Part I: Duke, FSU, VT, Md
Part II: UNC, Clemson, GT, Miami
Part III: State, UVa, BC, Wake

2009-10 record: 35-5 overall, 13-3 ACC (first)

Postseason: NCAA Tournament (6-0, national champions)

Projected starting lineup: G Kyrie Irving, G Nolan Smith, G Seth Curry, F Kyle Singler, F Mason Plumlee

Part I: Duke, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Maryland
Part II: UNC, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami
Part III: N.C. State, Virginia, Boston College, Wake Forest
 

In the immediate aftermath of his fourth, and most unlikely national title, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told Jim Nantz of CBS:

"It's hard for me to imagine that we're the national champions."

Funny, that's exactly what the people who watched Duke lose by double-digits to N.C. State and Georgetown were thinking.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Jarnell Stokes stood out among the big men at the NBAPA Top 100 camp on Thursday morning for both his immense size and his skill set.

Of the 96 players in the camp, most are all arms and legs but Stokes, who's going into his junior year of high school, is built like an NFL tight end.

GREENSBORO — A one-run, seventh-inning lead slipped away and Florida State beat N.C. State 8-3 in the championship final of the ACC tournament at NewBridge Bank Park Sunday.

Even worse, N.C. State catcher Chris Schaeffer went down at the plate with a concussion in the eighth inning, waiting for the throw from right field as Florida State outfielder James Ramsey ran him over. Play was stopped for 25 minutes as an ambulance came out on the field and took him to Moses Cone Hospital.

"It's hard to go from that play and back to the game," said N.C. State outfielder Kyle Wilson. "We wanted to win the game for him. We had done it all year."

Indeed, N.C. State won seven of eight games this season in extra innings, but had no luck against relievers Sean Gilmartin and Mike McGee, who combined to allow only two hits over the final 4 1/3 innings.

GREENSBORO — Miami took control early and kept adding the runs in a 9-3 win over Florida State at NewBridge Bank Park in the second game of the ACC baseball tournament Wednesday.

The No. 4-seeded Hurricanes (40-15) plated three runs in the second inning, and the Seminoles (38-17) responded with two in the top of the third inning to cut Miami's lead to 3-2.

But that was as close as No. 5 seed Florida State would get.

"It's a huge win," Miami coach Jim Morris, who grew up in the Triad, said. "They've been our biggest rival."

If N.C. State's going to jump from the bottom of the ACC basketball standings to the top, the Wolfpack will have to do so against the toughest conference schedule.

The details — dates and order of opponents — have yet to be finalized, but under the three-year schedule rotation, the Wolfpack has two games each against Duke, Florida State and Clemson during the 2010-11 season, in addition to the annual home-and-home games with rivals North Carolina and Wake Forest.

At 5-11 in the ACC last season, N.C. State finished in 11th place. With
an influx of new talent — three five-star recruits — the Wolfpack is
expected to make a significant jump in coach Sidney Lowe's fifth season.

In a column earlier this week, colleague Tom Sorensen wrote that the ACC needs to expand again and suggests West Virginia, Cincinnati and Louisville as targets.

Sorensen is right about 90 percent of the time, especially when
forecasting draft picks the Charlotte Bobcats should have made. As he
often mentions, he said in 2006 that the Bobcats should draft Brandon
Roy in 2006 and in 2005 that they should trade up to get Chris Paul.
Imagine how good the Bobcats would be if they'd followed Sorensen's
advice.

Defending NCAA champion Duke will play host to 2010 NCAA semifinalist Michigan State on Dec. 1 in the marquee matchup of the 2010 ACC/Big Ten Challenge, ESPN announced today.

North Carolina will visit Illinois on Nov. 30, and N.C. State will travel to Wisconsin on Dec. 1 in two of the Challenge's other key games. Game times and TV assignments on ESPN's family of networks will be announced at a later date.

Miami, which finished last in the ACC standings last season, is the lone team from the 12-school ACC that won't compete against the (for now) 11-school Big Ten in the Challenge.

The ACC starting lineups/rotations to mull over now that we know which players will be around for the 2010-11 season.

By the way, you read somewhere in March which players would be leaving and which would be staying. You might want to listen to that guy when the Summer Hoops Preview comes out in June.

Here's the list, in no particular order (wink):

Florida State basketball coach Leonard Hamilton has come into North Carolina for the second straight year and landed one of the state's top players.

Cherryville High's Terry Whisnant, a 6-foot-3 junior guard who made 51 percent of his three-pointers last season, committed to the Seminoles this week.