PDA

View Full Version : ACC Leaders And The Unbalanced Schedule



Atldukie79
02-06-2015, 03:08 PM
The unbalanced ACC men's basketball schedule has been much discussed and lamented by all.
I thought I would take a look at the top 6 teams by ACC record to date.

Each of these teams has 3 or fewer losses thus far. (Though I am sure many would not consider Syracuse to be as good as their record).

But I was curious how many games each of these teams had to play against the other top 5 teams...and where they had to play.

So here is the data:


_____Games__ Home_Away__Remaining___W's___L's
UVA........6..........2.........4............3.... .........2.........1
ND..........6..........3.........3............3... ..........2.........1
UNC........7..........5.........2............2.... .........2.........3
Louis.......7..........4.........3............4... ..........1.........2
Duke.......8..........3.........5............5.... .........2.........1
Cuse.......6..........3.........3............5.... .........0.........1


What to make of this?

3 teams play only 1 game against 4 teams and 2 games against 1 team for a total of 6 games. (UVA, ND, Cuse)
Duke is the only team with 8 games, including 3 home and Away games.


UNC is gifted with 5 home games against the top teams, and only 2 away games.
The other 2 single games for Duke are away games.

UNC "only" has the 2 Duke games remaining amongst the top 6 teams.
Duke still has 5 top games to play.

I am sure there are more observations to be made, not the least among them is the fact that any of these teams can lose to the lower tier teams.
But this data supports the notion (for me) that the regular season champion must be good, but can be bolstered by a favorable schedule.

Duvall
02-06-2015, 03:11 PM
Including Syracuse skews these numbers. Better just to take them out.

throatybeard
02-06-2015, 03:20 PM
Including Syracuse skews these numbers. Better just to take them out.

I think they have to do that themselves.

CDu
02-06-2015, 03:21 PM
I agree with Duvall: Syracuse should not be in this discussion. They are not good. They are roughly the same thing as Miami (yes, we lost to Miami, but Miami is also not good). There is a big dropoff after the top-5 in the ACC. If you take Syracuse out, we now have a breakdown as follows:

UVa: 6 total, 2 home, 4 away
Notre Dame: 5 total, 2 home, 3 away
UNC: 6 total, 4 home, 2 away
Louisville: 6 total, 4 home, 2 away
Duke: 6 total, 2 home, 4 away

So based on that, we have UVa, Notre Dame, and Duke playing 1 fewer home game than they should and UNC and Louisville playing one more home game than they should.

Given that the current #1 team has had a similarly-tough schedule as us, and given that two of our losses are to teams not in the top five, I don't know that there is much room for us to gripe about unbalanced schedule (not saying the original post was a gripe).

brevity
02-06-2015, 03:28 PM
Including Syracuse skews these numbers. Better just to take them out.


I think they have to do that themselves.

I think they already did.

Olympic Fan
02-06-2015, 03:38 PM
I agree with Duvall: Syracuse should not be in this discussion. They are not good. They are roughly the same thing as Miami (yes, we lost to Miami, but Miami is also not good). There is a big dropoff after the top-5 in the ACC. If you take Syracuse out, we now have a breakdown as follows:

UVa: 6 total, 2 home, 4 away
Notre Dame: 5 total, 2 home, 3 away
UNC: 6 total, 4 home, 2 away
Louisville: 6 total, 4 home, 2 away
Duke: 6 total, 2 home, 4 away

So based on that, we have UVa, Notre Dame, and Duke playing 1 fewer home game than they should and UNC and Louisville playing one more home game than they should.

Given that the current #1 team has had a similarly-tough schedule as us, and given that two of our losses are to teams not in the top five, I don't know that there is much room for us to gripe about unbalanced schedule (not saying the original post was a gripe).

This is incorrect.

Virginia plays five (not six) games against the other five top teams -- two home (Duke and Louisville) and three away (UNC, Notre Dame and Louisville).

Duke is the only top 5 team that plays all the other four top 5 teams on the road. Virginia and Notre Dame play one less game against the top 5 that the other four power teams.

Virginia and UNC (with four home gams) play the easiest schedules.

Bob Green
02-06-2015, 03:48 PM
Duke is the only top 5 team that plays all the other four top 5 teams on the road.



A potential benefit of playing the toughest conference schedule is we could be the best prepared team come ACCT time. Or perhaps I am grasping for the silver lining.

CDu
02-06-2015, 03:50 PM
This is incorrect.

Virginia plays five (not six) games against the other five top teams -- two home (Duke and Louisville) and three away (UNC, Notre Dame and Louisville).

