The 2020–21 Atlantic Coast Conference men's basketball season began with practices in October 2020, followed by the start of the

2020–21 NCAA Division I men's basketball season The 2020–21 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 25, 2020, and concluded on March 14, 2021. The 2021 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament culminated the season and began on March 18 and concluded on April 5. Season ...

in November. Conference play started in December 2020 and concluded in March with the

2021 ACC men's basketball tournament The 2021 ACC men's basketball tournament (officially the 2021 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament Presented by New York Life) was the postseason men's basketball tournament for the Atlantic Coast Conference and held at the Greensboro Coliseum in Gr ...

Greensboro Coliseum First Horizon Coliseum (formerly Greensboro Coliseum) is an arena in Greensboro, North Carolina. Opened in 1959 as the first building of the Greensboro Complex, the 22,000-seat arena is the home arena of the UNC Greensboro Spartans basketball t ...

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; ) is a city in Guilford County, North Carolina, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 299,035; it was estimated to be 307,381 in 2024. It is the List of municipalitie ...

. The season marked the 67th season of

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...

basketball. The

Virginia Cavaliers The Virginia Cavaliers, also known as Wahoos or Hoos, are the athletic teams representing the University of Virginia, located in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers compete at the NCAA Division I level ( FBS for football), in the Atlantic Coast C ...

won the regular season title with a conference record of 13–4.

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

won the ACC tournament over

Florida State Florida State University (FSU or Florida State) is a Public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preeminent university in the s ...

Head coaches

Coaching changes

*Wake Forest fired

Danny Manning Danny is a masculine given name. It is related to and short for the male name Daniel.🖾🖾 People *Danny Altmann, British immunologist * Danny Antonucci, Canadian animator, director, producer, and writer * Danny Baker (born 1957), English j ...

after six seasons, where he posted a 78–111 record. On April 30, 2020, the Demon Deacons hired

Steve Forbes Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr. (; born July 18, 1947) is an American publishing executive and politician who is the editor-in-chief of ''Forbes'', a business magazine. He is the son of longtime ''Forbes'' publisher Malcolm Forbes and the grandso ...

as his replacement. *Boston College fired

Jim Christian James Patrick Christian (born February 6, 1965) is an American college basketball coach who is the head coach of the Canisius Golden Griffins. He previously served as the head coach at Boston College, Kent State, TCU and Ohio. Playing career ...

in the middle of the season, after leading the team to a 3–13 record. Christian's overall record with Boston College was 78–132 and 26–94 in ACC play.

Scott Spinelli Scott Anthony Spinelli (born April 22, 1966) is an American college basketball coach who was most recently the head coach of the Chicago State Cougars men's basketball team. Playing career Scott Spinelli was born in Leominster, Massachusetts. H ...

served as interim coach until the end of the season. After the season

Earl Grant Earl Grant (January 20, 1931 – June 10, 1970) was an American pianist, organist, and vocalist popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Career Grant was born in Idabel, Oklahoma. Though he would be known later for his keyboards and vocals, Grant also ...

was hired as the new head coach.

Coaches

''Notes:'' * Year at school includes 2020–21 season. * Overall and ACC records are from the time at current school and are through the end of the 2019–20 season. * NCAA tournament appearances are from the time at current school only. * NCAA Final Fours and championship include time at other schools

Preseason

Preseason watchlists

Below is a table of notable preseason watch lists.

Preseason polls

ACC preseason media poll

The preseason media poll and preseason All-ACC teams were announced at a virtual tipoff event that was held on November 11 and November 12. 155 media members voted on the preseason poll and preseason All-ACC teams.

Preseason poll

First-place votes shown in parentheses. # Virginia (97) – 2214 # Duke (34) – 2146 # Florida State (15) – 1973 # North Carolina (7) – 1933 # Louisville (2) – 1693 # Syracuse – 1234 # Miami – 1223 # NC State – 1149 # Georgia Tech – 1147 # Clemson – 1057 # Virginia Tech – 794 # Notre Dame – 769 # Pitt – 635 # Boston College – 404 # Wake Forest – 229

Preseason All-ACC teams

ACC preseason player of the year

Garrison Brooks Garrison O'Neal Brooks (born June 26, 1999) is an American professional basketball player for Wolves Twinsbet of the Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL). He played college basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Mississippi State Bulld ...

