It is no secret that college basketball has transformed into an older player's game in recent years. Structural changes to the sport in regard to eligibility rules and athlete compensation have caused many coaches to prioritize the transfer portal over high school recruiting in their everlasting quest to get old and stay old. But the pendulum may be swinging back towards youth as players with extra COVID eligibility have largely phased out of the game and scholarship limits have increased from 13 to 15.
RotoWire.com explored how programs in one of the nation's premier conferences, the ACC, are shaping up age wise as the upcoming season nears. We utilized the official ACC team websites to gather the class (from freshman to graduate) of all players on each active roster as of September 1st. After using the average age for a player in that class, we were able to rank the oldest to youngest ACC teams for the 2025-26 season. Here's what we found:
Note: This is not an exact average age for each roster due to limited access to player ages (Louisville is the only school in the conference with birthdates listed for every member of its roster). This is used to be an estimate and subject to change based on roster changes.
Oldest to Youngest ACC Basketball Teams for 2025
Rank | Team | # of Players | Average Age |
1 |
| 16 players | 20.25 |
2 |
| 13 players | 20.08 |
3 |
| 15 players | 19.87 |
4 |
| 18 players | 19.83 |
5 |
| 16 players | 19.81 |
6 |
| 13 players | 19.77 |
7 |
| 14 players | 19.71 |
T-8 |
| 15 players | 19.53 |
T-8 |
| 15 players | 19.53 |
10 |
| 14 players | 19.51 |
11 |
| 14 players | 19.50 |
12 |
| 13 players | 19.46 |
T-13 |
| 15 players | 19.40 |
T-13 |
| 15 players | 19.40 |
15 |
| 15 players | 19.33 |
16 |
| 16 players | 19.31 |
17 |
| 11 players | 19.18 |
18 |
| 14 players | 19.07 |
Virginia
California
Stanford
Wake Forest
Pittsburgh
SMU
Florida State
Syracuse
Boston College
Notre Dame
Georgia Tech
Miami (FL)Ranking 2025 ACC Basketball Rosters by Average Age
Just two teams in the conference currently exceed an average age of 20. While that will rise to 11 by March, it is a far cry from how most successful teams have looked lately. Sportico.com found that the average starter among all 2025 Sweet 16 teams was 21.6 years old. Although our numbers are not adjusted for playing time and based upon preseason ages rather than tournament time ages, it is telling no ACC squad will reach an average age of 21 by season's end.
Cardinals Will Lean on Experience
After fielding the most experienced team in the conference and the fifth most experienced team in the country last year per KenPom.com, 
Louisville is once again set to feature the most veteran roster in the league. The Cardinals have an ACC high eight seniors, including a pair of sixth year players and two more fifth year guys. The roster includes four freshmen, but every other team in the conference has at least four freshmen on it as well, and 247Sports Composite number eight overall recruit Mikel Brown Jr. is the only one likely to earn major minutes.
His presence, combined with a loaded portal class and key returning experienced role players like J'Vonne Hadley, Kasean Pryor and Aly Khalifa (who redshirted last season) is why most publicly available prognostications and analytics models rate Louisville as a top 10-15 team entering the year.
Will Wade's Veteran Approach At NC State
The other ACC team with an average age above 20 right now, 
NC State dramatically reshaped its roster this offseason in the wake of Will Wade's hiring. The Wolfpack return just 212 minutes from the 24-25 squad as the team looked to add veteran players in hopes of creating an immediate turnaround following last season's 16th place conference finish. Wade brought graduate student Alyn Breed and senior Quadir Copeland with him from McNeese State and added three more senior transfers from high major schools in Darrion Williams (Texas Tech), Tre Holloman (Michigan State) and Ven-Allen Lubin (UNC) along with juniors Terrance Arceneaux (Houston) and Jerry Deng (Florida State).
Virginia, Standford Crack Top 5 Oldest Rosters
Virginia also underwent a major offseason overhaul as a result of a coaching change. Last year's team featured only two seniors, one of whom was a walk-on, but new head coach Ryan Odom cleaned house, resulting in a roster that returns 0.1% of its minutes per Barttorvik.com. Odom aggressively targeted graduate students, nabbing four of them out of the portal, all of whom will be heavily involved in the rotation. The Cavaliers are banking that flipping the roster will get them back towards the top of the ACC standings after the program's first losing season in 15 years last year.
