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ATLANTA — The ACC tournament returns to a football stadium this week for the first time since it became a football conference, so it's fitting that a football school will win it.

Wake Forest.

There, we said it.

The 24-5 Demon Deacons, seeded eighth in the country and second in the hearts of their countrymen, are perfectly poised to take this thing, steal a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and maybe win that one, too. But let's wait on that one for now.

The prevailing thought headed into the 56th ACC tournament is that this is a wide-open event. That's based on the assumption that Roy Williams still thinks Duke is the second seed and that neither Williams nor Mike Krzyzewski wants to push his team beyond its limit so early in March.

With injuries plaguing the annual favorites, neither Carolina nor Duke seems built for a quick burst to a tourney title with so little on the line. Carolina needs one win, maybe not even that, to clinch a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and a spot in Greensboro next week.

Duke has been pushed to its limit all season, maybe already beyond it. How the Blue Devils have been a top 10 team all year is a testament to Krzyzewski's drive and his unwillingness to let his team relax even for a second.

That resolve will be tested this week with an already short bench curtailed further by injuries. We've seen everything Duke has. We see it every time the Blue Devils play. We've seen the best of every team in the league.

Except one.

Wake Forest might be the most talented team in the nation. There was a time this season when the Deacons were ranked No. 1 in the country, the only undefeated team left, and it had the national player of the year. That was Jeff Teague. Now he's not even the best player on the team.

The evolution of forward James Johnson has been amazing to watch, and he has carried Wake back to this moment, a school poised to do something no one was thinking about one month ago.

The loss at N.C. State on Feb. 11 seemed to grind Wake to a halt, brought back memories of last season's crash landing and cast doubt that the Deacs were tough enough to win games away from Winston-Salem.

Johnson has changed all that, putting up prodigious numbers and reminding the rest of the league that no one else has a 6-9, 245-pound wing player who can slash and dunk and score 28 points and grab 18 rebounds as he did two weeks ago in the rematch against State.

And just like that, the Deacs were back.

"This is a pretty confident group right now," Dino Gaudio, the second-year coach at Wake Forest, said. "Anytime the guys have been challenged, they've risen to the challenge."

Wake has won six of seven coming into the tournament. The road woes are history, which is something Gaudio decided to discuss with his team this week. Not the road woes.

History.

"It's the greatest conference tournament in America," he said. "We talked about the history of this tournament so they'd understand what it's all about. Great teams are made here. Legends are made in this tournament. And I think it will prepare us well for the next step."

Wake is rolling into this thing and talking about winning it all. Gaudio said the team's last two practices have been the best of the entire season. And a team with a potential 10-man rotation coming into its own in the two days leading into the tournament has every advantage.

That's not to say another team won't come out hot, a Clemson or an FSU. That's not to say Krzyzewski won't demand his team win the tournament. He's done it before. That's not to say Carolina won't risk everything to win a tournament Williams doesn't even like all that much.

Those things could happen. And so could something bizarre, something like Virginia winning it all.

But looking at it logically and without the assumption that Duke or Carolina will win because they always do, it's not even a stretch to say Wake Forest will win the 56th ACC tournament. Wake has the most talent, the deepest bench and the biggest motivation. No one anywhere is mentioning Wake as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

No one anywhere believes the Deacs can push Duke out of Greensboro.

Duke didn't even come to Atlanta on Wednesday. Neither did Carolina. Wake practiced in Winston-Salem in the morning, lifted weights, then flew down and practiced again in the Georgia Dome. Gaudio walked his team into the giant football arena and let his players soak it all in.

He was smiling a lot.

So were his players.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com