Whoops, you're right. I forgot to subtract Syracuse from UVa's schedule.


Virginia and UNC (with four home gams) play the easiest schedules.

I disagree a bit here. I'd say UVa's schedule is harer than Louisville's, as Louisville has 4 home games vs 2 road games, whereas UVa has 2 home games and 3 road games. I'd say UVa's schedule is comparably difficult to Notre Dame's. I'd say our schedule is slightly more difficult than that of Notre Dame and UVa, whose schedules are more difficult than Louisville's and UNC's.

Atldukie79
02-06-2015, 04:55 PM
A potential benefit of playing the toughest conference schedule is we could be the best prepared team come ACCT time. Or perhaps I am grasping for the silver lining.

Yes...and we have a greater chance to define our position for the ACC tourney. We still control our own destiny other than UVA...we need help there. We also took care of our 2 road games without a reciprocal home game against Louisville and UVA.

Newton_14
02-07-2015, 02:49 AM
I agree with Duvall: Syracuse should not be in this discussion. They are not good. They are roughly the same thing as Miami (yes, we lost to Miami, but Miami is also not good). There is a big dropoff after the top-5 in the ACC. If you take Syracuse out, we now have a breakdown as follows:

UVa: 6 total, 2 home, 4 away
Notre Dame: 5 total, 2 home, 3 away
UNC: 6 total, 4 home, 2 away
Louisville: 6 total, 4 home, 2 away
Duke: 6 total, 2 home, 4 away

So based on that, we have UVa, Notre Dame, and Duke playing 1 fewer home game than they should and UNC and Louisville playing one more home game than they should.

Given that the current #1 team has had a similarly-tough schedule as us, and given that two of our losses are to teams not in the top five, I don't know that there is much room for us to gripe about unbalanced schedule (not saying the original post was a gripe).

We can agree to disagree. I think there is plenty room for gripe. There should no longer be a trophy or champion declared for the Regular Season unless and until they go back to a full round robin. It is almost unfair to use the Regular Season for seeding in the ACC tourney but I realize that has to be done. The unbalanced schedule makes it almost impossible to determine order of best to worst teams. Some of the teams currently in the top 5 of the standings are there because of cream puff conference schedules and simply avoiding being upset by lesser teams.

On another subject and this is not directed at you. Many on this board have said this. We need to stop calling a lot of these teams "bad" or "mediocre" teams. It's simply not accurate. NC State and Miami both have a lot of talent for example and are more than capable of beating just about any team in the country. They have been inconsistent for varying reasons, but they have good talent. Miami dealt with a lot of injuries early on as well as players siting out for other reasons which factored into some of their bad losses to what really were "bad" and "Mediocre" teams. Georgia Tech has talent. I saw that first hand in person Wednesday night. The only "bad', "mediocre" team in the ACC is Virginia Tech. Every other team has enough talent to be any of the top teams in the league. Inconsistent and bad and two entirely different things to me. Add in the fact that every single one of these teams, and their crowds if the game is at home for them, are going to go all in with everything they have in them when the opponent that night is Duke. Whether people choose to acknowledge it or not is one thing, but our kids take every ACC teams absolute best shot in 99.9% of their conference games. It takes a heck of a lot of mental toughness to deal with that for one thing, and then when you factor in that no matter how good you are, a college team is always going to have a handful of games where for a myriad of reasons they just don't have it that night, and aren't able to play at their best. When you consider all that its actually amazing Duke wins as many games as they win.

As an example, I have watched 6 or 7 Notre Dame home conference games the last two seasons. In both Duke games the place was filled to capacity, the crowd was amped out of their collective minds, which creates tremendous noise and energy in the building which absolutely helps fuel the home teams players, and Notre Dame played at a very high level. In the other games I watched a lot of them had a building that was maybe 70% full, bad energy and atmosphere, and 3 pointers were not going in from inside the halfcourt paint scheme. It's actually irritating to no end, especially when its teams like a NC State or Ga Tech or Clemson or Va Tech, where if they gave that type of effort every game and their crowds showed up and supported them like that every game, they would win more of these games they lose to lesser teams, especially their non-conference games.

But my main point really in that part of the discussion is these ACC teams people are calling bad are not. VaTech is bad. There is no excuse for any top team to lose to them, yet even there they took UVA to the wire last week. As for Duke's two "bad" losses, both State and Miami played out of their minds, and they happened to get Duke on a night when Duke was not playing at its best. End result was a loss. If we had a round robin, some of the teams in the top 5 right now would zero chance of being there at the end of the round robin schedule.

