Streaks in League Openers by ACC Teams

The ice is broken. Every team has played at least one ACC game, and three significant season-opening streaks remain intact.

On the positive side, Virginia has now won eight in a row to inaugurate a season, capped by last Saturday’s 77-66 victory over Notre Dame in a matchup of the two most recent league champions. The Cavaliers’ run predates Tony Bennett’s tenure at Charlottesville, but only by a year. Dave Leitao’s next-to-last squad lost at Duke in a 2008 opener.

Then there’s Georgia Tech, loser of 10 straight ACC season debuts since a victory over Virginia in Dec. 2005, back during Paul Hewitt’s regime at Atlanta. Boston College similarly spans two coaching reigns in dropping five straight ACC openers dating to Steve Donahue’s second season at the helm.

Several schools you might think would be overpowering early, namely Duke and North Carolina, are actually trying to build on modest streaks.

The Blue Devils easily handled lowly Boston College in their opener for the second year in a row. That’s as far back as the Devils’ run goes – they lost their 2013-14 opener at Notre Dame in the first ACC game ever for the Fighting Irish.

UNC beat Clemson and then Georgia Tech at the Smith Center in this year’s league opener for each visitor. As recently as 2014 the Tar Heels were defeated at Wake Forest to start conference competition.

By the way, the Heels weren’t alone in serving as the opening partner for a pair of ACC teams. Syracuse did the same double duty, and lost both times – first at Pittsburgh on Dec. 30 and then at Miami on Jan. 2.

Also worth noting: Every ’16 opener was won by the home team except Duke at Boston College.