I’ll be honest, never did I ever think I’d be posing this question this year.

Chris Mack inherited a tough situation — we thought. His first year in Louisville, the Cardinals were supposed to at least be competitive against top-25 teams, not beat four of them at this point of the season. This Cardinals team was one some thought would be an NIT team, not potentially a top-4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

How has this happened? Chris Mack is what’s happened.

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The former Xavier coach took over a roster with little to no playing experience. Veteran players Deng Adel, Quentin Snider, Ray Spalding and Anas Mahmoud graduated and/or put their name in the hat for the NBA. Mack added Christen Cunningham from Samford, Akoy Agau from SMU and Khwan Fore from Richmond with the hopes of them helping and jelling with the young roster of Jordan Nwora, Malik Williams, Dwayne Sutton and Ryan McMahon, just to name a few.

This is now one of the more surprising teams in college basketball.

Monday night’s 72-64 win over Virginia Tech, ranked 10th in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, was a very impressive road victory for the Cardinals, but what was more impressive was how they responded after a loss to North Carolina on Saturday where Louisville looked almost uninterested in playing the game.

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U of L (17-6 overall, 8-2 ACC) has exceeded many expectations to this point in the season, with a No. 17 ranking in the USA TODAY poll. However, how the Cards handle the month of February will be telling. They still have games against Florida State, Duke, Syracuse and Virginia — in a span of the next two weeks — and may suffer a few more losses along the way. But regardless of what happens the rest of the season, I think Mack should be the unanimous ACC Coach of the Year and is even making his case for national coach of the year honors.