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Justin Cohen Photography/ALOST

akoiki-passport2 – by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief

GREENSBORO, N.C. — New season. New coach. Mostly new players And, for the most part, the same result, as far as the ACC Tournament is concerned.

Duke University is the ACC Tournament champion, and, like old (and recent) times, the Blue Devils are peaking at exactly the right time — no matter if the coach’s voice is a different one that what we’ve grown accustomed to over the last generation.

The ACC portion of Year 1 of the Jon Scheyer era has concluded, and it ends with the Blue Devils lifting the ACC Tournament trophy after a convincing 59-49 victory over the No. 2 seed Virginia Cavaliers inside Greensboro Coliseum on Saturday evening. Guard Jeremy Roach, the only starter who isn’t a freshman, led the way with 23 points, while one of the starting freshmen, ACC Rookie of the Year Kyle Filipowski, had 20 points, 10 rebounds and three steals on his way to winning the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

The win marks the 22nd ACC Tournament title for the Blue Devils, a conference record.

After a 7-6 stretch from December to early February that left the Blue Devils unranked for four weeks in the national polls and many experts questioning if the extremely young team can gel with its veterans to salvage the season, Duke has now rolled off nine consecutive wins, with their three victories this weekend coming against teams who will all likely hear their names called on Selection Sunday in less than 24 hours’ time.

“They believed in us and in me, and obviously, I felt that way about each of them,” Scheyer said.

*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Saturday’s championship game, with the photos taken by ALOST contributing photographer Justin Cohen. After clicking on the first photo to enlarge the picture, make sure to press the left and right arrow buttons to scroll through the rest of the pictures. There are 22 pictures in total.

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Tags : ACC TournamentAtlantic Coast ConferenceDuke Blue DevilsVirginia Cavaliers

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