* Two-thirds of the teams have little chance of winning the tournament now.

* Thursday is the new Friday, which means that Friday, once the best single day in college basketball, is less relevant. In the post-expansion ACC, there are four games Thursday, in addition to the four Friday.

In the expanded ACC, there are more games but fewer teams with a realistic chance at winning the title. The league grew to 12 teams for the 2006 tournament, so this is the third year that eight teams would have to win four games in four days to claim the title.

No team has been able to overcome that challenge, which first appeared in 1992, when Florida State joined the conference and created the Thursday play-in game.

Duke was one of the eight teams facing the four-game gauntlet last season. Coach Mike Krzyzewski said the matchups are more important than the seedings, but he doesn't like the odds of the bottom eight seeds running the table.

"The chances are minimal," Krzyzewski said.

His team lost to N.C. State in overtime in the opening round last year. The Wolfpack became the second ACC team to reach the championship game with three wins. State also reached the title game in 1997 in Greensboro after winning the play-in game. Both times, a deeper, fresher UNC team defeated the tired Wolfpack for the title.

But Wolfpack coach Sidney Lowe believes it can be done.

"There always has to be a first time," Lowe said.

N.C. State in 2005 and Wake Forest in 2006 were the only other teams that have played Thursday and even made it as far as Saturday's semifinals.

History doesn't favor the four-wins-in-four-days run in major conference tournaments, either.

The ACC, Southeastern Conference, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-10 have staged a combined 84 postseason tournaments in which at least two teams in the event would have had to win four games to claim the title.

Only three teams have pulled off that feat -- Arkansas (SEC) in 2000, Iowa (Big Ten) in 2001 and Syracuse (Big East) in 2006. Syracuse defeated a Pittsburgh team that also was playing for the fourth time in four days.

Two lost the title game by two points, and 11 were blown out by an average of 16.1 points after winning three times to reach the conference final.

(Next year, the Big East is expanding its tournament to all 16 teams, eight of which would have to win five games in five days for the championship.)

The four-in-four format is here to stay, ACC Assistant Commissioner Brian Morrison said Wednesday. When Miami and Virginia Tech joined the ACC in 2004 and Boston College a year later, the conference promised that every team would participate in the tournament.

Historically, the ACC Tournament has been unkind to underdogs. The top four seeds have won 49 of the 54 titles.

Long before the NCAA Tournament field was expanded to 65 teams, only one bid went to the ACC -- to the champion -- so the first round of the ACC Tournament was sometimes better than the Final Four.

The NCAA stakes changed in the mid-1980s. But until the ACC expanded again in 2005, Friday at the conference tournament was still considered to be the best fight in college basketball.