Shared titles abound in power conferences

CHAPELHILL, N.C. (AP) >> A full regular-season schedule didn’t provide a clear answer as to who is the best team in the majority of the power conferences.

No. 2 Virginia and No. 3 North Carolina ended up sharing the Atlantic Coast Conference’s regularseason championship. No. 9 Michigan State and No. 11 Purdue split the Big Ten. And in the Big 12, No. 8 Texas Tech and No. 18 Kansas State finished atop the league standings to end No. 13 Kansas’ run at the top.

Of the five power conferences, only No. 10 LSU in the Southeastern Conference and Washington in the Pac-12 ended up winning their league races outright.

That was a departure from the previous three years, which had seen the power conferences generally end the regular season with only one team at the top. In each of the past three years, only one

of those five leagues ended up with a shared championship.

And that could make it a bit tougher to predict which team ends up earning their conference’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid by winning the league tournament in the week ahead.

CAVS AND HEELS

The Cavaliers (28-2, 16-2 ACC) clinched the top seed in the ACCTournament by beating Louisville on Saturday afternoon, while the Tar Heels (26-5, 16-2) ended up as the No. 2 seed after earning their first regular-season sweep of

No. 4 Duke in a decade later that evening.

And now, either Virginia or UNC has won the ACC regular-season crown for six straight seasons. In that span, the Cavaliers have won three outright titles (2014, 2015 and 2018) while theTarHeelshave won two (2016 and 2017).

This year’s title marks the first shared regular-season title in the ACC since Duke and Maryland(nowintheBigTen) split it in 2010.

ZION’SHEALTH

Speaking of Duke, the Blue Devils (26-5, 14-4) appear closer to getting freshman star Zion Williamson back from a knee sprain that has sidelined him for nearly six full games.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski

said Friday that the 6-foot-7, 285-pound Williamson had gotten his “first really good workout” on Thursday and now had to improve his conditioning while getting used to contact again.

That test will come Monday, and Krzyzewski sounds optimistic the candidate for nationalplayer of the yearwill be ready for Thursday’s quarterfinals in the ACC Tournament.

“Hopefully we’ll get a couple of good days of practice where he can play 5-on5, and then we’ll see how that goes,” Krzyzewski said after the UNC loss. “The way he looks right now, I think it’s just a matter of getting in shape, getting in game shape and going forward.”