This Week in the ACC: 1/10/11-1/16/11

[Bob Green]

Ten ACC games and a Big East-ACC match-up are on tap this week. I’d love to see Maryland defeat Villanova so hopefully tonight’s defeat at CIS doesn’t destroy the Terps confidence.

Tuesday:

Georgia Tech @ Clemson
NC State @ Boston College

Wednesday:

Duke @ Florida State
Maryland @ Wake Forest

Thursday:

Virginia Tech @ North Carolina

Saturday:

Virginia @ Duke
Maryland @ Villanova
NC State @ Florida State
Boston College @ Miami
Wake Forest @ Virginia Tech

Sunday:

North Carolina @ Georgia Tech

Several big match-ups this week with the key games from my perspective being Virginia Tech visiting North Carolina and NC State visiting Boston College in midweek games, while the weekend sees NC State visiting Florida State and Boston College visiting Miami on Saturday.

Of course, the most important games are Duke at Florida State and Virginia at Duke. As long as we win our games, the other teams will all be playing for second place. I really desire to see NC State beat Boston College.

We struggled on offense tonight but I cannot fathom Florida State scoring enough points to defeat Duke. The Seminoles are incompetent on offense. I wonder if Coach Krzyzewski will consider playing some zone? VT shutdown FSU with a 2-3 zone.

[loran16]

So John Gasaway over at basketball prospectus used to run a weekly column (Tuesday Truths) showcasing the offensive and defensive efficiencies of each team during conference play. This identified Duke and MD as the runaway favorites in the ACC last year pretty early.

Unfortunately, BBall Prospectus has gone premium, and I at the very least don't have the spare change to pay up. SO I decided I'd calculate the same #s myself.

So, after 1-2 ACC Games, here's how the ACC stacks up:
Acc Stats Week 1.png
(Click to read a better sized image...I apologize, but I can't find a way to make it a chart so I saved it as an image).

The #s are points per possession. A Higher Efficiency Margin means a team is better than a team with a lower efficiency margin.

Obviously the #s don't mean much at this point...4 teams have only played 1 game, leading to NC State being the most efficient team because their one game was against Wake. But I'll be keeping track all season and by 4 games in, it should be very relevant.

Note that Duke's D has been the key in its first two games, especially because of the Miami game, with no other 2-game team having a good D performance. Also BC's offensive performance has been pretty damn good to date, though their Defense isn't particularly good. And that's with BC playing MD ON THE ROAD, a team that Duke couldn't score a point per possession against.

[DukieTiger]

So John Gasaway over at basketball prospectus used to run a weekly column (Tuesday Truths) showcasing the offensive and defensive efficiencies of each team during conference play. This identified Duke and MD as the runaway favorites in the ACC last year pretty early.

Unfortunately, BBall Prospectus has gone premium, and I at the very least don't have the spare change to pay up. SO I decided I'd calculate the same #s myself.

So, after 1-2 ACC Games, here's how the ACC stacks up:
Acc Stats Week 1.png
(Click to read a better sized image...I apologize, but I can't find a way to make it a chart so I saved it as an image).

The #s are points per possession. A Higher Efficiency Margin means a team is better than a team with a lower efficiency margin.

Obviously the #s don't mean much at this point...4 teams have only played 1 game, leading to NC State being the most efficient team because their one game was against Wake. But I'll be keeping track all season and by 4 games in, it should be very relevant.

Note that Duke's D has been the key in its first two games, especially because of the Miami game, with no other 2-game team having a good D performance. Also BC's offensive performance has been pretty damn good to date, though their Defense isn't particularly good. And that's with BC playing MD ON THE ROAD, a team that Duke couldn't score a point per possession against.

Thanks for doing this. We won't know til tomorrow, but Gasaway's first edition of the Tuesday Truths this year was a free article on BP.com- it only covered one conference, but I was hoping that once he opens it up to more conferences (likely tomorrow) it would continue to be a free article.

[loran16]

Thanks for doing this. We won't know til tomorrow, but Gasaway's first edition of the Tuesday Truths this year was a free article on BP.com- it only covered one conference, but I was hoping that once he opens it up to more conferences (likely tomorrow) it would continue to be a free article.

If it's free, I'll stop doing it. But I remember when they went premium, Tuesday Truths was listed as one example of a column that would be accessible only if you bought the subscription.

That said, it might be free tomorrow just to entice people to buy in in future weeks, as one conference isn't much of a taste.

[Bob Green]

Boston College 28, NC State 26 at the half. BC started strong and was up 24-13 before State finished the half on a 13-4 run with Tracy Smith scoring eight of State's 13 points.
The 2nd half should be interesting. Reggie Jackson has 12 points for BC and neither team has a player with foul trouble.

[-jk]

Are they having weather in Boston? Or just fan apathy? Lots of fans dressed as empty seats...

-jk

[loran16]

Are they having weather in Boston? Or just fan apathy? Lots of fans dressed as empty seats...

-jk

Reportedly, students aren't back yet.

[Duvall]

Reportedly, students aren't back yet.

Plus, weather and fan apathy.

[loran16]

Plus, weather and fan apathy.

Snow hasn't even hit Boston yet i'm pretty sure.

[JasonEvans]

Plus, weather and fan apathy.

Boston is not a college sports town, never has been and never will be. Aside from high profile matches, like Duke and UNC, they just don't fill their gym very often.

Here are the home game attendance reports thus far this season--

vs. St. Francis - 3740
vs. Yale - 3813
vs. Holy Cross - 3672
vs. Indiana - 5329
vs. Providence - 5462
vs. Bryant - 5126
vs. Bucknell - 4116
vs. Harvard - 4129
vs. Ga Tech - 6516

For the record, the Silvio O. Conte Forum (BC's home court) seats 8606, so they have had only 4 out of 9 home games where they sold more than half the tickets to that place.

