ACC Early Season Appraisal (Part II)

[gw67]

This is a second look at the ACC with about ¼ the regular season gone to update how teams and individuals are doing.

Teams

• As all the posters on this site know, the Devils have gotten off to a terrific start. This is not only reflected in their unbeaten record but their team offensive stats. They lead the ACC in scoring, scoring margin, field goal %, 3-point %, and assists and are near the top in other offensive stats. I suspect that they are also at or near the top in Pomeroy’s defensive stats. In this era of watered down college basketball (IMO), it will take a good team playing at their very best to de-rail the Devils.
• The most pleasant surprise to date is BC. They had a thin team last year that was not very successful, and they lost one of their top players (Sanders) and had a recruiting class of zero players. However, their new coach has them playing together and two walkons are getting significant playing time. Sure they lost to Yale early but they are playing as well as any ACC team other than Duke.
• Virginia Tech and Florida State both returned a bunch of players and were expected to challenge UNC for the second spot in the league. Neither has played well in the games that meant something although I expect both teams to come around and end up at the top of the league (unbalanced schedule may help). For a team with their top scorers back, Tech is only averaging 66 ppg.
• I won’t comment much on UNC since there are scores (hundreds) of posts on this site for UNC-related matters and DBR used ¾ of their DBR Roundup to comment on the Heels. However, it is clear that they have underperformed prior to the Kentucky game. A strength of Williams’ past Kansas and UNC teams has been outstanding perimeter play. It is lacking so far in this year’s UNC team. Nevertheless, I still expect them to be near the top in this year’s weak ACC.
• Georgia Tech is having a difficult time getting out of the box and most blame it on a lack of experienced big men but their four returning perimeter players are not exactly helping. Tech ranks last in the ACC in field goal shooting (40%) and three-point shooting (26%).

Individuals

• If I had to pick an All ACC team at this time, the first two teams would probably be made up of some combination of Jackson (BC), Singleton (FSU), Williams (Md). Irving, Smith and Singler (Duke), Delaney (VT) Scott (Va), Zeller (UNC) and (?). Someone needs to step up for the last spot, perhaps Smith (NCSt).
• There seem to be a number of big men who are having a difficult time on the foul line, including Williams (53%) and Plumlee (41%) but Henson is exhibit 1 in futility at 35%.
• Over the years I’ve always enjoyed seeing players who started off on the bench their freshmen years and work their way up till they were contributors during their senior years. This used to happen a bunch when Dean Smith coached the Heels with Mike Pepper coming to mind. This year, Dino Gregory has emerged as a frontcourt player who the Terps count on for defense, rebounding and putbacks/short jumpers. He played a total of 92 minutes as a freshman and has become a starter his senior year.
• Over the years in the ACC there have been a number of players who walked on to play important roles on their teams. Kenton Edelin did the dirty work on defense and the boards on Ralph Sampson teams at UVa and helped lead his team to the Final Four after Ralph left. Julius Peppers is a recent example. I can’t remember the youngster’s name but several years ago Wake needed some height and they had a tryout and a tall, pre-med student wound up playing (and starting if memory serves) for them for 1-2 years. This year, BC has two walkons who are playing significant minutes and one of them, Danny Rubin, is averaging 25 mpg and 7.6 ppg. Rubin is from Chevy Chase, Maryland and was planning on going to Cornell to play basketball but decided to follow Donahue to BC.

gw67

[gw67]

I will reply to my own thread. As an old timer my memory comes and goes. After eating a couple of latkes this evening and licking my wounds over the Skins debacle, it came to me that the Wake walk-on played in the middle to late 80's. Checking a few box scores for Wake in the mid-80's (a wonderful time for ACC basketball) on Charlie Board the name jumped out at me. Dickens! I checked his stats and he seemed like the right guy, 6'8" from Greenville, NC who started 16 games for Wake in 86 and 87. I then googled the name and found the following link which confirmed that Alan was not only that guy but that he graduated Summa Cum Laude and is an opthamologist in Raleigh.

http://www.raleighop.com/doc5.htm

I just thought that this might bring back some good memories to some folks who were Duke fans or students during the early years of the Coach K era and watched Dawkins, Alarie, Bilas, Henderson, Amaker, Ferry, Snyder, King, Strickland and Brickey. Good times and great basketball.

gw67

[ChillinDuke]

For all the talk about the ACC being in a down year, I found it surprising that Pomeroy lists 6 ACC teams in his top 40. Granted, 3 of these ACC teams come in the bottom 9 of his top 40.

