During the K era, people have gotten used to the idea that Duke is usually going to win but that hasn’t always been the case.
In the 1970’s, coming off of Vic Bubas’s brilliant run in the ‘60s, Duke was pretty bad. Bill Foster was hired after the 1974 season to rebuild the program but it didn’t happen immediately. In the first couple of years the struggles continued.
At that point, UNC, NC State and Maryland were the dominant programs in the ACC. NC State was at the end of the David Thompson era and Maryland still had John Lucas and Mo Howard among other stars.