A quick glance at the ACC will reveal a very sickening realization. Nobody (the font settings on my computer doesn’t go large enough for me to over emphasize ‘nobody’) stands in Duke’s way. Looking ESPN’s preseason rankings, the only ACC schools to make an appearance in the top 25 are Boston College (#10), Maryland (#17) and Wake Forest (#20).

An almost unanimous #1, Duke returns All-American candidates J.J. Redick and Sheldon Williams under the “Julius Hodge corollary”, which states that any player who can score over 20 points in a game while making opposing fans throw up in their mouth can stay in school for an additional four years. But that’s one of the reasons why Duke is always on top. They always see to have the same number of All-American seniors as they do incoming McDonald’s All-American freshmen. 

So why even go through the formality of playing the season? Should we just get out of the way and hand the ACC title to Duke now? Unless we can find a David to Mike Krzyzewski’s Goliath, we might as well.  Last year, there were eight teams who finished 7-9 or better. After a surprise rookie season in the league, now sophomores Miami and Virginia Tech are expected to fall back to Earth. N.C. State lost the aforementioned Julius Hodge (either he went pro or enrolled in another university); Georgia Tech said goodbye to Jarrett Jack and Wake Forest parted with Chris Paul after both decided to leave early for the NBA. All those players were the rock of their team; the glue who held everyone together, the guy who got the ball when the game was on the line, the one player who enjoyed taunting the opposing crowd. Now they’re gone. Suddenly all those teams’ ships are sailing without a captain.

It should be noted that North Carolina, the defending National Champions, also plan on playing basketball this year. But they didn’t just lose the captain of their ship, they lost a first mate, a navigator, heck even the parrot on the captain’s shoulder is gone. Word has it that Roy Williams has an incredible freshmen class coming in, but losing seven players from your championship team is going to cause anyone to go through growing pains. The Tar Heels will be tough, but can’t be taken seriously as a contender this year.

So that leaves the University of Maryland, whose only off season loss was a dejected John Gilchrist, who left school to declare for the draft. They are bringing back everyone from the Maryland team who snapped a streak of 11 straight appearances in the NCAA’s. A Terrapin team who lost to bottom feeder Clemson an astonishing three times last season. And believe it or not, they are the only team that stands in Duke’s way.

Much like Duke, Maryland is a deep, experienced team who is likely to start four seniors. And they have something that no other team can recruit or coach, they aren’t afraid of Duke. Remember, this is also the same Maryland team who swept Duke last year and who has won the last three meetings between the two teams. When D.J. Strawberry went down last year, Chris McCray was required to guard the opposing teams best player, and he has evolved into a very capable defensive player because of it. Now with Strawberry and McCray both back and healthy, they’ll be able to alternate guarding Redick and chasing him around screens. Maryland will enter the season with question marks with who is going to be the go to man in the low post this year, but on the defensive end, they have more than enough bodies to throw at Williams, who has the amazing ability to never pick up more then four fouls in a game.

Gary Williams has the right defensive mindset against Duke, he knows to concede 45 points to Redick and Williams. Maryland seems content (and they are right to do so) to let Duke’s stars score, just not let them have a great game. Let Redick and Williams get their points and lock down everyone else. Make Sean Dockery or Lee Melchioni beat you. 57,63, and 68 points: that is what Duke scored in the NCAA tournament last year in three games, and it was the result of Duke’s opponents copying Maryland’s strategy. 

Maryland will go through its share of troubles this year. Their depth will suffer from the loss of their prize recruit Shane Clark, or Ibekwe 3.0, out of Philadelphia. (My friends and I have this running joke that Maryland basketball has figured the cloning process out, and is cloning Ekene Ibekwe. Ibekwe listed at 6-9, 220, very closely resembles now-sophmore James Gist who checks in at 6-8, 223, to the point where we have started referring to Gist as Ibekwe 2.0. Clark was supposed to be Ibekwe 3.0 because he was apparently was another “tweener” player, a lean, athletic guy who could move from the 3-4 and even play the 2. The rumor was that not only could he block shots like Ibekwe and rebound like Gist, but he could also dribble. Give the Maryland genetics department a few years and wait for the release of Ibekwe 6.0, he’ll have every imaginable skill on the court.)

Adding to the complexity, Maryland has two new assistant coaches who have been hired because of the departure of Dave Dickerson, who finally was given a head coaching job at Tulane. (As if there weren’t enough sad stories from the gulf coast: Dickerson was an assistant coach at Maryland for centuries and was widely considered one of the best assistant coaches in the country. He FINALLY gets a head coaching position, only to have his first semester at his new school washed out from Hurricane Katrina and now faces the impossible task of trying to convince his recruits to stay committed to his school). You had to love Dickerson because he was always the coolest person on the Maryland bench whenever Gary lost it. Gary could’ve hit Gilchrist over the head with a chair last year and Dave wouldn’t have been fazed. He was like the wife of a husband who just found out that his kid got sent to the principal’s office that day.

Does Maryland have problems? Yes. Are they going to compete for a national title? Doubtful. In fact, Maryland probably won’t finish higher than fourth in the ACC. But as long as Duke has to play Maryland twice a year, rest assured that the Blue Devils will never have a cake walk through the ACC.