This is the first thread I've started, and I expect the haters to come out firing with two takes:

1. There's no such thing as an ACC regular season title.

2. Even if there was, the regular season doesn't matter.

To those points, I say, "I don't care." I don't care what's officially recognized, I don't care that there's a (very slightly) imbalanced schedule, and I don't care that most people will forget the regular season once the tournament starts. I recognize that the NCAA tournament is a far bigger prize, but I think it's crazy that we don't value regular season conference play way more than we do. It's the only mark of sustained excellence in this sport—everything else is a small sample, single-elimination tournament where luck plays a huge factor in success or failure. National titles are wonderful, but even for Duke they're rare, and we should experience more pride and joy over how the team plays in the grueling cauldron of ACC play.

This will sound pretentious, but I'll risk it—I started following European soccer for the first time this year, and it's opened my eyes to the way we think about success in American sports. We're an enormous country, so playing true round robins in regular season sports used to be impossible, and with the amount of money involved in playoffs across all sports, it makes sense how the systems have evolved and expanded. But it's complete madness that the regular season is seen as nothing more than positioning for the postseason. Winning the league in European soccer is a huge prize, and I wish it was that way here too. Not only does it make more sense, but I really think viewing things that way would make us better fans who are more attuned to the challenges not just of peaking in March, but of grinding out wins on a day-to-day basis.

All that said, Duke hasn't finished first in the ACC regular season since 2010 (and hasn't had a solo first place since 2006), but this year we have a great chance, and are currently the only undefeated team in the ACC (even better, the joy-killing, soulless, pseudo-basketball machine calling themselves UVA have already lost twice). I think, for the first time in a decade, this team is going to win the conference the hard way. Let's enjoy the ride!