ACC Commissioner John Swofford has sent a letter to the Division I men's basketball committee requesting that conference strength be added to the list of criteria considered when the NCAA tournament field is selected.

Coaches say they plan to remind the media more often next season about the conference's strength.

Incoming freshman power forward Miles Plumlee wanted a release from his letter of intent when Stanford head coach Trent Johnson left for LSU.

He's now made his decision on where he wants to go: Duke.

The funny thing about that is Stanford just hired former Blue Devils player and assistant Johnny Dawkins to replace Johnson. Even at the press conference, Dawkins said that he wouldn't be surprised if Plumlee chose to go to Duke.

Still, it probably wasn't Dawkins who steered him over to Duke. Plumlee will have a close friend with him in Durham -- his brother. Mason Plumlee, who is a rising high school senior, had already committed to join the Blue Devils in 2009.

The older Plumlee is quite a get. He's 6-10 and has that typical Duke perimeter game of recent big men. His size is sorely needed on a team that lacked it last year. Kyle Singler did a valiant job trying to defend in the paint but he, at times, was overmatched and it took away from other aspects of his game.

Plumlee may not be ready physically to match up against the better big men in the ACC, but he will join fellow recruit Olek Czyz and Singler for what should be a much improved front line.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned that one of the ACC's biggest offseason stories would be (again) looking into expanding the conference basketball season to 18 games. For the third straight season, the current system of scheduling has been a talking point.

Last year, Virginia won a share of the ACC regular season crown with what was, statistically, the weakest schedule in the conference. This past season, Virginia Tech played UNC, Duke and Clemson just once apiece ... and that may have cost them an NCAA Tournament bid.

Now, the ACC may look into expanding the season from 16 to 18 games.

The Big East, Big Ten and Pac-10 all play the 18-game schedule and it hasn't hurt them come tournament time. The ACC is currently in a tournament funk (getting bids and winning games) and losing those bids to teams from those conferences.

Some say that adding the two extra games actually hurts the conference's RPI because it means those bad teams have to play more games, too. True, but one of the reasons the ACC continues to sit near the top of those RPI standings is because their "bad" teams are usually better than the other league's "bad" teams.

I guess Mike Krzyzewski is trying to get that awkwardness that Roy Williams had going on out of the way very early.

Last week, news broke that Duke assistant Johnny Dawkins would be the new head coach at Stanford. Dawkins was considered, by many, to have been the eventual successor for Coach K at Duke. According to Stanford AD Bob Bowlsby, Coach K said so himself:

Bowlsby said one of the first people he spoke to about the open job at Stanford was Krzyzewski and that he asked Krzyzewski about both Dawkins, who was Krzyzewski's right-hand man for 11 seasons, and Duke assistant Steve Wojciechowski.

"At that time, Coach Krzyzewski said that Johnny was a likely successor to him [at Duke]," Bowlsby said.

Coach K has at least another ten years left in him to coach, so it wasn't like Dawkins was going to get a good look at it anytime soon. I think Dawkins is a great hire (albeit an inexperienced one) for the Cardinal program and would be the kind of guy that would stick around for a while.

Well, maybe until Coach K comes calling.

He inherits a team that will lose the Lopez twins, Brook and Robin, to the NBA draft, but will return its primary perimeter players in Mitch Johnson, Lawrence Hill and Anthony Goods, who will all be seniors next season.

Despite flirting with Georgetown a few years ago, many people do feel that Dawkins will one day replace Mike Krzyzewski at Duke. Getting the Stanford job as his first head coaching gig is quite an endorsement of how good of a coach he is.

They are getting a great guy. Dawkins wanted his first head coaching job to be at a school with high academic standards that also had a great hoops program. Stanford is definitely that. He's just 44 years old, so he could be around Stanford for many years to come.

Or when Duke looks for Coach K's successor.

He's also in charge of player development for the U.S. Olympic Team as they get ready for the Beijing Games this summer.

There will (most likely) be no coaching changes in the ACC this year. There really aren't many of those "one-and-done" guys that other conferences will see leave. So what are the major themes of the ACC's offseason?

-Olympic Games: I must admit that I was surprised that Mike Krzyzewski had his Duke team blazing out of the gate this season. I honestly felt that his Olympic responsibilities would have some sort of effect on the Blue Devils to start this season. Instead, they shot out of the gate and were the #2-ranked team as late as February.

But this July and August will see K's commitment to the Olympic squad hit the highest level. After finishing a pretty good season at Duke and looking towards bigger things in '09, he must go to Beijing and deal with a volatile and thankless job.

If Team USA comes back with the gold, everyone will just say it was because there were better players this time around and the program was more focused. If they don't win it all -- God, help them.

-UNC's Main Men: The Tar Heels were a horrible 12 minutes from getting to the National Championship game this year. If everyone comes back, they could be the favorite to bring home the title.

Duke freshman forward Taylor King will leave Duke and transfer to another school.

"Taylor is a solid young man and has the ability to be a good player," said Mike Krzyzewski. "We support him in his decision to transfer and wish him the best of luck in the future."

King played in all 34 games this season and averaged 5.9 points and 2 rebounds. His Duke career looked like it was going to get off to a great start as he exploded for 27 against Eastern Kentucky in a late November game.

It isn't known exactly why King is leaving or where he's going. While he wasn't a huge part of the Blue Devils rotation this year, he seemed to fit the offensive mold: Big dude who hits threes. His defense wasn't that good and he lacks the quickness that Duke swing guys usually have.

During recruiting, he was also considering USC, Syracuse, Villanova and Gonazaga.

These are some of the results of a Harris Poll conducted online between March 11 and 18, 2008 by Harris Interactive® among a nationwide sample of 2,513 U.S. adults, 611 of whom follow college basketball.

Rival North Carolina finished 2nd ... with Indiana, UCLA and Iowa finishing out the top five (next up is Georgetown, Tennessee, Kansas, Kentucky and Wisconsin).

Two things just shout out at me. One is the fact that only 611 of the people polled followed college basketball. That's just one quarter of the entire amount polled. I mean, I get that a bunch of people who don't watch hoops have heard of Duke as their program is out there more than any other ... but that's where my second issue is.

Iowa is #5 in the rankings!?!?! How in the hell? Again, I get that Duke is atop the rankings because of their exposure ... but Iowa??? Even people who follow college basketball wouldn't name Iowa if they were asked to name 50 college hoops teams.