ACC Tournament 2016: Complete Schedule and Updated Bracket Predictions

The 2015-16 ACC regular season has gone largely as expected. North Carolina, a preseason national championship favorite, has an inside track at the conference's top seed. Virginia, Louisville and Duke are also Top 20 outfits.

There's just one glaring exception: seventh-ranked Miami. The Hurricanes are tied with North Carolina atop the conference standings and have a winnable game Saturday against Virginia Tech to clinch a share of the regular-season title. They lost their lone matchup with North Carolina in embarrassing fashion but came back with wins against Virginia and Louisville in the same week.

The ascent of the Hurricanes has thrown a monkey wrench into proceedings as we approach the conference tournament. A lot still has to be sorted out between now and the March 8 opening tip, but with less than a week to do so, it's time to start looking ahead. With that in mind, here's a quick look at the schedule and a breakdown of the pre-tournament favorites. 

Date	Game No.	Matchup	Time (ET)	TV
March 8	1	No. 13 seed vs. No. 12 seed	12 p.m.	ESPN2
March 8	2	No. 14 seed vs. No. 11 seed	2 p.m.	ESPN2
March 9	3	No. 9 seed vs. No. 8 seed	12 p.m.	ESPN
March 9	4	Game 1 winner vs. No. 5 seed	2 p.m.	ESPN
March 9	5	No. 10 seed vs. No. 7 seed	7 p.m.	ESPN2
March 9	6	Game 2 winner vs. No. 6 seed	9 p.m.	ESPN2
March 10	7	Game 3 winner vs. No. 1 seed	12 p.m.	ESPN
March 10	8	Game 4 winner vs. No. 4 seed	2 p.m.	ESPN
March 10	9	Game 5 winner vs. No. 2 seed	7 p.m.	ESPN
March 10	10	Game 6 winner vs. No. 3 seed	9 p.m.	ESPN
March 11	11	Game 7 winner vs. Game 8 winner	7 p.m.	ESPN/ESPN2
March 11	12	Game 9 winner vs. Game 10 winner	9 p.m.	ESPN/ESPN2
March 12	13	Championship Game	9 p.m.	ESPN

Favorite: Virginia

Dawson Powers-USA TODAY Sports

While many will peg North Carolina as the favorite from a talent standpoint, it's actually Tony Bennett's team that's playing the best basketball. The Cavaliers are one of just two teams nationally (with Kansas) to rank in the top 10 in offensive and defensive efficiency. None of their six regular-season losses has been by more than seven points, and half have come by a single bucket.

“I think that the lessons we’ve learned have taught us more, but I can’t be sure,” Bennett said, per Chris Graham of the Augusta Free Press. “We’ve had some really good teams, but we have some guys that have been in some tight games and learned a lot through the wins and probably more through the losses.”

The Cavaliers are led by senior guard Malcolm Brogdon, who is averaging 18.5 points per game while knocking down 42.2 percent of his threes. He's blasted his career high in three-point attempts and makes while emerging as one of the most consistent shooters in the country.

With Brogdon and London Perrantes, Virginia has one of the best one-two punches behind the arc in the country. Perrantes was a 31.6 percent shooter from distance a year ago and now hits on 50.9 percent of his shots. He's also leading the team with 4.4 assists per game.

Second leading scorer Anthony Gill does most of his work inside and scored in double figures in all but three games this season. Each of those contests has come in Virginia's last seven games, though, so he'll need to get through the funk before the tournament.

Dark Horse: Duke

Mark Dolejs-USA TODAY Sports

The Blue Devils have won seven of their last nine games after their midseason nadir, including a three-banger of Louisville, Virginia and North Carolina. They close their regular season by hosting the Tar Heels in Durham, North Carolina, where they'll look for their sixth straight victory.

Like many recent Duke teams, this unit finds its salvation on offense and damnation on defense. Duke is fourth in offensive efficiency but sits a dispiriting 96th on the other end. Grayson Allen has drawn all the national headlines and Brandon Ingram all the googly eyes from NBA scouts, but it'll be the surrounding talent that decides how far Duke goes.

Amile Jefferson doesn't appear to be returning from his broken foot this season, so Marshall Plumlee's work inside will be more vital than ever. Jefferson was a nightly double-double and veteran presence in the Duke locker room. His injury nine games into the season likely altered Duke's ceiling; at the very least it made the team much more vulnerable defensively. 

That makes the shot-making of Luke Kennard and Matt Jones all the more important. Kennard is a gunner whose performance varies nightly, while Jones is a knockdown shooter from distance who doesn't do much else. If the Blue Devils wind up making a deep March run, it'll rank among Mike Krzyzewski's finest coaching performances.

"We're fighting, we're competing, we're growing together, but we have our moments where we look out of place or we look like our heads really aren't into the game," Jones said, per C.L. Brown of ESPN.com. "And that's the leader he [Coach K] is, he tries to find ways to kind of motivate us and get us competing at the highest level."

The Blue Devils are an underdog, but they've already proved they can take down every top team in the conference, save Miami. Get the Hurricanes on a neutral floor, and the story may flip there, too.

Unfairly Skeptical: Miami

Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

A qualifier: Miami is, objectively, a good team. The Hurricanes have played a strong schedule. They're 25-5 and tied with North Carolina atop the ACC standings. They're probably the conference's hottest team, having won eight of their last nine games. 

Four Miami players are scoring in double figures. Leading scorer Sheldon McClellan is knocking down 40.2 percent from three, and Miami also has strong shooters in Davon Reed and Ivan Cruz Uceda. Angel Rodriguez is still a low-percentage gunner at points, but he's toned himself down. Miami grades out as an elite offense. 

Couple that with a top-40 defense, and, objectively, the Hurricanes have as good a chance as any team in the ACC.

I'm just not buying it. For whatever reason—OK, it's mostly a subjective talent thing—Miami sweeping the regular season and conference tournaments isn't a scenario I see playing out. The schedule broke right so a lot of Miami's toughest games in the conference were on the road. The ones that weren't often went the wrong way. This is a team with a 16-point road loss to N.C. State and an 11-point road loss to Clemson under its belt.

It's possible those road woes carry over when the Hurricanes make the trip to Raleigh for the conference tournament. Unfair or not, that's the scenario I'd bet on. 

All advanced metrics via KenPom.