Still though, the best conference is the Big East at 9 (although the Big East is 33% larger than the ACC). The ACC clocks in tied for second with the Big 12 at 6 teams. Surprisingly, for all the talk about the strength of the Big Ten, they clock in with only 5 teams in Pomeroy's Top 40. The SEC and Pac-10 round out the major six conferences with 5 and 4 teams respectively.

The Mountain West continues to perform well with 3 teams.

Not particularly groundbreaking analysis on my part, just thought it an interesting tidbit to see the ACC not looking as poor as is the general consensus (I consensus I tend to agree with)...at least according to Pomeroy thus far. Are his rankings still including preseason bias as has been discussed on the board or have enough games been played now? (Sorry I'm not too familiar with his statistical methods.)

Row Labels Count of Team
BE 9
ACC 6
B12 6
B10 5
SEC 4
P10 3
MWC 3
CUSA 2
A10 1
MVC 1
Grand Total 40


-CD

[Dukeface88]

I'd say the other surprise has been Virginia. Despite being picked to finish second to last in the preseason, they're one of the three ACC teams with a win over a ranked opponent (and they'e currently leading at VT). Bennet seems to have been a good hire for them. Pity Landsburg left though. Then again, they might have the Ewing Theory in effect.

The only teams with ranked nonconference oponents left on the schedule are Wake (Gonzaga), UNC (Texas) and Maryland (Villanova). Although there are also few games against teams from the "also recieving votes" who might crack the rankings (Temple vs. us and Marlyand, Richmond vs GT and Wake, Arizona vs. State), it doesn't look like the ACC is going to have many more oppurtunities for marquee OOC wins. In addition, we're the only ranked team in conference. We always get everyone's best shot, but that's going to b doubly true this year.

[Bob Green]

Individuals

• If I had to pick an All ACC team at this time, the first two teams would probably be made up of some combination of Jackson (BC), Singleton (FSU), Williams (Md). Irving, Smith and Singler (Duke), Delaney (VT) Scott (Va), Zeller (UNC) and (?). Someone needs to step up for the last spot, perhaps Smith (NCSt).


My current 1st Team All ACC is:

Jordan Williams (MD): #3 Scoring, #1 Rebounding, #1 FG Percentage
Tyler Zeller (UNC): #10 Scoring, #9 Rebounding, #4 FG Percentage
Kyle Singler (Duke): #7 Scoring, #1 FT Percentage, #7 FG Percentage
Malcolm Delaney (VT): #1 Scoring, #9 FG Percentage, #3 3-PT FG Made
Kyrie Irving (Duke): #4 Scoring, #1 Assists, #3 FG Percentage

A case certainly could be made for Nolan Smith (Duke) and Mike Scott (VA) to be on the 1st Team as well.

[DukeHoo]

I had actually seen Danny Rubin play (his team from Chevy Chase played my old high school team last year at a game during winter break) and was very surprised to see him at BC. I was even more surprised to see him giving BC solid contributions his freshmen year. Back then, I had honestly pegged him as a classic mid-major player (fundamentally sound but not an ACC caliber athlete). It's always good to see someone earning his time simply by playing hard and smart (hitting those 3s probably doesn't hurt either).

UVA managed to pull off the win as well (which also makes me happy).

[Gthoma2a]

My current 1st Team All ACC is:

Jordan Williams (MD): #3 Scoring, #1 Rebounding, #1 FG Percentage
Tyler Zeller (UNC): #10 Scoring, #9 Rebounding, #4 FG Percentage
Kyle Singler (Duke): #7 Scoring, #1 FT Percentage, #7 FG Percentage
Malcolm Delaney (VT): #1 Scoring, #9 FG Percentage, #3 3-PT FG Made
Kyrie Irving (Duke): #4 Scoring, #1 Assists, #3 FG Percentage

A case certainly could be made for Nolan Smith (Duke) and Mike Scott (VA) to be on the 1st Team as well.

