Tournament at a glance

When: Today-Sunday.

Where: Charlotte (N.C ) Coliseum.

TV: All games on Raycom/Jefferson Pilot network or ESPN

Radio: Maryland games on WBAL (1090AM).

Favorite: Can Maryland - or anyone else, for that matter -- stop No. 1 Duke? The Blue Devils are a prohibitive favorite to win the NCAA title, so it's a foregone conclusion that everyone expects coach Mike Krzyzewski's team to win the conference tournament, something it last did in 1992. In constructing a 24-game winning streak, Duke became the first team to go 16-0 in the ACC regular season, and posted an average margin of victory of 15.3 points, making them, statistically at least, the most dominant team in conference history. "If you objectively evaluate it, you'd have to say they're as strong a favorite as there has been in recent memory," Wake Forest coach Dave Odom said. "They're going to be a wrecking machine," Virginia's Pete Gillen said. If the Blue Devils have an Achilles' heel, it's depth There are nine scholarshp players, and one of them, sophomore forward Shane Battier, missed the season finale against North Carolina with an ankle injury Battier practiced yesterday at full speed.

Dark horse: Clemson was ranked for nine straight weeks earlier in the season, then went into a skid in which coach Larry Shyatt kicked off two veteran players. The Tigers are the seventh seed, but they have settled down and split their past eight games. They're even more experienced than Maryland. Terrell McIntyre is a veteran point guard, and Clemson's rugged, half-court style could bother the Terps tomorrow. That's if the Tigers get past Florida State tonight.

MVP candidate: There has been an outcry over the supposed injustice of Duke sophomore point guard William Avery being left off the all-ACC first team. Never mind that teammate Elton Brand will probably be named national Player of the Year, that Trajan Langdon was another first-teamer and that Chris Carrawell played as big a part in Duke's success as anyone. If Duke wins the tournament as expected, look for the Tobacco Road voting bloc to elevate Avery.