This Week in the ACC: 1/22-1/28

[Wheat/"/"/"]

I was going to question whether your shooters were that good, but at about 39% from three is very good. Only VT, ND and UVA shoot it better in the conference.

They, (Williams,Johnson, Maye, Berry), are excellent at spot up, catch and shoot shots, less so off the dribble.

To get those shots they are good at, they have to move well without the ball, screen and cut hard. Something they have not been doing very well lately. I think mainly because there's a lack of penetration off the dribble and it has frustrated them...they end up passing it around with no probing dribble drives in the creases to pressure the D.

That's where the lack of aggressiveness with the ball is showing up the most. They end up trying to be "surgical"/"controlled" with the attack and a motivated defense like VT had tonight was having none of that. They wouldn't let UNC pick them apart, they pressured the ball well.

[jhmoss1812]

I'd be interested in hearing from our Virginia fan guests around here regarding how they feel about this year's team. Will this finally be the Virginia team that can really make waves on the national scene in March? Do they have the offensive chops to win in the tourney I mean, look at the past 4 years since Virginia really rose in the rankings... the season did not end with the team performing as expected (and they generally cannot even get to 60 points in these tourney losses):

2014 - #1 seed in East, loss in Sw 16 to #4 Mich St – scored 59 points
2015 - #2 in East, loss in R32 to #7 Mich St – scored 54 points
2016 - #1 seed in MW, lost in E8 to #10 Syracuse – scored 62 points
2017 - #5 seed in East, loss in R32 to #4 Florida – scored 39 points

-Jason "I know the D is amazing... but is that enough come March?" Evans

2014 - MSU was criminally under seeded and UVA lost by 2 points. Gill's ankle injury in second half was untimely.
2015 - MSU was probably under seeded again and UVA never recovered to Justin Anderson injury.
2016 - FML - choke job of epic proportions - this is the one that bothers me the most to this day. I think about it way more than I probably should. I have no explanation for it.
2017 - Beatdown in every sense of the word. It's not that we lost to UF in R32. It's how badly we lost. Pretty average UVA team though. Nichols suspension threw team off.

I think UVA has underperformed in NCAAs but it's not as bad as the media makes it sound. And I don't think it's a systemic issue more than some bad luck and matchups. I think it's a fair criticism of Bennett and our system but I think if you keep getting top seeds in the NCAAs, you'll break through eventually. We haven't lost in the first round of the tourney since 2012 when we were a 10-seed and got blitzed by Florida. Bennett has only lost to 3 teams in NCAAs at UVA - MSU X2 (Izzo), Florida X2 (Donovan/White), and Cuse X1 (Boeheim). These teams are not necessarily the best matchups for UVA and are mostly led by HOF coaches.

I do think that it's easier for teams to ramp up their defensive effort in NCAAs than it is for teams to ramp up their offensive effort. This eliminates our advantage that we seem to have in the regular season. I think we have a good shot to go far this year but there's no doubt we have offensive deficiencies that could plague us in a single-elimination tournament. We lack interior scoring and that puts a lot of pressure on our guards to hit jump shots, even if our offensive sets do a nice job of creating open looks. The development of DeAndre Hunter raises our ceiling but I still have concerns about our offense. Our defense is elite though and that will keep us in the majority of the games we play. We are definitely good enough to win 6 straight games against good teams. Doesn't mean we will though. You have to keep in mind that we were unranked to start the season. We are definitely overachieving at this point. Whether fair or not, UVA will only be judged by how we perform in the NCAA tournament. And we will continue to hear the narrative that our system doesn't work in March until we break through to a Final Four.

[duke2x]

I think UVA has underperformed in NCAAs but it's not as bad as the media makes it sound. And I don't think it's a systemic issue more than some bad luck and matchups.

Excellent post but too long to quote in full.

Using some examples that should have some respect on this board,

Coach K did not win a title until his 5th Final 4 and the program's 9th.
Coach G did not win a title in 4 Final 4s (this is not a veiled attempt to argue about the WBB program).
Coach Danowski did not win a title until his 4th Final 4 and the program's 6th (again, not a lax hijack).

I remember Coach K's 2010 press conference as I was leaving JPJ. K said that UVA has the right guy coaching the program, and I defer to his compliment. It takes a long time to get the talent and coaching experience in place. I think the hardest problem Bennett has yet to overcome is negative recruiting even though he has put a few guys in the NBA. More NBA games play 148-124 instead of 78-65.

[Spanarkel]

Those were not core ACC officials. 2/3 worked the Miami game last week, and Shows works the SEC mostly.

