DONALD WATKINS | THE CHARLOTTE POST


Duke basketball coach Jon Scheyer, who led the Blue Devils to the 2025 ACC title and a Final Four berth, will try to improve on their outcome in 2026. 

The Carolinas ACC basketball teams have high aspirations. Here are season outlooks for all five.

Clemson (27-7, 18-2 ACC): The Tigers finished third in 2024-25 with the same conference record as second place Louisville. Ironically, the two teams met in the conference tournament semifinal where the Cardinals were victorious. The Tigers made the NCAA tournament and lost to McNeese State in the round of 64. 

The Tigers are young but have a couple of seniors that will make an impact.

“[We are] excited to be here for year 16 for me,” coach Brad Brownell said. “I’m excited to see what this new team brings. R.J. Godfrey and Dillon Hunter are alongside me, two seniors that I think will be tremendous leaders for this year’s team. I like our group. Obviously, we have 10 new players, six freshmen, so we’re a little bit young, but I think we’ve got great depth. I’m excited about how we’re practicing. I think our guys are competing very hard.”

Clemson is widely known as a football school and rightfully so given three national championships, but Brownell is entering year 16 for a reason. He loves the process of building a winner.

“I’ve been there for a long time, and I think it’s because the values and what Clemson stands for is excellence,” he said. “I think you see it throughout the university.”

Duke (35-4, 19-1 ACC): By Duke standards, the Blue Devils fell short of their goals last season. Despite a Final Four appearance and ACC title, they had goals of cutting down the nets in San Antonio. 

Several key contributors are now in the NBA, like No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg; Kon Knueppel and Sion James, who are both now Charlotte Hornets; Kahman Maluach and Tyrese Proctor. The Blue Devils reloaded via the transfer portal and had the nation’s No. 1 ranked recruiting class come in as well to help this year’s title aspirations. 

The Blue Devils welcome three 5-star players in Cameron Boozer, son of former Blue Devil Carlos Boozer, Nikolas Khamenia and Dame Sarr. They also added 4-star recruits Caden Boozer (Cameron’s twin) and Sebastian Wilkins. 

“Our team has worked incredibly hard,” coach Jon Scheyer said. “We’ve had a big-time offseason, focused on individual development from everything from their bodies to their skills to, most importantly, how to be connected together, and that’s in every way possible.”

Duke has a handful of key returners from last year as well in Isaiah Evans, Patrick Ngongba, Caleb Foster, Darren Harris and Maliq Brown. Foster, a junior, will look to be one among this year’s leaders. When it was an option to transfer elsewhere, Foster opted to stay with the Blue Devils. 

“I’ve been a Duke fan my whole life,” he said. “I didn’t really think about transferring at all. Duke is where I want to be. It’s where I want to call home. It’s where I want to leave my legacy.”

North Carolina (23-14, 13-7 ACC): The Tar Heels have had a bumpy road under coach Hubert Davis minus the 2022 national runner-up finish. North Carolina exited the NCAA tournament in the round of 64 last season and lost to rival Duke in the ACC semifinals. Davis brought in several players to construct the 2025-26 roster. 

North Carolina brought in 5-star freshman Caleb Wilson and hit the transfer portal for Jarin Stevenson (Alabama), Henri Veesar (Arizona), Jaydon Young (Virginia Tech), Kyan Evans (Colorado State) and Jonathan Powell (West Virginia). One key returner for the Tar Heels is guard Seth Tremble. 

“I always tell the guys that in order to play for me you have to know me, and I have to know you,” Davis said, “and the only way that we get to know each other is to spend a lot of time together. I’m thankful that we’ve had that time in the summer and in the fall heading into the season where we have a clear understanding of who we are on and off the court that allows us to be the best that we can be on the court.”

North Carolina State (12-19, 5-15 ACC): For N.C. State, 2024-25 was a season worth forgetting. Just two seasons removed from a Final Four berth, the Wolfpack struggled to stay in games, much less win. The biggest change for the Wolfpack this season is new coach Will Wade, who comes in from McNeese State following the dismissal of Kevin Keatts. 

Wade (42) is the third-youngest coach in the ACC just ahead of Scheyer (38) and Jai Lucas of Miami (36). Wade led McNeese State to the round of 32 in last year’s NCAA tournament before falling to Purdue. 

“We’re excited to be here, excited to get the season started,” Wade said. “[I am] proud of our team, proud of our staff for putting the team together and the amount of progress that we’ve made. [We] put our team together with an emphasis on being able to win, being able to win in March. We have the most NCAA tournament minutes of any team in the ACC on our roster. We have six guys on our roster that won an NCAA tournament game last year.”

One key addition to the Wolfpack roster is no stranger to the ACC. Center Ven-Allen Lubin transferred to N.C. State after playing last year at North Carolina. It is common in today’s college athletics landscape to transfer, but to transfer to a rival school was a big decision. 

“I think it was just how transparent [Wade] is,” Lubin said was the driving factor behind transferring to the Wolfpack. “He isn’t just someone who is going to say the things that you want to hear. … He is going to keep it real with you. That is the thing that I really admire about him. We both haven’t been able to max out our potential. You’ve seen that at my previous stops; I haven’t been able to max out my potential and that is what he wants for me and to do whatever I can to help impact this program.”

Wake Forest (21-11, 13-7 ACC): The Demon Deacons were on the bubble of making last year’s NCAA tournament, but an ACC quarterfinal loss to North Carolina was the pin in the balloon of any hopes coach Steve Forbes had. Forbes, who is entering his sixth season, has a career coaching record of 390-168. 

Forbes said after every season he and the staff have in-depth assessments of what went well and what didn’t. They identified some things they wanted to improve in 2025-26. 

“I thought that we obviously need to improve our three-point shooting,” he said. “We needed to improve our passing with more assisted baskets, improve our rebounding on both sides of the ball, and improve on some movement and cutting on offense. I feel like we’ve accomplished those things and more since March.”

One key returner for the Demon Deacons will be Salisbury High alumnus Juke Harris. As a freshman, Harris averaged 6.1 points per game in 19 minutes per game. At 6-7, he is a tall guard and Forbes said he has improved his size and shooting in the offseason.

“He always had really good positional size at 6-7,” Forbes said. “He’s gained a lot [of weight] –probably, I don’t know, 10 or 15 pounds in the weight room. He’s really improved his shooting – he’s shooting 47% from three right now in practice. We’re shooting 41% as a team. Now, when the lights come on, we’ll see. But yes… he’s a two-way guy. He can be a really good offensive player and be a dominant defensive player.”

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