Duke becomes first ACC tournament champion to win 4 games in 4 days

Hate it all you want, but Duke is about to be a trendy national championship pick again.

The Blue Devils trailed Notre Dame by six with under 10 minutes to play, but then rallied for the third-straight day to win the ACC tournament championship Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Jayson Tatum scored 19 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the way for Duke, which defeated the Fighting Irish, 75-69.

The win made the fifth-seeded Blue Devils the first team in ACC tournament history to claim the event’s title by winning four games in four days. It also marked Duke’s first ACC tournament championship since 2011. The span of futility had been the longest for the Blue Devils since they went without a title from 1993 to 1998.

Notre Dame, which took care of Virginia and Florida State to reach the title game, had been seeking its second ACC tournament championship in three years. The Irish were also looking for revenge on a Duke team that beat them at home by 10 on Jan. 30.

The road to this point has been a bizarre one for Duke.

The Blue Devils were the near-unanimous preseason No. 1 team in the country, but a rash of injuries, a midseason leave of absence by Mike Krzyzewski, and consistent distractions related to star guard Grayson Allen led to an uneven regular season that included eight losses. Now, Coach K’s team appears to be primed for the type of run that so many were predicting four months ago.