Good point! I checked unc's ACC games to date and only TV Teddy has worked more than one game(2) involving the cheaters this season. Is there still a "core group of ACC officials" with the new ACC officiating alliance with now 7 other conferences?

http://www.bigeast.com/news/2017/7/2...-alliance.aspx

[DarkstarWahoo]

Actually, it sounds like you agree with my first post, too, except for the last sentence saying last year's team underperformed. But, I must insist that when a team loses by 26 points, it probably underperformed in that game. The context of discussion is UVA's NCAA performance, and that performance was very bad.

But my larger point stands. I don't think there's enough evidence there to say that UVA overall has an NCAAT problem.

Upon reading your first post again, you are correct. I focused too much on a small part of it.

Hope you enjoyed the events at Cassell last night. My preferred outcome (precisely targeted IBCM strike) didn't come to pass, but given the look of the ACC standings and the Hokies' usual mediocrity, I'll take what we got.

[DukieInBrasil]

Dante Grantham is out (for the season?) for the Tigrillos over yonder in Clemson. Usually, this would signal the end for Clemson, but i'm wondering if that age-old phenomenon happens when a team loses their best (or one of the best) players and miraculously ends up winning a game or two immediately after that they have no business winning. Clemson, even at 100%, has no business beating UVA in C'ville. Sounds like a perfect set-up for an enormous (and beneficial for Duke) upset.

[left_hook_lacey]

I miscounted on my preseason prediction of 19-11 for UNC. They play 31 regular season games, so they can't go 19-11. I'll give them 20-11, and I'm not 100% convinced they'll get to 20 wins, but I'm going conservative.

This is a very one dimensional team. Two things Roy loves to do, work inside out, and push the ball on every possession. UNC doesn't have the personnel to do either of those things. So they basically try to work it inside through the high post then get back door cuts and lay ups. It's worked a little against poorly coached teams, but the teams that are well coached and/or have bigger stronger faster players shut it down. This leaves UNC with Berry, Williams, Johnson or even sometimes Pinson(yeesh) chucking up a 3 with the shot-clock winding down. That has to drive Roy crazy.

I think they have 4 definite losses left on the schedule, with several others being a coin flip. They are at 16-5 right now, another loss, and they're out of the top 25. The signs have been there all season and pre-season that this would be a disastrous season for UNC(by blue blood standards). The loss to Wofford at home, struggling against Barton in the pre-season, struggling to beat Davidson by 10, needing a last second floater from Berry to beat Wake at home.

Last night, the body language looked terrible by the players and even Roy himself. Get your pop corn folks, we will have two epic beat downs of UNC this year, and they will lose a few more they're not supposed to lose. I think I'm being generous with 20-11. I've being saying it all season and I think it's starting to unfold, there will be an epic meltdown by this team this year. This will bring out fan ugliness, and some Haiti-like comments from Roy. Assuming he hasn't lost interest and is looking to next year. Oh. Wait, we got Cam, Barrett, and Zion. He has nothing to look forward to next year.

[duke2x]

Good point! I checked unc's ACC games to date and only TV Teddy has worked more than one game(2) involving the cheaters this season. Is there still a "core group of ACC officials" with the new ACC officiating alliance with now 7 other conferences?

http://www.bigeast.com/news/2017/7/2...-alliance.aspx

The ones that work 2-3 ACC assignments/week on average are Ayers, Eades, Dorsey, Jones, Luckie, Nestor, and Valentine. You'll usually get two of those for any big ACC game. There are probably 20-30 more that work 0-2 games/week as younger officials or top officials from other conferences that have the day off, the latter being the crew last night.

It was much easier to keep track of them when I was a student. The 9 team ACC rotated 90% of the slots between the same 9-10.

[DukieInBrasil]

I miscounted on my preseason prediction of 19-11 for UNC. They play 31 regular season games, so they can't go 19-11. I'll give them 20-11, and I'm not 100% convinced they'll get to 20 wins, but I'm going conservative.

This is a very one dimensional team. Two things Roy loves to do, work inside out, and push the ball on every possession. UNC doesn't have the personnel to do either of those things. So they basically try to work it inside through the high post then get back door cuts and lay ups. It's worked a little against poorly coached teams, but the teams that are well coached and/or have bigger stronger faster players shut it down. This leaves UNC with Berry, Williams, Johnson or even sometimes Pinson(yeesh) chucking up a 3 with the shot-clock winding down. That has to drive Roy crazy.

I think they have 4 definite losses left on the schedule, with several others being a coin flip. They are at 16-5 right now, another loss, and they're out of the top 25. The signs have been there all season and pre-season that this would be a disastrous season for UNC(by blue blood standards). The loss to Wofford at home, struggling against Barton in the pre-season, struggling to beat Davidson by 10, needing a last second floater from Berry to beat Wake at home.

