ACC Schedule Released

[ACCBBallFan]

I stiil have not factored in Home/Away, but re-did the analysis based on the second weighting and again concluded that the best teams have the toughest unbalanced schedule and vice-versa (not sure if that is by design or accident but seems odd counter-intuitive since they do not have to play themselves, one would think the strongest teams have an automatic schedule advantage)

The analysis was manual and could very well have some errors, beyond the weights assumption.

FSU ranked third has the toughest schedule, which makes sense since they only play the 5 worst teams once: NC St, GA T, Wake, MD and BC.
Since UVA and VA Tech only play the 6th worst team Miami once, they each play 5 of the 6 worst teams only once.
Duke plays 5 of the 7 worst teams only once.

Conversely GA Tech only plays each of the 5 best teams once.
For BC, they only play VA Tech twice and none of the other top 6 twice.
Same for St but the3ir 1 of top 6 they play twice is UNC.
Wake only plays two of the top 7 twice Duke and Clemson.

27 - FSU(3)
30 - UVA(4)
32 - VA Tech(5)
32 - Duke (2)
33 - UNC (1)
34 - MD(11)

37 - Clemson (6)

42 - Miami(7)
47 - Wake(10)
47 - NC St(8)

51 - BC(12)

56 - GA Tech(9)

The order is the same when I group by quadrants.

Of course the other way to look at this is tougher schedule means you can take care of busines yourself rather than relying on others to knock off the team you are chasing.


11 - FSU(3)
12 - UVA(4)
12 - VA Tech(5)

13 - Duke (2)
14 - UNC (1)
14 - MD(11)
14 - Clemson (6)

16 - Miami(7)
17 - Wake(10)

18 - NC St(8)
19 - BC(12)
20 - GA Tech(9)

As I get time I will try to factor in Home/Away.

[toooskies]

All of the comments imply that the difficulty of teams follow a linear distribution, whereas history would show that difficulty is more likely to follow a bell-curve.

[ACCBBallFan]

I tried some Home/Away analysis and also factored in gumbomoop's opinion that NC State is perhaps a little better than I had given them credit for being.

I used quadrants but tried to factor in that UNC is faovrite over Duke and FSU in 1st quadrant, and BC ever so bad

UNC heavy favorite

Duke and FSU treated evenly before SOS impact

UVA, VA T and NC St treated evenly before SOS

Clemson, Miami and GA Tech treated evenly before SOS

Wake, MD treated evenly before SOS

BC light weight this year

The assumption is that home teams always carry serve except when playing a team 2 or more "quadrants" lower

Top 6 teams only losses are on the road:

13-3 UNC with losses @ Duke, @FSU and @UVA or @ VA Tech depending on who you consider the #4 rated team

13-3 Duke with losses @UNC, @ FSU and @ VA Tech

12-4 FSU with losses @ Duke, @ UVA, @ VA Tech and @ NC St or @ Clemson depending on who you consider the #6 rated team

So top 3 remain top 3 after considering SOS. If Duke were to split with UNC an dUNC loses to boteh VA teams on road, perhaps an outright first place rater than a tie.

10-6 VA Tech losses @ UNC, @ Duke, @ FSU, @ UVA, @ Clemson and @ Miami

9-7 UVA losses @ UNC, @ Duke, @ FSU, @ NC St, @ Clemson and @ GA T

9-7 NC St losses @ UNC (2), @ Duke, @ VA T, @ Clemson, @ Miami and @ GA T and beats FSU and UVA at home

So no change in gumbomoop's second tier after Considering SOS

7-9 Clemson loses to FSU and Duke at home but wins @ BC

7-9 Miami loses to FSU and UNC at home but sweeps BC

7-9 GA Tech loses to Duke at home and does not win a road game as is their norm

No changes due to SOS in any quadrant other than order of teams

4-12 MD with wins at home vs. BC, Wake, Maimi and GA Tech

3-13 Wake with wins at home vs. BC, GA Tech and Clemson

2-14 BC with wins at home vs. Wake and one of [GA Tech, Miami and Clemson]. I doubt it but could finish as high as 4-12 with Clemson and/or Miami being 6-10 rather than 7-9.

[hurleyfor3]

Anyone know the backstory on the Colorado State game? I doubt we'd play in Fort Collins, but could there be a return visit to Denver? No one on the team comes from the Mountain time zone.

[gumbomoop]

As a matter of fact, I did do quite a bit of analysis.

UNC 3 loses are to Duke and FSU and one of Miami/UVA/VA Tech on road

Duke 4 loses are to UNC, FSU, VA Tech and Clemson on road. At the time I had Clemson in second quadrant and Miami who Duke plays only at home in third quadrant. So maybe only 3 losses

If FSU beats UNC at home, FSU 5 losses are to Duke, Miami, UVA, VA Tech and NC St on road.

