The streak goes on.
Winning streaks can be affirming, attention-getting, intimidating. A run of victories can invest a team with confidence, encourage supporters, fuel momentum.
All of those benefits presumably
have accrued as Duke fought its way to victories in its first 10 games of the 2025-26 season.
To appreciate what the Blue Devils are doing, the following chart is confined to notable runs by ACC men’s squads since the 2021-22 season. The ‘21 season was cut short by Covid and offered teams reduced opportunities to go on a run.
Besides, there’s only one coach remaining in the league from five seasons ago, improbable as that may seem, and that’s Brad Brownell of Clemson. With players and coaches so thoroughly replaced, it’s reasonable to consider the post-Covid years a new ACC era.
During that four-plus season span, including 2025-26 to date, ACC teams have compiled 7 winning streaks of 10 or more games. Remarkably (or maybe not), 4 of those streaks, (57 percent), were compiled by Duke. All four came under Jon Scheyer, including the current 10-win run extended on Michigan State’s home court.
Coaches are wont to say they’re building teams to compete for national championships. Getting on a roll, whenever it occurs, can build toward a title or earn a team consideration after failing to compile a strong resume throughout the regular season.
Late runs are especially impactful. NC State, a 10th-place ACC team with a record barely above .500 in early March, got to the 2024 Final Four with a serendipitously-timed winning streak. The Wolfpack, led by big man DJ Burns Jr., won their last nine games, five in a bloated ACC Tournament followed by four in the NCAAs. The ride ended with a Final Four defeat by Purdue.
That Kevin Keatts was dismissed barely a year later might seem abrupt, unfair, and/or ungrateful. Then again, the trip to the sport’s pinnacle weekend was sandwiched by seasons in which the Wolfpack finished with 21 losses, most in school history (2022), and 19 losses and a 16th-place ACC finish in 2025.
Duke’s runs have been more outcomes of consistent excellence. The Devils notched the two longest winning streaks of the post-Covid era in 2025. A narrow February 8 loss at Clemson interrupted what might otherwise have been a 32-game run of victories, reminiscent of the ’99 Blue Devils, who won a school-record 31 in a row.
Now Scheyer’s fourth club has a chance to surpass marks for consecutive wins set last year en route to an ACC title and a Final Four. The Devils reappear at Cameron for a 10-day layoff that ends with a visit from Lipscomb (an Atlantic Sun Conference member located in Nashville, Tenn.) on Dec. 16, followed by a matchup with the Big 12’s Texas Tech at Madison Square Garden, one of Duke’s homes away from home.
“Ten games in, we get a little bit of a pause,” Scheyer said after the Breslin Center victory. “We’ll learn, grow and see how we can continue to get better, because we don’t want this to be the peak of our season. We’ve got a lot we want to play for still.”
Not to be overlooked, Louisville likewise conjured several impressive streaks in ‘25. UL had skeins of 11 and 10 consecutive victories, most of them against weak ACC competition, with only a February loss at Georgia Tech in between. The Cardinals started this year with 7 straight wins before falling to Arkansas.
As a reminder of how far and fast Louisville has come under second-year coach Pat Kelsey, the Cards’ best runs immediately prior to his arrival were measly back-to-back wins in 2023 and 2024 with Kenny Payne running the show.
At the other end of the streak spectrum: So far, over the five years of Earl Grant’s Boston College tenure, his teams have yet to win more than four in a row in a single season.
| HOT FLASHES Most Consecutive Wins By ACC Teams, Last 5 Seasons |
||
|---|---|---|
| W in Row | School, Season | |
| 16 | Duke, 2025 | |
| 15 | Duke, 2025 | |
| 11 | Louisville, 2025 | |
| 10 | Duke, 2026* | |
| 10 | Louisville, 2025 | |
| 10 | North Carolina, 2024 | |
| 10 | Duke, 2023 | |
| 9 | Clemson, 2025 | |
| 9 | NC State, 2024 | |
| 9 | Wake Forest, 2024 | |
| 9 | Miami, 2023 | |
| 9 | Miami, 2022 | |
| * Ongoing. | * | |