Honorable mention to Mason (he has that outlier that makes him look good).
If the sixth man would truly play as a sixth man was considered a position for the team, then Andre should get that spot. He is one of the best sixth men in the country IMO (I could be a little biased, though). He takes very little time to get in the rhythm of the game, and has a solid impact.

[sagegrouse]

Losing by 15 to Temple. Temple has a couple of losses (Cal and Tex A&M) and wins over Seton Hall and Georgia.

Gary is about to explode he's so mad. Oops! Maryland is catching up.

sagegrouse
'DBR fave J Feinstein is doing the commentary for the BB+T tournament. JF helps promotes the tourney for charity'

[Newton_14]

I will reply to my own thread. As an old timer my memory comes and goes. After eating a couple of latkes this evening and licking my wounds over the Skins debacle, it came to me that the Wake walk-on played in the middle to late 80's. Checking a few box scores for Wake in the mid-80's (a wonderful time for ACC basketball) on Charlie Board the name jumped out at me. Dickens! I checked his stats and he seemed like the right guy, 6'8" from Greenville, NC who started 16 games for Wake in 86 and 87. I then googled the name and found the following link which confirmed that Alan was not only that guy but that he graduated Summa Cum Laude and is an opthamologist in Raleigh.

http://www.raleighop.com/doc5.htm

I just thought that this might bring back some good memories to some folks who were Duke fans or students during the early years of the Coach K era and watched Dawkins, Alarie, Bilas, Henderson, Amaker, Ferry, Snyder, King, Strickland and Brickey. Good times and great basketball.

gw67

Those were good times for the league. In 86 we had 3 top 5 teams in Duke/UNC-CH/GATech, with several other good teams as well. Would be nice to get the league back to that kind of strength.

So far this year, it is difficult to figure out who the 2nd best team is. Could be anyone of FSU, NC State, Maryland, Va Tech, to heck UVA. Tony Bennett is getting it done. It will be interesting to see how much Bennett gets out of that team this year.

Yes, I intentionally left UNC off the list as I have seen enough to convince myself they are not the 2nd best team in the league. Nothing they do is going to change the fact their guard play is just not good.

NC State almost redeemed themselves from the Wisconsin debacle last night against Syracuse, but could not pull it out. As young as they are, ups and downs are to be expected. They must, however, have a healthy Tracy Smith. Once they get him back I think we will see a much better team.

I have not seen FSU yet so no comment there. Va Tech is playing their way out of the post season already. Maryland will have a chance thanks to coaching, and likely the best big man in the league.

I am looking forward to conference play so we can see who separates themselves from the pack and who rises up and lands a hard punch against our Blue Devils. I am not expecting 16-0, but 1 or 2 losses will likely be the max.

The question is, who finishes 2nd?

[pjhw2021]

The UNC-Kentucky game was referenced during the Duke game yesterday, and I thought I heard a commentator say that UNC's win demonstrated they were 2nd best in the ACC. Does anyone know what I'm talking about/is able to clarify? I wasn't primarily watching the game so I only heard it in the background while I was doing other things, but if that is what was said I am puzzled.

[Olympic Fan]

The UNC-Kentucky game was referenced during the Duke game yesterday, and I thought I heard a commentator say that UNC's win demonstrated they were 2nd best in the ACC. Does anyone know what I'm talking about/is able to clarify? I wasn't primarily watching the game so I only heard it in the background while I was doing other things, but if that is what was said I am puzzled.

I didn't hear that during the UNC-Kentucky game, but during the Duke-Butler game, Bilas was asked which team he thought was second-best in the ACC and he said North Carolina.

While they have struggled and obviously have backcourt problems I don't think you can dismiss them as second-best. Their win over Kentucky is the ACC's best win by anybody other than Duke and their three losses were all to good teams.

I can't see where anybody else has done anything to make me think the are better than UNC. Virginia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and N.C. State have lost to every decent team they've played. BC and Virginia have some very solid wins, but they also have a couple of bad losses.

Maryland had some good showings in losses to Pitt and Illinois, but also flamed out today against a disappointing Temple team.

Maybe Miami ... their win over West Virginia was solid ... but they also lost to Rutgers.

The fact is that NOBODY is good enough to finish second ... and as of this moment, I can't say that anybody in the ACC other than Duke is an NCAA lock. I'd say that UNC was the next best bet, but they are actually not in as good a shape today as they were this time this year (a homecourt win over No. 10 Kentucky is nice, but a year ago they were coming off a home win over No. 5 Michigan State).