Last night, the body language looked terrible by the players and even Roy himself. Get your pop corn folks, we will have two epic beat downs of UNC this year, and they will lose a few more they're not supposed to lose. I think I'm being generous with 20-11. I've being saying it all season and I think it's starting to unfold, there will be an epic meltdown by this team this year. This will bring out fan ugliness, and some Haiti-like comments from Roy. Assuming he hasn't lost interest and is looking to next year. Oh. Wait, we got Cam, Barrett, and Zion. He has nothing to look forward to next year.

Although i share your optimism, i don't think UNC losing to the dead-last place team in NCAA D1 would cause them to drop out of the top 25. They lost to a VT team at VT that has been ranked this year and is a high-quality team. Hell, knowing the voters they might even move up b/c of that loss (assuming a win in the next game). Just kidding, sort of, almost. Looking at their schedule, i see them having the potential to win 20 games. I didn't watch the game and don't know about the body language you saw, but UNC has a way of disappointing me nearly every year by winning any games at all. NCSU at the Dump, vs Pitt, vs ND, vs Miami are all games that this UNC can definitely win, although if they fall apart like you predict, then maybe they'll only get 1 or 2 of those. If they do hold it together, they could conceivably win @NCSU and @Syracuse as well. That would suck.
If Duke can do what it should, including 2 wins over the cheaters, then Duke will finish above UNC in the ACC standings, although outright winning the ACC will depend on some luck for us, as somebody else has to beat UVA. Duke could win out, and i hope that happens, but there are at least 3 games on the schedule that could be very challenging: UVA, @UNC and @VT. Clemson is without Grantham, so maybe that one isn't as challenging as i thought, but could still be problematic. If Duke plays up to its potential it should win out, but that's never guaranteed.

[DarkstarWahoo]

UVA is very good but has been the slight beneficiary of a favorable schedule early. They still have @Duke, @Syracuse, @FSU, @Miami, @Louisville to go. I also readily concede that Saturday is a must-win to get the #1 seed and Duke may have come close to running the table to get it.

Funny that you mention that, because based on the admittedly simplistic metric of conference winning percentage, the biggest discrepancy in difficulty between games played and games remaining belongs to...the Duke Blue Devils. Of course, that has a whole, whole lot to do with you guys already having played godawful Pitt twice, but by my count, you still have nine games left against what I would deem the ACC's decent-and-up teams (UNC, @UNC, VT, @VT, Notre Dame, Louisville, @Clemson, Cuse, UVA).

http://www.playoffstatus.com/accbask.../accsosag.html

[OldPhiKap]

Funny that you mention that, because based on the admittedly simplistic metric of conference winning percentage, the biggest discrepancy in difficulty between games played and games remaining belongs to...the Duke Blue Devils. Of course, that has a whole, whole lot to do with you guys already having played godawful Pitt twice, but by my count, you still have nine games left against what I would deem the ACC's decent-and-up teams (UNC, @UNC, VT, @VT, Notre Dame, Louisville, @Clemson, Cuse, UVA).

http://www.playoffstatus.com/accbask.../accsosag.html

Agree with this, which is yet another reason why I agree with Bilas that UVa will likely finish the regular season atop the ACC.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Funny that you mention that, because based on the admittedly simplistic metric of conference winning percentage, the biggest discrepancy in difficulty between games played and games remaining belongs to...the Duke Blue Devils. Of course, that has a whole, whole lot to do with you guys already having played godawful Pitt twice, but by my count, you still have nine games left against what I would deem the ACC's decent-and-up teams (UNC, @UNC, VT, @VT, Notre Dame, Louisville, @Clemson, Cuse, UVA).

http://www.playoffstatus.com/accbask.../accsosag.html

Yup! Dropping two cupcakes against two mediocre opponents makes it very challenging to uproot UVA from the #1 seed.

Saturday's game is incredibly important for Duke's mission of winning the ACC reg season. Also, the UVA game will show how good Duke really is. You better believe that "Zombie Duke" will make some sort of appearance on Saturday. At least, I hope so!

[PackMan97]

Yup! Dropping two cupcakes against two mediocre opponents makes

Arizona and Clemson want you to know that one of those cupcakes got a new, much better baker. Unfortunately, he's not using as much sugar as the old baker.

The other cupcake thought you should know that at home it has only lost twice to the #22 and #6 RPI teams and overall that team is 12-1 against teams with an RPI of 38-351.

So, you can call State and BC cupcakes, but I think their record this season would disagree with you (at least for now). They certainly aren't powerhouses...but they aren't the State and BC of the past two seasons.

[DukieInBrasil]

Arizona and Clemson want you to know that one of those cupcakes got a new, much better baker. Unfortunately, he's not using as much sugar as the old baker.

The other cupcake thought you should know that at home it has only lost twice to the #22 and #6 RPI teams and overall that team is 12-1 against teams with an RPI of 38-351.

So, you can call State and BC cupcakes, but I think their record this season would disagree with you (at least for now). They certainly aren't powerhouses...but they aren't the State and BC of the past two seasons.

anybody who says State is a cupcake is clearly mistaken. Duke should have won that game, but the loss is not a total surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the Duke-State rivalry over the years.

