But enough about that … here’s Duke.

MORE: ACC basketball icons

Mike Krzyzewski’s bunch is always intriguing for the usual reasons, but this year it’s for a few different reasons. Start with the fact they’re playing on Day 2, with the bubble teams and also-rans and dreamers, a place they’re not accustomed to being. 

The defending national champs normally don’t appear on the scene until the quarterfinals, but this is a reminder that this hasn’t been a normal season.

This year’s Blue Devils arrive as the fifth seed (and that by the grace of Louisville’s self-imposed postseason ban), without their accustomed double-bye, ranked 19th, and carrying seven conference losses. On Wednesday afternoon they’ll face an N.C. State team that edged Wake Forest on Day 1 and didn’t embarrass itself in its two regular-season losses to Duke.

MORE: Conference tournament schedules, results

How often does Duke “need” wins in the ACC Tournament, except when a win or a loss could decide a No. 1 seed? It is comfortably in, but in Sporting News’s latest NCAA Field of 68 projection, it’s a No. 5 seed, which means that a loss before, say, the semifinals, could knock it back further.

It has been a while since the Blue Devils were in such a spot — 2007, to be exact.

That was the last time they played this early in the ACC Tournament, and they lost their opener … to N.C. State. They entered the NCAAs as a 6-seed. They lost their first game, to VCU, one of the more memorable first-round upsets in recent years.

They had lost some notable pieces from the previous year then, too: J.J. Redick and Sheldon Williams. The newcomers (Jon Scheyer, Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek) helped build the 2010 national championship from those ashes. But until then — like the unpredictable, somewhat flawed core of this year’s team — they had to answer a lot of questions about being letdowns.

Many of the questions were asked a year after the VCU loss, in 2008. Duke went into the NCAA Tournament, barely survived Belmont, then lost to West Virginia in the second round.

LINEMAKERS: ACC Tournament betting preview, picks

Those games were in Verizon Center. It’s just a coincidence, but not a particularly positive one.

Taking anyone, much less the next opponent, for granted isn’t an option. The 12th-seeded Wolfpack have ACC scoring champion Cat Barber, and freshman Maverick Rowan, who hit six 3-pointers in Tuesday’s win.

Duke’s likely opponents after that: fourth-ranked Virginia, 11th-ranked Miami and seventh-ranked (but does that even matter?) North Carolina.

Before it thinks of getting there, though, Duke has to play on Day 2 of the tournament. That makes the day much more fascinating than it usually is.