliers have won at least one game in the ACC Tournament a program-record nine consecutive years. Friday night’s win was Virginia’s 15th in the tournament in the past 10 years. The program won 14 tournament games in the previous 24 years.
- Virginia advances to the title game for the 10th time. The semifinal victory margin is the second-largest of the 10, surpassed only by a 29-point win over Georgia Tech at the Omni in Atlanta in 1983.
Tipoff for Saturday’s championship game is 8pm. It will be televised on ESPN.
