Here’s how Duke basketball can clinch the outright ACC regular-season title on Wednesday

Cooper Flagg and the Duke Blue Devils cemented at least a share of the ACC regular-season title with Monday’s 93-60 victory over Wake Forest, and it’s hard to imagine Duke losing another league game at this point.

Duke controls its destiny in the conference with an 18-1 record in league play, but even that record doesn’t reflect the Blue Devils’ dominance against ACC opponents in 2024-25. Flagg and his teammates have won six straight conference games by at least 18 points, including three in a row by more than 30, and they’ve racked up 12 20-point victories on the season. Even with last month’s road loss to the Clemson Tigers factored in, Duke has a +421 point differential through 19 ACC games for an average margin of 22.2 points.

The Blue Devils don’t play again until Saturday’s season finale against the North Carolina Tar Heels in Chapel Hill, and a sweep over UNC would give them sole possession of the conference title. However, if two games go their way on Wednesday, this weekend’s result won’t matter at all.

Here are the two things the Blue Devils need to happen in order to clinch the ACC regular-season title outright.

This is the big one for the upcoming ACC Tournament. The Tigers are the only team with a head-to-head victory against the Blue Devils, so if both squads end up with an 18-2 record, Clemson would snag the No. 1 seed in the bracket. Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, however, the path of least resistance to avoiding that is simply beating the Tar Heels on Saturday. Boston College has a 4-14 record in conference play, and neither of Clemson’s remaining opponents (the Tigers play Virginia Tech on Saturday) are within the top 140 of the KenPom rankings as of Tuesday night.

This result doesn’t carry the same urgency as Clemson since Duke beat the Louisville Cardinals on the road back in December, but it might be just as unlikely. The Cardinals have won 17 of their last 18 games with victories over Clemson, UNC, SMU, and Pittsburgh (twice) in the process. The Golden Bears have only fared slightly better than Boston College in their first ACC season, winning six ACC games, but this also looks like a long shot on paper.