This Week in the ACC - 12/9-12/15

[pfrduke]

First and foremost, congratulations to the Hokies for taking the early lead in the conference race. Sunday's game against Miami wasn't pretty, and the Hokies' tenure at the top may not last very far into conference play, but they'll be at the top of the standings for a month before the rest of the league can catch up.

As for last week's non-conference results, I think the grade has to be fair to poor. The split with the Big Ten was a slight upset, buoyed by strong performance at the top of the conference (4 of the likely top 5 squads won, three in head to head competition against top 5/6 Big Ten teams). Wake also got a nice win against a Richmond team that has been a thorn in Jeff Bzdelik's side, beating the Deacs in each year of his tenure before this one. But otherwise the weekend left a lot to be desired, with the ACC losing every other competitive game to the not quite murderers' row of Arkansas, George Washington, USC, and UW-Green Bay.

Exams hit this week and bring with them a whole lot of off days for ACC teams. Only 11 total games on tap for the week and only 4 have any real consequence - BC and Maryland square off in Chestnut Hill on Thursday to see who will join the Hokies at the top of the leaderboard, Saturday brings Kentucky-UNC and Indiana-Notre Dame, and Syracuse plays at MSG against St. John's Sunday.

Monday has Notre Dame in action (it must be on a different exam schedule, as it has three of the ACC's 11 games this week).

[54]Notre Dame hosts [126]Bryant

Tuesday is dark.

Wednesday gives us the Irish again.

[54]Notre Dame hosts [83]North Dakota State

Thursday is conference play. Boston College came into the season as somewhat of a trendy pick to make the NCAAs. They brought back everybody off a team that showed strong signs of life toward the end of last year, finishing 6-4 over its last 10 including upset wins over Virginia and Maryland. Olivier Hanlan and Ryan Anderson are extremely talented players, and the surrounding pieces seemed to play their complementary roles nicely. But this season has been an unmitigated disaster so far - the Eagles sit at 3-6, needing overtime against Sacred Heart for one of their wins and being taken to the wire by Florida Atlantic in another. The fault lies entirely at the defensive end. The Eagles can't stop anyone from scoring in any way. Teams have a 52.1% effective field goal percentage against BC; when they do miss, BC is terrible on the offensive glass, allowing opponents to gather 36.8% of their misses; and BC doesn't bother to stop teams from shooting, forcing turnovers on just 14.6% of possessions. To add insult to injury, they've also been victimized by particularly strong foul shooting by opponents (75.7%). All those things have combined to give BC the 271st ranked defense in the country. Yeesh. Defense has never been Steve Donahue's forte, but this year's model is egregiously bad, and they haven't even hit the meat of the ACC schedule.

[113]Boston College hosts [49]Maryland

Friday is dark.

Saturday has the week's marquee activity back-to-back on ESPN. IU-ND is the undercard (although don't tell that to Indiana residents). Notre Dame has had defensive struggles (the only opponents held under a point per possession are Stetson, Army, and Cornell) but they can really score the ball. Their shooting is exceptional - 16th in the country overall - and is strong inside the arc, from 3, and from the line, and the Irish almost never turn the ball over. Indiana's defense has been stellar this year, particularly at preventing shots from going in; Saturday's matchup will put strength against strength when Notre Dame has the ball (and weakness against weakness when IU has the ball). UK-UNC gets the main event billing, and it looks a lot more competitive after the past week's results. Kudos to Kentucky for scheduling itself a strong December - 6 opponents, none ranked worse than 63rd, and 3 away from Rupp Arena. This weekend's matchup is the sole "true" road game of the bunch. Kentucky's offense to date has been premised on offensive rebounds (no one in the country does it better) and getting it to the line (2nd in the country); the shooting is somewhat pedestrian and (not surprisingly for a bunch of freshman) they're a bit turnover prone. If Carolina can keep Randle, Cauley-Stein, and Poythress (and Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee, in the limited minutes they get) off the glass, that will go a long way toward a victory. On the other side of the ball, Kentucky's length makes it very difficult to score inside - the Cats block more than 1 out of every 6 two-point shots an opponent takes. Whoever controls the paint better should win the game.

[4]Pittsburgh hosts [192]Youngstown State
[49]Maryland hosts [245]Florida Atlantic
[54]Notre Dame vs. [38]Indiana in Indianapolis
[6]North Carolina hosts [11]Kentucky
[72]NC State hosts [158]Detroit
[37]Clemson hosts [308]Furman

Sunday sends Syracuse to the Garden to take on St. John's. The Johnnies are the single best shot blocking team in the country so far, led by Chris Obekpa but with a healthy amount of help from Orlando Sanchez, Sir'Dominic Pointer, Jakarr Sampson, and (in limited minutes) God'sgift Achiuwa. Basically, they run out a bunch of 6'6" to 6'9" athletes who can wreak havoc on opposing shots.

[7]Syracuse at [56]St. John's
[113]Boston College hosts [Non-DI]Philadelphia

ACC Non-Conference Record: 97-38
ACC Record vs. BCS: 23-24
America East: 2-0
American Athletic: 4-4
Atlantic Sun: 6-1
Atlantic Ten: 5-6
Big 12: 3-2
Big East: 1-3
Big South: 10-0
Big Ten: 7-8
Big West: 2-0
Colonial: 3-0
CUSA: 4-1
Horizon: 1-1
Ivy: 2-0
MAAC: 1-0
MAC: 1-1
MEAC: 8-1
Missouri Valley: 2-1
Mountain West: 1-0
Northeast: 2-1
Ohio Valley: 3-1
Pac-12: 5-3
Patriot: 6-0
SEC: 3-4
Southern: 10-0
Southland: 1-0
SWAC: 2-0
West Coast: 2-0

[Duvall]

Maryland beats a pretty unspecial FAU team by four in an empty Comcast Center.

Maybe they should stop complaining about not getting Duke and UNC at home this year.