ACC preview: No. 6 Notre Dame leads deep conference

Notre Dame rolled into the Atlantic Coast Conference with a wave of championships before a two-year dip. Niele Ivey has the sixth-ranked Fighting Irish back in top position again.

They won last year's ACC Tournament title for her first as head coach, and now they're the preseason favorite to do it again. It's part of a swift rise under Ivey, the former Notre Dame player and assistant who is now in her fifth season as head coach after taking over for two-time national champion Muffet McGraw.

Notre Dame is the headliner in another tough league race that features five other AP Top 25 teams in an expanded 18-team alignment. N.C. State — fresh off its first Final Four run since 1998 — is next up at No. 9, followed by No. 11 Duke, No. 15 North Carolina, No. 17 Louisville and No. 19 Florida State.

The ACC's six ranked teams was tied for second with the Big Ten, trailing only the SEC's seven. The ACC has earned eight NCAA bids in six straight tournaments.

Notre Dame won four straight and five of six ACC titles when arriving in the league for the 2013-14 season, but dipped in McGraw's final season that preceded the pandemic (13-18) and then went just 10-10 in Ivey's debut season.

But she's gotten the Irish to three straight NCAA Sweet 16s since.

Her initial challenge is blending a lineup headlined by an Associated Press first-team All-American in high-scoring sophomore Hannah Hidalgo, along with the return of point guard Olivia Miles — a second-team AP All-American from 2023 who missed all of last season with a serious knee injury.

“I'm meshing two transfers, I'm meshing a freshman, I'm implementing (Miles) back into the program and system," Ivey said, adding: “We have a lot of experience, but we also have elite players, we have elite talent."

N.C. State is picked to finish second in the ACC race after last year's run to the sport's biggest stage before falling to eventual champion South Carolina. It was the breakthrough moment for coach Wes Moore's successful tenure that already included three straight ACC Tournament titles from 2020-22, two No. 1 seeds in the NCAAs and a trip to the 2022 Elite Eight.

This year's team returns its touted all-ACC backcourt of Saniya Rivers and Aziaha James.

“It’s hard to get where we got last year,” James said. "Teams are not going to come into a game like, ‘Oh, they’ve been to a Final Four, we’re going to back down.’ They’re going to be hungry for us."

This is the ACC's first year with national power Stanford joining California and SMU in the fold for a league race featuring coast-to-coast travel.

The Cardinal isn't just transitioning to a new league from its longtime Pac-12 home. There's also the retirement of Hall of Famer Tara VanDerveer, who stepped aside as the winningest NCAA coach in men's or women's basketball history. Former Stanford player and assistant Kate Paye is now in charge.

“The opportunity to go to new venues, play in new gyms, new cities, creates a certain kind of energy that has really energized our team,” Paye said.

Paye is one of four new coaches in the league this season.

Virginia Tech hired Marquette's Megan Duffy to take over after Kenny Brooks left for Kentucky, ending a Hokies tenure that included an ACC Tournament title and Final Four run in 2023.

At Miami, Tricia Cullop arrived from Toledo to take over after the retirement of longtime Hurricanes coach Katie Meier.

And at Clemson, Chattanooga's Shawn Poppie took over after the firing of Amanda Butler after six seasons.

After Notre Dame and N.C. State, Duke is picked third, followed by Louisville, FSU, UNC, Stanford, Miami and Virginia for the top half of the league.

Georgia Tech is picked 10th, followed by Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Clemson, California, Boston College, SMU, Wake Forest and Pittsburgh.

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