Longest ACC Winning Streaks

The new ACC, whether improved or not, has most certainly generated a wealth of long winning streaks. That's been true since 2004, when Boston College and Virginia Tech joined up. It's been even truer since 2014, when Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse joined the fold.

This may mean the competition is more diluted. Or perhaps the death of the round-robin makes it easier to exploit a sympathetic schedule to get momentum. Then, too, with mostly optional nonconference games bunched toward the start of a season, it's easier to mount a run right out of the gate.

Explain it as you will -- ACC teams have posted winning streaks of 10 or more games on 34 occasions since '04, including a 10-victory run by Duke en route to the 2010 NCAA championship neatly followed by a 15-win streak to start the 2011 season.

Over those dozen years double-digit winning streaks occurred about three times per season (2.8). The frequency of sustained conquest rose last season, when the league went to 15 members. The average in 2014 and 2015 is four runs of 10 or more wins each year, with time remaining this season for a team to get hot and mount another victory streak.

In 2014 Syracuse introduced itself to the ACC with 25 consecutive wins, good enough to tie for sixth-best in league history with those 2010 and 2011 Blue Devils. Virginia's 19-win run earlier this season, interrupted at Charlottesville by Duke on Jan. 31, was third-best in the double-figure era of ACC membership.

The streaks mounted by the Orange and Cavaliers opened a season; 19 of 34 runs of 10 or more triumphs since 2004 (55.9 percent) inaugurated a new season, as did 9 of the 13 longest skeins during that span (69.2 percent).