[rasputin]

anybody who says State is a cupcake is clearly mistaken. Duke should have won that game, but the loss is not a total surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the Duke-State rivalry over the years.

And no one who has paid attention to N.C. State will be surprised when they roll over and play dead for the Cheaters.

[flyingdutchdevil]

anybody who says State is a cupcake is clearly mistaken. Duke should have won that game, but the loss is not a total surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the Duke-State rivalry over the years.

New coach and fairly new team. I don't buy, "Program A has Program B's number" if so many variables are different. Maybe PNC Arena has a anti-Duke curve as you come through the doors?

"Cupcake" was probably too harsh. But "mediocre" isn't. NC State is the 5th worst ACC team according to KenPom. Their defense is a rough #134 in the country. NC State has some nice wins, but their body of work doesn't make them "good".

[English]

New coach and fairly new team. I don't buy, "Program A has Program B's number" if so many variables are different. Maybe PNC Arena has a anti-Duke curve as you come through the doors?

"Cupcake" was probably too harsh. But "mediocre" isn't. NC State is the 5th worst ACC team according to KenPom. Their defense is a rough #134 in the country. NC State has some nice wins, but their body of work doesn't make them "good".

^^^ This. Mediocre is fair, just as it's fair to say conference road games are tougher than merely looking at a team's profile and calling a team an easy win or schedule fodder or whatever.

I think the basic point stands--to win the conference regular season and the top ACCT seed, you're only really allowed a handful of losses (3-4, maybe 5 in especially quirky years), and we've burned two of those losses to teams that aren't likely to put similar losses on the other contenders. Simple. Is it over? Of course not.

[duke2x]

RPI Forecast/Sagarin Predictor is probably the better statistic to use here. Flip the UVA and @UNC margins, and you've got a reasonable prediction for the rest of the season. An even better rule of thumb is to square any Duke road game probability and square root any home game probability. Both UVA and Duke are too good to expect home losses excluding Saturday.

http://www.rpiforecast.com/teams/Duke.html

All of this is moot if we aren't prepared for the trip to Wake tonight. Wake always plays up the most for Duke and UNC in every sport.

[wobatus]

2014 - MSU was criminally under seeded and UVA lost by 2 points. Gill's ankle injury in second half was untimely.
2015 - MSU was probably under seeded again and UVA never recovered to Justin Anderson injury.
2016 - FML - choke job of epic proportions - this is the one that bothers me the most to this day. I think about it way more than I probably should. I have no explanation for it.
2017 - Beatdown in every sense of the word. It's not that we lost to UF in R32. It's how badly we lost. Pretty average UVA team though. Nichols suspension threw team off.

I think UVA has underperformed in NCAAs but it's not as bad as the media makes it sound. And I don't think it's a systemic issue more than some bad luck and matchups. I think it's a fair criticism of Bennett and our system but I think if you keep getting top seeds in the NCAAs, you'll break through eventually. We haven't lost in the first round of the tourney since 2012 when we were a 10-seed and got blitzed by Florida. Bennett has only lost to 3 teams in NCAAs at UVA - MSU X2 (Izzo), Florida X2 (Donovan/White), and Cuse X1 (Boeheim). These teams are not necessarily the best matchups for UVA and are mostly led by HOF coaches.

I do think that it's easier for teams to ramp up their defensive effort in NCAAs than it is for teams to ramp up their offensive effort. This eliminates our advantage that we seem to have in the regular season. I think we have a good shot to go far this year but there's no doubt we have offensive deficiencies that could plague us in a single-elimination tournament. We lack interior scoring and that puts a lot of pressure on our guards to hit jump shots, even if our offensive sets do a nice job of creating open looks. The development of DeAndre Hunter raises our ceiling but I still have concerns about our offense. Our defense is elite though and that will keep us in the majority of the games we play. We are definitely good enough to win 6 straight games against good teams. Doesn't mean we will though. You have to keep in mind that we were unranked to start the season. We are definitely overachieving at this point. Whether fair or not, UVA will only be judged by how we perform in the NCAA tournament. And we will continue to hear the narrative that our system doesn't work in March until we break through to a Final Four.

Tournament success can be hit or miss. Jay Wright lost 2nd or 3rd round games 5 years of 6 (and missed the tournament the 6th year) from 2010-2015, losing 3 times as a 1 or 2 seed, including to NC State in 2015. People were whispering he couldn't win in March. Until they won it all in 2016 the very next year. Crying piccolo girl did it. Bennett will get it done one of these days.

[thedukelamere]

Until they won it all in 2016 the very next year. Crying piccolo girl did it.

Oh yeah?? Then WHY is Northwestern going to miss the tourney this year?!