Not long ago 20 victories was the mark of a good season. For some programs, especially those for which losses usually come as often as victories, that’s still the case.
But, with more games played during the regular season and the widespread addition of multi-game, in-season tournaments, not to mention universal adoption of league postseason tournaments, getting at least 20 shots at victory is easier than ever. Given the number of opportunities, winning 20, around two-thirds of a team’s games, as seven
ACC teams did last season (.388 percent), is not the clear measure of superior play it once was.
Looking back across ACC history, and at other power leagues, the measure of a superior season is achieving 30 wins. Nationally powerful programs post that many victories with some regularity these days, as shown below. That’s part of what makes the exceptional programs exceptional.
The 30-win threshold is no easily reached cutoff. Thirty wins have never been achieved by 7 of 18 programs in the ACC, nearly 40 percent of the members in the conference’s current bloated configuration. What’s more, if you subtract seasons with 30 victories achieved before becoming league members, only Duke and North Carolina, Virginia to a lesser extent, as well as Maryland, NC State, and Notre Dame once each, have been that successful during an ACC season.
Louisville won 30 or more games eight times, including when the Cardinals met and beat Duke (37-3) for the 1986 NCAA championship. But that was before the 32-7 Cards, led by big man Purvis Ellison, joined the ACC. That also was the first of Mike Kryzyzewski’s 13 squads to reach a Final Four and the first of 14 to reach 30 wins.
UL has yet to advance far in NCAA play since joining the ACC. The program’s best recently was a 35-5 record in 2013, two years prior to being added to the ACC to fill the gap left by Maryland’s departure. That ’13 team won the NCAA title (as did Denny Crum’s 1980 squad), only to become the first squad stripped of its title due to rules violations under Rick Pitino, now at St. John’s.
Remarkably, for all its strength when the new ACC was sprouting its wings, NC State has just two 30-win seasons to its credit. The first was notched by Everett Case’s 1951 squad, 30-7 while a member of the Southern Conference. The Wolfpack also went 30-1 in winning the 1974 NCAA title under Norm Sloan, culminating a 57-1 run over two years that’s unmatched in ACC history.
Virginia had five 30-win finishes, one under Terry Holland in 1982 at the height of the Ralph Sampson-Jeff Lamp era, and four under Tony Bennett in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. The ’19 squad won a national championship, though UVa’s other 30-win teams under Bennett went 3-3 in NCAA play. Included was the 31-3 squad of 2018, which became the first top seed to lose its NCAA opener to a No. 16.
The coach of that victorious University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) club was Ryan Odom, the Cavs’ new coach this season.
Most of the ACC’s 30-win seasons belong to Duke (17) and North Carolina (12).
The Tar Heels were the first ACC club to venture into the 30-victory stratosphere when Frank McGuire’s 1957 club went 32-0 and won the NCAA title. Behind big man Lennie Rosenbluth, UNC survived by capturing consecutive triple-overtime triumphs in the Final Four over Michigan State and a Kansas squad led by Wilt Chamberlain.
McGuire’s former assistant, Dean Smith, had three UNC teams with 30 or more wins, capped by securing national championships in 1982 and 1993. His successor, Bill Guthridge, won 34 in 1998, his debut season as head coach, and reached a Final Four. Then former Smith assistant Roy Williams amassed seven 30-win seasons, culminating in NCAA titles in 2005, 2009, and 2017. Williams’ teams won 30 or more four times in five seasons from 2005 through 2009, a period bracketed by national titles (2005 and 2009).
But The Thirty Man was Mike Krzyzewski, whose Duke clubs won 30 or more on 15 occasions between 1986 and 2022, 10 times in 18 seasons between 1998 and 2015. (Some AI web assistant we happened upon claims John Calipari is the leader in 30-win seasons, but he managed only 11. So much for AI accuracy.)
All five of the Blue Devils’ NCAA titles concluded seasons of 32 or more wins: 1991 (32-7), 1992 (34-2), 2001 (35-4), 2010 (35-5) and 2015 (35-4). From 1998 through 2004, a period of seven years, Coach K’s Devils averaged 31.6 wins and 4.6 defeats per season.
Rounding out the 30-victory parade, the ’25 Duke club finished 35-4 under Jon Scheyer, who played on 30-win units under Krzyzewski in 2009 and 2010. The accomplishment hardly got the attention it deserved, considering the rarity of 30 college wins in a season.
| TOP NOTCH Most Wins In Season By ACC School Men’s Team (* Achieved Prior To ACC Entry) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| School | Most | Year | Coach |
| BC | 28 | 2006 | A. Skinner |
| Cal | 30* | 1946 | N. Price |
| Clem | 27 | 2025 | B. Brownell |
| Duke | 37 | 1986 | M. Krzyzewski |
| 1999 | M. Krzyzewski | ||
| FS | 29 | 2019 | L.Hamilton |
| GT | 28 | 1990 | B.Cremins |
| 2004 | P. Hewitt | ||
| UL | 35* | 2013 | R. Pitino |
| Md | 32# | 2002 | G. Williams |
| Mia | 29 | 2013 | J. Larranaga |
| 2023 | J. Larranaga | ||
| NC | 36 | 2008 | R. Williams |
| NS | 30 | 1974 | N. Sloan |
| ND | 32 | 2015 | M. Brey |
| UP | 31* | 2004 | J. Dixon |
| 2009 | J. Dixon | ||
| SC | 25# | 1970 | F. McGuire |
| SMU | 30* | 2017 | T. Jankovich |
| Stan | 31* | 2001 | M. Montgomery |
| SU | 31* | 1987 | J. Boeheim |
| V | 35 | 2019 | T. Bennett |
| VT | 26 | 2019 | B. Williams |
| WF | 27 | 2005 | S. Prosser |
| # No Longer In League | |||
