ACC Win Streaks

Running off a streak of consecutive victories is a sign of uncommon strength for any basketball team. Over the past five seasons nine different programs won at least 10 games in a row during a season.

Teams that didn’t put together double-figure wins include some obvious laggards – Wake Forest, loser of 10 straight in 2016, and Boston College, loser of 20 consecutive games from 2016 to 2017, and 15 in 2017. All of those spirals occurred under the schools’ current coaches.

Others without a 10-victory run since 2015 include the Techs, Georgia and Virginia; NC State; and Syracuse, which won 25 straight in its debut ACC season in 2014.

Only Duke and Virginia managed to repeatedly hit double-figure victories. In fact, this is a regular occurrence at Charlottesville, where since ’15 the Cavaliers have mounted runs of 11 (2016), 15 (2018), 16 (2019) and 19 (2015) victories. Not to mention 13 in 2014.

UVa’s winning streaks project a certain measure of invincibility, marking a program that’s passed from potent to intimidating, a program whose teams are expected to win.

Less noted, if only because expectations have long been high, Duke likewise enjoyed four double-figure winning streaks over the past five years: 14 and later 12 in 2015, a national championship season, 10 in 2017 and 11 in 2018.

Since the ACC undertook the first of two modern expansions in 2004 there have been 48 different runs of 10 or more wins by conference teams.

Of six NCAA champions from the league during that span only UNC in 2017 failed to reel off at least 10 victories in a row. (Duke in 2010 and 2015, North Carolina in 2005 and 2009, and UVa in 2019 were the other titleists.)

Twenty-three of 48 post-expansion runs of 10 or more triumphs opened a season, including Louisville (11 in 2015) and Syracuse (25 in 2014) in their debut league efforts.