I have imported a tag quote from ACCBBF's post over on the Rodney Purvis thread, as several of the recent posts over there morphed from Purvis to NC State's 2011-12 hopes, and thence to predictions more generally as to which teams will finish where this season.

I, and I am certain many other posters, can attest to ACCBBF's consistently informative analysis. Always much appreciated, even when I nitpick at this point or that.

This time, no nitpick, just a comment or 2 on the ACC consensus top 3. All is, of course, speculation/prediction in preseason; but I'm with ACCBBF's speculations here. Now, it would be one thing to predict that UNC would lose either 0 or 1 game, while predicting, say, 3-5 losses to Duke. Similarly, one might predict an equal number of losses for Duke and FSU. But ACCBBF doesn't - nor do I - predict those numbers. Rather, the "logic" of ACCBBF's prediction, with which I agree [and, come to think of it, with which I hope ACCBBF agrees!!], is that:

(a) Duke is the only team that is likely to challenge UNC for #1....
(b) because, even though Heels have more talent, they probably have neither more experience nor more depth....
(c) and because Heels have slightly more difficult road schedule.
(d) FSU may challenge Duke for #2, but not UNC for #1. No other team is likely to challenge for #2.
(e) There is sufficient reason to hope, and even expect, that the regular-season finale in CIS will determine the ACCT #1 seed. That third overtime should be tense.

[gumbomoop]

FYI - Dana O'Neil of ESPN breaks down ACC OOC schedule strengths. She says Duke's is toughest, followed by Heels and Pack, also tough.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebaske...e-analysis-acc

[uh_no]

FYI - Dana O'Neil of ESPN breaks down ACC OOC schedule strengths. She says Duke's is toughest, followed by Heels and Pack, also tough.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebaske...e-analysis-acc

Id certainly hope so with the champions classic, Maui, and the B10 challenge

[ACCBBallFan]

I have imported a tag quote from ACCBBF's post over on the Rodney Purvis thread, as several of the recent posts over there morphed from Purvis to NC State's 2011-12 hopes, and thence to predictions more generally as to which teams will finish where this season.

I, and I am certain many other posters, can attest to ACCBBF's consistently informative analysis. Always much appreciated, even when I nitpick at this point or that.

This time, no nitpick, just a comment or 2 on the ACC consensus top 3. All is, of course, speculation/prediction in preseason; but I'm with ACCBBF's speculations here. Now, it would be one thing to predict that UNC would lose either 0 or 1 game, while predicting, say, 3-5 losses to Duke. Similarly, one might predict an equal number of losses for Duke and FSU. But ACCBBF doesn't - nor do I - predict those numbers. Rather, the "logic" of ACCBBF's prediction, with which I agree [and, come to think of it, with which I hope ACCBBF agrees!!], is that:

(a) Duke is the only team that is likely to challenge UNC for #1....
(b) because, even though Heels have more talent, they probably have neither more experience nor more depth....
(c) and because Heels have slightly more difficult road schedule.
(d) FSU may challenge Duke for #2, but not UNC for #1. No other team is likely to challenge for #2.
(e) There is sufficient reason to hope, and even expect, that the regular-season finale in CIS will determine the ACCT #1 seed. That third overtime should be tense.

Thanks.

Yes I would agree with all five of points (a) thru (e) and appreciate the props.

The one I might quibble with only slightly or rather elaborate on is that FSU cannot also challenge UNC and Duke for #1.

I agree that they would not all be 33% likely, I guess if I had to fit it to odds it woud be UNC 35-45 / Duke 30-35 / FSU 20-30.

If FSU can get some PG play out of the grad student Jeff Peterson from Arkansas to replace Derwin Kitchen, they have an awful lot of seniors and juniors plus 2 grad students, more like the profile of mid majors when they are senior laden. So yes the planets have to really align for FSU to surpass UNC while Duke is within striking distance of both UNC and FSU in ipposite directions

as you allude though people tend to think od Duke as a young team with only 1 senior and having lost Singer and Smith, 5 of the 6 key guys are upperclassmen, albeit 4 are juniors.

If FSU is 3 and VA Tech is 6 that's roughly the same degree of difficulty as Miami 4 and UVA 5 such that Duke's home only games are not wasted on GA Tech and BC like UNC's are. Duke should be able to beat those two bottom teams at their place in road only games.

UNC has FSU and VA Tech road only, Miami and UVA Home and Home whereas Duke has FSU and VA Tech Home and Home but ts tough games vs. Maimi and UVA atre both at home as opposed to UNC's two being on the road.

FSU has UNC home only and the next 5 best teams Home and Away and has to realy leverage its seniority and its boring defensive style to carry serve at home and minimize opponents' home court advantages.

UNC is particualrly vulnerable if Kendall Marshall gets into foul trouble but he did a good job of avoiding that last year.

In the other quadrants it's more evenly distributed and you can flip coins or throw darts to separate Miami, UVA, VA Tech, Clemson and possiblly NC State.