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.

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.

"He'll test the waters," [NC State head coach Sidney] Lowe said. "He'll get all the information he can and decide what's the best thing. It may depend on where he's going in the draft."

Hickson, a 6-9 power forward, led N.C. State in scoring (14.8 points per game) and rebounding (8.5) this season. An All-ACC freshman team selection, Hickson said after N.C. State's ACC Tournament loss to Miami on Thursday that he would sit down and talk with his family and Lowe and make a decision about his future.

It is senior week in the ACC, as many home courts will say goodbye to their four year (or five) players. Many people feel that if you actually get to senior week, it just means you weren't good enough to get to the NBA. Maybe that's true, but there is nothing wrong with topping out as an ACC player.

Thanks for the memories.

Sean Singletary, Virginia: Singletary is one of the ACC's best leaders. Last year, he (along with JR Reynolds) led the Cavs to an unprobable ACC championship. Even as Virginia is struggling this year, Singletary is playing like a Player of the Year candidate.

DeMarcus Nelson, Duke: Nelson has followed a long like of athletic Duke swingmen who emerge into a major leadership role. Only Nelson had to do so sooner. Due to an uncommon young era of Blue Devil basketball, he has been forced into being the steadying influence for a couple of years. He's got it all: scoring, rebounding, great at finding teammates and a pretty good defender. On a team of shooters, he's the guy that can break his man down and get easy baskets. An All-ACC player.

James Gist, Maryland: Gist is one of the best big men in the conference. Once just an athletic forward, now he can score from a variety of places on the court. He's still deadly in the paint, as as scorer, on the boards and as a shot blocker.

"To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."

"Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever. I thank you and God bless you all."

Duke will probably be playing the first weekend on the NCAA tournament in Raleigh's RBC Center. Good thing that the NC State Wolfpack won't be there. Duke needed a wild comeback to beat the lowly Pack, 87-86, and keep pace for with North Carolina atop the ACC standings.

The win gave Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski his 800th career victory. 727 of those wins have come at Duke, where he has won three national championships, 11 ACC regular season titles and been to ten Final Fours.

In this game, Duke did what they always do to pull this one out: get after it on defense, gun threes (they shot 28 of them and 29 from inside the arc) and got to the foul line (37 times). They also got an assist from Coach K's wife who yelled at the officials that they sent the wrong NC State player to the free throw line (the officials met and changed the call). Ah, the couple who berates officials together, stays together.

NC State had a 70-57 lead seven minutes into the second half but lost focus defensively. Jon Scheyer hit a three to start the comeback. Greg Paulus hit one. Then DeMarcus Nelson. Then Paulus hit another one. Then Nelson. Then Paulus. In all, Duke hit 13-of-28 from deep.

While there is this big freshmen sensation across college basketball, there are a few big time rookies who are flying under the radar. One is J.J. Hickson of NC State.

Hickson leads the Wolfpack in scoring, leads the ACC in shooting percentage and is one of the conference's best big men. However, he thought that this Wolfpack team was ready to take a jump to the next level, which it hasn't. State is a dismal 15-12 overall and in a tie for 11th place in the conference.

Still, he hasn't made a decision on the NBA:

"I haven't made any decisions yet," the Pack center said today. "If the opportunity is there I'm going to sit down with my parents and the coaching staff and we'll go from there. But right now I'm not worried about that. We've got games to win."

"But whether it's first or second round, I'm still going to sit down and go over it - no matter what happens," he said. "If the opporunity is not there, I can come back to school for another year or whatever."

"Being a competitor, yeah, I think I'm ready," he said. "I think I can go ahead and do a lot of things. But I think I haven't even begun to show teams what I can do because of the double teams or whatever."

It's called the "Free Expression Tunnel" at N.C. State, and some North Carolina fans used it to freely express their pleasure over the Tar Heels' 84-70 victory Wednesday night over the Pack.

The 150-foot underground tunnel on campus was painted Carolina blue hours after the Heels' victory at the RBC Center. The final score was highlighted in black, while the Carolina logo and UNC's Old Well - the campus landmark that was smeared with red paint before the game - were painted in white.

The "expressions" included: "Rednecks!" and "Go Blue!" and "Roy doesn't need a red suit."

State students quickly added their own "expressions," such as: "Look, mommy, we beat an unranked team, let's drive 30 miles to rub it in because we have no class." Another read: "I knew there was a reason I hated Carolina."

"Everybody talks about Tyler Hansbrough as a player-of-the-year candidate, and the game like tonight is exactly why," said Marcus Ginyard, who had 13 points for the Tar Heels. "The guy's going to battle throughout the whole game. He's going to get banged up, but he's still going to finish."

Hansbrough has had quite a stretch of late. Since Lawson has been out (which was the early moments in a game against Florida State three weeks ago), he has averaged 27.8 points and 13.3 rebounds and led the Heels to a 5-1 record.

This win was extra sweet because (a) it was at hated NC State, (b) a day after red paint was splashed on UNC's famed Old Well, (c) it came during a war of words between Roy Williams and Duke's Coach K and (d) due to Duke's loss to Miami, it ties the Heels atop the ACC.