ACC Roundup 12/29

[gw67]

It is interesting that the first two ACC games resulted in wins by the visiting team. That streak should be broken later this week when BC visits the Heels and Virginia Tech plays at CIS.

The ACC is 108-22 against OOC opponents. By my count, there are 30 remaining OOC games. Twenty-eight of them will be played during the next two weeks. Of the 30 games, most should be wins for the ACC. The most difficult games appear to be Xavier @ Virginia, N.C.State @ Florida, Wake @ BYU, Davidson @ Duke and Georgetown @ Duke.

The ACC is rated the top conference by RPI, Sagarin (no longer biased) and Pomeroy. RPI rates 8 ACC teams in top 36; Sagarin 8 in top 50; and Pomeroy 6 in top 33. Duke is rated either 2nd or 4th in the three rating systems.

gw67

[Olympic Fan]

Nice summary,

It should also be noted that the ACC has both the best OOC winning percentage (110-22, 83.3) and the best winning percentage against BCS opponents (23-16, 60.0).

The ACC also has a winning head-to-head record against every other BCS conference. To be fair, that's 1-0 against the Big 12 and 2-1 against the Pac 10. But it's also 8-6 against the much ballyhooed Big East (third in the RPI, 151-39 OOC for a 79.5 percentage; just 20-19 against other BCS leagues).

Actually, the ACC's closest challenger is the Big Ten -- a very close No. 2 in the RPI and 105-25 -- 80.8 percent OOC. The Big Ten is 7-8 against the ACC and 18-17 against the other BCS leagues.

Still, the Big East will continue to get hype because it has so many good teams (with few commentators mentioning how many bad teams it has in the bottom half).

When you have a 16-team league, it's not shocking when you have a year when 8-9-10 teams vie for NCAA bids.

But I wish somebody would point out that even if the Big East gets 10 of 16 teams in the field, that's still exactly the same percentage the ACC got in 1980, 1984, 1985, 1988 and 1990 (5 of 8)and a SMALLER percentage than the ACC got in 1986, 1987, 1989 and 1991 (6 of 8). It's also smaller than the ACC's percentage in 1993, 1996, 1997, 2001 and 2004 (6 of 9).

So when you hear all the talk about how the Big East is the best conference in the past 30 years, just keep in mind that even at its most optimistic, it's still not going to be as strong at the top as the ACC was so often before it was diluted by expansion (nine times in the modern era).

And from top-to-bottom, it's not even the best conference this year -- much less in the last 30 years.

It's not better ... it's merely bigger.

PS It's still a big early, but I just checked and based on the normal RPI at-large cutoff between 43-54, if the bids were handed out today, the Big East would get 7 ... its eighth team is Cincinnati at No. 50 -- six of the league's 16 teams aren't in the top 100.

The ACC has eight teams in the top 36 ... ninth place Virginia Tech is at No. 65 ... three teams are in the second 100.

[Bob Green]

Loyola (MD), our next opponent, has State all tied up at halftime, 29-29.

[Bob Green]

Clemson has a 56-44 lead on South Carolina at the half. The Tigers have three players already in double figures scoring with a fourth at nine points. I believe Clemson will make some noise again this year.

[ice-9]

Clemson looks for real: first, an impressive 19-point road victory at Miami, followed with another impressive 11-point road victory at South Carolina. Purnell is doing a tremendous job there; this is going to be one dangerous team.

As long as Clemson takes care of business against a faltering ECU (who lost 3 in a row) and a sporadic Alabama, Clemson should be able to secure a top 10-15 ranking going into the meat of ACC play.

[Olympic Fan]

I also watched Clemson last night ... great atmosphere in Columbia -- South Carolina jumps to an 8-0 lead, stretches it to 14-3 ... the joint is smoking and Clemson absolutely put the hammer down. They led by double figures almostthe whole second half, aside from one brief South Carolina rally that cut the leadto four. But with the joint rocking again, Oglesby hit a 3, stole the inbounds pass and laid it in and suddenly it was 9 again and Clemson was never again threatened. The actually made most of their free throws down the stretch!

I'm confident they'll handle ECU and 'Bama in Littlejohn to get to 15-0. Their next ACC game is NC State at Littlejohn, so I feel pretty sure they'll be 16-0 and near the top 10 when Wake visits Littlejohn on Jan. 17.

Wake will have lost by then. Not only do they have an dangerous game at BYU coming up this weekend (BYU has won something like 46 straight home games), but the Deacons also open the ACC with a home game at UNC and road games at BC and at Clemson.

If Clemson gets past Wake -- no lock, even in Littlejohn -- they'll take an 18-0 record to Chapel Hill for a Jan. 21 game with UNC.

Now THAT will be interesting!

[DoubleDuke Dad]

I also watched Clemson last night ... great atmosphere in Columbia -- South Carolina jumps to an 8-0 lead, stretches it to 14-3 ... the joint is smoking and Clemson absolutely put the hammer down. They led by double figures almostthe whole second half, aside from one brief South Carolina rally that cut the leadto four. But with the joint rocking again, Oglesby hit a 3, stole the inbounds pass and laid it in and suddenly it was 9 again and Clemson was never again threatened. The actually made most of their free throws down the stretch!


I watched the last 10 minutes of the game on ESPN 360 using Version FIOS. The resolution and connectivity were great. It was almost as good as watching on my HDTV.

Clemson looks like they are a very good team. However, they tried to give the game away by making stupid fouls and turnovers. For instance after Oglesby hit the three and stole the ball he proceeded to make a dumb foul and also walk with the ball when he tried to take a three on a two on one break when there was a man open under the basket.

[ice-9]

Clemson looks for real: first, an impressive 19-point road victory at Miami, followed with another impressive 11-point road victory at South Carolina. Purnell is doing a tremendous job there; this is going to be one dangerous team.

How could I forget to mention Clemson's also impressive road win against Illinois? That win looks even better now that Illinois defeated Purdue at Purdue.