Who is the ACC's player of the year?

Remember back to that night in late November, when the Blue Devils visited Chicago to face an Illinois team that believe it or not boasted a better ranking. Duke had yet to beat anything close to a top-25 opponent since dropping its first two games of the season, and with 14 seconds to go the Blue Devils clung to a one-point lead. Chris Carrawell stepped to the free throw line for two shots. Good on the first, good on the second, good enough for a three-point Duke victory. Remember back to that night in early January when the Blue Devils opened their ACC season at Virginia. With less than eight minutes to go, Duke trailed by 10 points to a team that finished last in the conference a year earlier. But Carrawell scored four straight points to spark a Blue Devil rally that forced overtime. The senior would provide a team-high 25 points and, Mike Krzyzewski later said, some inspirational leadership on the bench-and Duke would escape with a victory. Now that the Blue Devils have run away with another ACC regular season title and all but sewn up a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, it's easy to forget the uncertainties of November. It's easy to forget a team that opened the year with three role players, five freshmen and a 22-year-old sophomore, and then got off to its first 0-2 start since 1958. What if Carrawell had missed those free throws against the Illini, and the Blue Devils went into showdowns with DePaul and Michigan unsure if they could pull out close games? What if he hadn't made those shots versus the Cavaliers, and Duke limped into College Park 0-1 in the ACC after being upset by a squad few thought would make an NCAA tourney run? And what if Carrawell failed to make a long list of huge plays over the first half of the ACC schedule, allowing the Blue Devils to all but clinch the conference crown and solidify their position as one of the nation's top programs? With every win Duke earned after its two season-opening losses, the players' confidence grew and the team's identity emerged. For a young team like the Blue Devils performing in such a high-pressure environment, a tough early-season loss could have changed the rest of the year dramatically. Instead, the victories piled up, with each one featuring at least one clutch play by Carrawell that might have saved Duke from defeat.