The ACC is often regarded as the best college basketball conference, and UVA leads the series in its official yearly home-and-away ACC basketball rivalries:
against Virginia Tech 99–61, and against Louisville 23–7, . Other
basketball rivalries include those against North Carolina and Maryland. Notably the
1982 ACC tournament championship game where
Dean Smith had his team of future NBA stars (such as
Michael Jordan and
James Worthy) hold the ball for seven minutes, against a Virginia team featuring
Ralph Sampson, led to the advent of the
shot clock and the
three-point line. The Maryland rivalry is now mostly dormant, but was reignited for the 2014 and 2018 editions of the
ACC–Big Ten Challenge, with both Challenges won by the Cavaliers on the road in College Park.