I'm sure that three or four teams will get it together and qualify for the NCAA -- Donohue and Bennett seem to be doing good coaching jobs and I expect Gary Williams to make the Terps better -- but at this point, I'd say that two-thirds of the league is already on the bubble.

[pjhw2021]

I didn't hear that during the UNC-Kentucky game, but during the Duke-Butler game, Bilas was asked which team he thought was second-best in the ACC and he said North Carolina.

While they have struggled and obviously have backcourt problems I don't think you can dismiss them as second-best. Their win over Kentucky is the ACC's best win by anybody other than Duke and their three losses were all to good teams.

I can't see where anybody else has done anything to make me think the are better than UNC. Virginia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and N.C. State have lost to every decent team they've played. BC and Virginia have some very solid wins, but they also have a couple of bad losses.

Maryland had some good showings in losses to Pitt and Illinois, but also flamed out today against a disappointing Temple team.

Maybe Miami ... their win over West Virginia was solid ... but they also lost to Rutgers.

The fact is that NOBODY is good enough to finish second ... and as of this moment, I can't say that anybody in the ACC other than Duke is an NCAA lock. I'd say that UNC was the next best bet, but they are actually not in as good a shape today as they were this time this year (a homecourt win over No. 10 Kentucky is nice, but a year ago they were coming off a home win over No. 5 Michigan State).

I'm sure that three or four teams will get it together and qualify for the NCAA -- Donohue and Bennett seem to be doing good coaching jobs and I expect Gary Williams to make the Terps better -- but at this point, I'd say that two-thirds of the league is already on the bubble.

That's the quote I was talking about; thank you for clarifying what was said. The statement makes more sense to me in context, and I agree with you that UNC cannot be dismissed as second best, but I don't think they are a clear choice. Before tonight's game I would have said Maryland, but now I'm not so sure...

[ACCBBallFan]

On GW's All ACC performers, here are the leaders, the biggest surprise being Travis McKie at Wake.

Jordan Williams
Mike Scott
Reggie Jackson
Chris Singleton
Tyler Zeller

Kyrie Irving
Iman Shumpert
Nolan Smith
Reggie Johnson
Travis McKie

Malcolm Delaney
John Henson
Jeff Allen
Kyle Singler
Mason Plumlee

Brian Oliver
Durand Scott
Glen Rice Jr
Malcolm Grant
Joe Trapani

Tracy Smith has been hurt, as has Sammy Zieglinski who did play 15 minutes today but still rusty.

Perhaps the most disappointing so far has been Dorenzo Hudson.

Relative to expectations, Harrison Banres could be listed but he has had a pretty decent start for a frosh without halos.

[gumbomoop]

... during the Duke-Butler game, Bilas was asked which team he thought was second-best in the ACC and he said North Carolina.

While they have struggled and obviously have backcourt problems I don't think you can dismiss them as second-best. Their win over Kentucky is the ACC's best win by anybody other than Duke and their three losses were all to good teams.

I can't see where anybody else has done anything to make me think the are better than UNC. Virginia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and N.C. State have lost to every decent team they've played. BC and Virginia have some very solid wins, but they also have a couple of bad losses.

The fact is that NOBODY is good enough to finish second .... at this point, I'd say that two-thirds of the league is already on the bubble.


I intentionally left UNC off the list as I have seen enough to convince myself they are not the 2nd best team in the league. Nothing they do is going to change the fact their guard play is just not good.

Although I cannot disagree with Boozer's point here, it strikes me that OF's point [NOBODY...!!!] gives UNC, and several others, real, if slightly embarrassing ["We're not too good, but neither are these other guys"] hope.

Can any team other than Duke get to 10 wins? Surely that'll be the second-place team. FSU looks very strong defensively, BC surprisingly efficient offensively. Maybe Md can sneak into second, as GW is a smart guy. NCState looks troubled, but hard to say how the Tracy Smith saga will play out.

UNC - Although I think Bilas occasionally bends over backwards to praise the Heels [as do I, for inexplicable reasons], I'd give them the edge right now to get to those magic 10 wins. The PG quasi-melodrama will probably determine their season. Their 4 games with FSU and NCSt should be fierce. Should be.