Stanford brings back the most returning minutes in the conference at 53.8% according to Torvik, but the Cardinal finds itself in need of some breakout performances after its three leading minutes getters/ double digit scorers all moved on in the offseason. The team retained its next ten minutes leaders, but none of them averaged over 7.3 points per game last season and only two of them are seniors, meaning Stanford's adjusted on-court age could look a bit different from its overall average age, especially because the two graduate students on the roster are transfers who have never played at the Division 1 level before.
Middle Of The Pack
Last year, 
Clemson ranked as the second-most experienced team in the ACC and was one of only eight teams nationally to eclipse a weighted average of 3 years of prior D1 experience according to KenPom. All five starters from that squad have exited the program, but the Tigers should maintain a veteran dynamic as most of their projected rotation are juniors or seniors. Notably, Clemson's roster does not include a single sophomore, so a couple of the six freshmen on the team will have to step up to fill in the gaps.
While it sits mid-pack in average age, SMU might possess the most interesting roster composition in the league. The Mustangs feature five seniors and a whopping eight freshmen, a conference high, with only two sophomores or juniors on the team. Three of those freshmen redshirted last season and the other five made up the sixth overall class in the nation per the 247Sports Composite, though the upperclassmen are expected to earn the majority of the minutes. However, it is clear SMU is trying to thread the needle of competing this year while building for the future with this mesh of experience and youth.
Traditionally one of the youngest teams over the last decade plus, 
Duke comes in older than six other ACC squads this year via our methodology. In fact, the current age of the Blue Devils' roster is almost identical to the 19.4 average age of their starters Sportico observed back in March. Duke will still rely on elite freshmen talent after signing another top recruiting class, but the return of Maliq Brown, Caleb Foster, Isaiah Evans, Patrick Ngongba and Darren Harris adds more veteran flavor to Durham than usual as the Blue Devils look to repeat as conference champions.
Young Man's Game?
The only other team in the ACC returning over 50 percent of its minutes from last season besides Stanford, Notre Dame still boasts a below average age roster despite solid continuity. Three of the Fighting Irish's five starters are back, including conference scoring leader Markus Burton, but the team only includes three seniors versus nine freshmen and sophomores. Notre Dame hauled in a top 15 recruiting class this year after signing a top 30 class last year and those young players need to step up if the Irish are to take a leap in Micah Shrewsberry's third season at the helm.
Following a season that saw 
North Carolina go from ninth in the preseason AP Poll to barely squeaking into the NCAA Tournament as the last at-large team in the field, Hubert Davis decided to significantly revamp the Tar Heels' roster. Seth Trimble is the only of UNC's nine rotation players from 2024-25 coming back to Chapel Hill for this season.Davis diligently sought out transfers with multiple years of eligibility, bringing in sophomore Jonathan Powell (West Virginia) and juniors Jarin Stevenson (Alabama), Henri Veesaar (Arizona), Kyan Evans (Colorado State) and Jaydon Young (Virginia Tech) to play major roles and creating a team that features a league leading 10 sophomores and juniors.
Miami, Virginia Tech Round Out Youngest Rosters
In a conference that saw plenty of teams undergo radical offseason changes, no one in the league had quite the offseason Miami did. The Hurricanes saw every member of last year's team depart the program, leaving them as the only school in the conference without a single returning minute and one of 13 teams nationally with that distinction per Torvik. Miami still has just a league low 11 players on its roster, six of whom are freshmen, though first-year head coach Jai Lucas did earn commitments from senior transfers Tre Donaldson (Michigan), Malik Reneau (Indiana) and Ernest Udeh (TCU) plus junior Tru Washington (New Mexico) to give the team some veteran presence.
The youngest team in the ACC, 
Virginia Tech actually returns the conference's third highest percentage of its minutes from last season. The Hokies' three leaders in minutes are all back along with the team's eighth man. However, Virginia Tech's two seniors are tied for a conference low with Boston College and North Carolina, and seven true freshmen are set to suit up for them this season, which just goes to show that while age, experience and continuity are intertwined concepts, they do not perfectly correlate with each other.