– North Carolina (102) *

Sam Hauser Samuel David Hauser ( ; born December 8, 1997) is an American professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for Marquette Golden Eagles men's basketball, Marquett ...

– Virginia (24) * M. J. Walker – Florida State (10) *

Wendell Moore Jr. Wendell Horace Moore Jr. ( ; born September 18, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA), on a two-way contract with the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League. He playe ...

– Duke (7) * Aamir Simms – Clemson (5) *

Matthew Hurt Matthew Christopher Hurt (born April 20, 2000) is an American professional basketball player who last played for the South East Melbourne Phoenix of the Australian National Basketball League (Australia), National Basketball League (NBL). He playe ...

– Duke (3) *

Chris Lykes Christopher Lykes (born July 22, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for iLab Basketbol of the Türkiye Basketbol Ligi. He played college basketball for the Miami Hurricanes and the Arkansas Razorbacks. Early life Lykes began p ...

– Miami (3) *

Kihei Clark Kihei Issaiah Clark (born January 25, 2000) is an American professional basketball player for the Mexico City Capitanes of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball, Virginia Cavaliers. Early life ...

– Virginia (1)

ACC preseason rookie of the year

Scottie Barnes Scott Wayne Barnes Jr. (born August 1, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Florida State Seminoles men's basketball, Flo ...

– Florida State (64) *

Jalen Johnson Jalen Tyrese Johnson (born December 18, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils. He was a consensus five-star ...

– Duke (60) *

Caleb Love Caleb Khristopher Love (born September 27, 2001) is an American basketball player. He played college basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Arizona Wildcats. High school career Love attended Christian Brothers College High School in ...

– North Carolina (9) *

Day'Ron Sharpe Day'Ron Yusha Sharpe (born November 6, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels. Early life Sharpe began ...

– North Carolina (6) *

D. J. Steward DJ Steward (born October 2, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Memphis Hustle of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils men's basketball, Duke Blue Devils. He was a consensus five-star col ...

– Duke (4) *

Reece Beekman Reece Avery Beekman (born October 8, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA), on a two-way contract with the Long Island Nets of the NBA G League. He played college bask ...

– Virginia (3) * Jeremy Roach – Duke (3) *RJ Davis – North Carolina (3) * Mark Williams – Duke (2) *Cam Hayes – NC State (1)

Regular season

Rankings

Conference matrix

This table summarizes the head-to-head results between teams in conference play. Each team will play 20 conference games, and at least 1 against each opponent. The full conference schedule was announced on November 10, 2020.

Player of the week

Throughout the conference regular season, the

offices named one or two Players of the week and one or two Freshmen of the week.

Records against other conferences

2020–21 records against non-conference foes as of (Feb. 24, 2021). Records shown for regular season only.

Postseason

ACC tournament

The 2021 Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament was originally scheduled to be hosted at the

Capital One Arena Capital One Arena is an indoor arena in Washington, D.C. Located in the Chinatown section of the larger Penn Quarter neighborhood, the arena sits atop the Gallery Place rapid transit station of the Washington Metro. The arena was opened o ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

However, due to the ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the tournament was moved to the

, on November 24, 2020. The Capital One Arena will host the tournament in 2024.

NCAA tournament

National Invitation Tournament

Honors and awards

All-Americans

To earn "consensus" status, a player must win honors based on a point system computed from the four different all-America teams. The point system consists of three points for first team, two points for second team and one point for third team. No honorable mention or fourth team or lower are used in the computation. The top five totals plus ties are first team and the next five plus ties are second team.

ACC Awards

Source:

NBA draft

The ACC had seven players selected in the

2021 NBA draft The 2021 NBA draft, the 75th edition of the National Basketball Association's annual NBA draft, draft, was held on July 29, 2021, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. The NBA draft returned to Brooklyn after 2020 NBA draft, the pre ...

. Over the last eight years (2014–2021) the ACC leads all conferences with forty nine first-round selections.

Attendance

Due to the

, attendance was limited at all stadiums for the season. Depending on state regulations, some universities did not allow any fans while some universities operated under reduced total capacity.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2020-21 Atlantic Coast Conference men's basketball season *