--Jason "dunno why I spent the time researching this... ahh well" Evans

[JasonEvans]

By the way, BC won by 9 to go to 3-0 in the conference; making my statement earlier in the week that I like 0-2 Maryland more than (then) 2-0 BC look a tiny bit more foolish

Oh, and the notion that NC State with Tracy Smith is a far better team just took a bit of a hit.

-Jason "in fairness, Pom had predicted a 79-71 win, so this was not exactly a shocker" Evans

[Olympic Fan]

State took a small lead with about five minutes left, but with the score tied 60-all, BC got back-to-back 3s from Raji and Paris and coasted to a 75-66 win.

The Eagles showed a lot of poise and go contributions from a lot of people. But Reggie Jackson is the guy who made them go - 29 points.

BC now 3-0 in the ACC; N.C. State 1-1

Georgia Tech-Clemson game postponed until Wednesday night because of the weather.

[Duvall]

Snow hasn't even hit Boston yet i'm pretty sure.

Isn't it supposed to hit tonight, though?

Fan apathy is a constant regardless.

[SuperTurkey]

Snow hasn't even hit Boston yet i'm pretty sure.

Snow hits in 2 hours.

Boston is not a college sports town, never has been and never will be.

Amen. Moving to Boston from Durham was pretty jarring re: sports culture. When I talk about college ball, most people look at me like I have 2 heads. Oh, but they all hate Duke.

[loran16]

By the way, BC won by 9 to go to 3-0 in the conference; making my statement earlier in the week that I like 0-2 Maryland more than (then) 2-0 BC look a tiny bit more foolish

Oh, and the notion that NC State with Tracy Smith is a far better team just took a bit of a hit.

-Jason "in fairness, Pom had predicted a 79-71 win, so this was not exactly a shocker" Evans

In all fairness, BC is an extreme team. I'm not sure games against them tell us anything. They're all offense, no defense. And they rely so heavily on 3s...

A win by NC State may have shown them to be a bigger force...or it might have just shown that BC was missing 3s during one game.

I'd like to see how State does against a more balanced ACC team (BC's D is not only below average, but it's below the 200th best team in the league). FSU doesn't count much either (Their O is below league average), Duke, Miami, and Clemson will fit that bill. How they do vs those 3 teams will show how fit they are to handle the ACC.

[gofurman]

So John Gasaway over at basketball prospectus used to run a weekly column (Tuesday Truths) showcasing the offensive and defensive efficiencies of each team during conference play. This identified Duke and MD as the runaway favorites in the ACC last year pretty early.

Unfortunately, BBall Prospectus has gone premium, and I at the very least don't have the spare change to pay up. SO I decided I'd calculate the same #s myself.

So, after 1-2 ACC Games, here's how the ACC stacks up:
Acc Stats Week 1.png
(Click to read a better sized image...I apologize, but I can't find a way to make it a chart so I saved it as an image).

The #s are points per possession. A Higher Efficiency Margin means a team is better than a team with a lower efficiency margin.

Obviously the #s don't mean much at this point...4 teams have only played 1 game, leading to NC State being the most efficient team because their one game was against Wake. But I'll be keeping track all season and by 4 games in, it should be very relevant.

Note that Duke's D has been the key in its first two games, especially because of the Miami game, with no other 2-game team having a good D performance. Also BC's offensive performance has been pretty damn good to date, though their Defense isn't particularly good. And that's with BC playing MD ON THE ROAD, a team that Duke couldn't score a point per possession against.

great stuff - please keep this going or let me know where to find it if free

[loran16]

great stuff - please keep this going or let me know where to find it if free

Planning on doing so. Gasaway confirmed today that his version of this will be premium access only, so I'll be keeping track.

Figure I'll put up a new post every Monday at the least, and I'll probably update Thursday Night, as that's when every ACC Team will have played at least 2 games.

After tonight's game, NC State falls to #4 in conference, while BC rises to #2 behind Duke.

[DukieInBrasil]

By the way, BC won by 9 to go to 3-0 in the conference; making my statement earlier in the week that I like 0-2 Maryland more than (then) 2-0 BC look a tiny bit more foolish

Oh, and the notion that NC State with Tracy Smith is a far better team just took a bit of a hit.

-Jason "in fairness, Pom had predicted a 79-71 win, so this was not exactly a shocker" Evans

I'm not sure that's true, just imagine how badly they would have lost without him, maybe not quite like Wisconsin...
He has played quite well since coming back and Leslie's play is up too. Their guard play is where it's weak: Gonzalez stunk it up and Harrow will be excellent some day but is too unsteady to really hold NCSU together, not now, but maybe later in the year.
BC being 3-0 in the ACC really makes it hard for Md. to be able to catch up. MD might get back to 1-2 after their mid-week game, still 2 games back in the race for 2nd place. Heck, even Duke is a 1/2 game behind BC right now.

[Bob Green]

There are three ACC games tonight:

Georgia Tech @ Clemson
Duke @ Florida State
Maryland @ Wake Forest

with the visitors being favored in two of the games. Clemson is an eight point favorite at home, while Duke is a 7.5 point favorite and Maryland an 11 point favorite on the road. As today's Al Featherston article points out, the home team won 68.8 percent of the time in ACC games last year with the figure being more than 63 percent over the 57 year history of the league. So, will we see an upset tonight? Personally, I'd love to see Wake Forest take out Maryland!

[diveonthefloor]

Holy cow! I just turned on the Clemson Ga Tech game. There must be a zillion empty seats in Littlejohn. I hope school is still on break for them, that is absolutely pathetic.