In a league with this many teams, an unbalanced schedule just skews things pretty badly. Like the year a very average UVA team won or shared the Regular Season "title" simply because they played the bottom 4 teams in the league that year twice ea, and the top 4 teams in the league that year once each. In a round robin that particular UVA team has zero chance to finish first in the regular season. Cant recall the exact year but it was prior to Bennett era.

The other laugher, Ga Tech shot 73% from 3 point land Wed night which kept them in the game. Otherwise they get blown out like some people expected. That has to be some type of record or something. :)

sagegrouse
02-07-2015, 08:22 AM
A potential benefit of playing the toughest conference schedule is we could be the best prepared team come ACCT time. Or perhaps I am grasping for the silver lining.

A mixed metaphor, alas, but I suppose there are few "straws" shipboard except the sipping kind. Perhaps, if "looking for the silver lining" won't do, you could be "feeling the spindrift?"

CDu
02-07-2015, 10:20 AM
No problem agreeing to disagree. But I always wonder why folks are so adamant about not celebrating the ACC Regular Season champ due to a slightly unbalanced 18-game schedule, but are so happy to celebrate the winner of a 3-game, single elimination schedule that is substantially more unbalanced.

If we went back to the full round robin, I would argue that the tournament is silly as it is far less representative of the conference's best team than a full round robin.

uh_no
02-07-2015, 10:24 AM
No problem agreeing to disagree. But I always wonder why folks are so adamant about not celebrating the ACC Regular Season champ due to a slightly unbalanced 18-game schedule, but are so happy to celebrate the winner of a 3-game, single elimination schedule that is substantially more unbalanced.

If we went back to the full round robin, I would argue that the tournament is silly as it is far less representative of the conference's best team than a full round robin.

We hang the banners in Cameron. That's good enough for me. We get dealt a tougher hand? Good. Prepares us better and makes it sweeter when we win anyway. What folks do here is akin to what heel fans do when they blew out of the acc tournament early...claim they don't care and it doesn't matter. Forget that. Let's win everything.

vick
02-07-2015, 10:26 AM
No problem agreeing to disagree. But I always wonder why folks are so adamant about not celebrating the ACC Regular Season champ due to a slightly unbalanced 18-game schedule, but are so happy to celebrate the winner of a 3-game, single elimination schedule that is substantially more unbalanced.

If we went back to the full round robin, I would argue that the tournament is silly as it is far less representative of the conference's best team than a full round robin.

I agree with you. A tournament where some teams have to win three games and some have to win five strikes me as a heck of a lot more unbalanced than any reasonable view of the regular season scheduling discrepancies.

duketaylor
02-07-2015, 11:07 AM
Just keep playing hard and winning games. Promise you K doesn't really care; it's all about being prepared for March. If Duke finishes 3rd in regular season and wins the NC....

Bob Green
02-07-2015, 11:35 AM
If we went back to the full round robin, I would argue that the tournament is silly as it is far less representative of the conference's best team than a full round robin.

The tournament is designed to identify the team which is playing the best ball at the end of the season. It is a product of the one team per conference receiving an invitation to the NCAAT era. However, the ACCT is sacrosanct for us old timers.

freshmanjs
02-07-2015, 04:39 PM
Promise you K doesn't really care

You are promising us that K doesn't care about conference championships? Uh...ok...

Kedsy
02-07-2015, 05:01 PM
You are promising us that K doesn't care about conference championships? Uh...ok...

I think he meant K doesn't care about the unbalanced schedule.

duketaylor
02-07-2015, 05:17 PM
K doesn't care about the unbalanced schedule and "winning" the regular season ; much rather win the ACC Tourney and even more the NC.

AIRFORCEDUKIE
02-07-2015, 06:02 PM
I think K wants to win all three, and tries to win all 3 every single year. There is no doubt about that.

jacone21
02-07-2015, 06:26 PM
A mixed metaphor, alas, but I suppose there are few "straws" shipboard except the sipping kind. Perhaps, if "looking for the silver lining" won't do, you could be "feeling the spindrift?"

You are clearly barking up the wrong wall.

Bob Green
02-07-2015, 06:38 PM
You are clearly barking up the wrong bulkhead.

Fixed it for you.

Olympic Fan
02-07-2015, 08:10 PM
Duke started today (Feb. 7) tied with Syracuse for fifth in the ACC (although I heard Bill Rafferty and a later ESPN commentator said Duke was sixth).

Not true, the top of the standings before Saturday's games:

Virginia 8-1
Notre Dame 9-2
Louisville 7-2
UNC 7-3
Duke 6-3
Syracuse 6-3

The order didn't change that much today -- although if Louisville loses at Virginia, as they seem likely to do after scoring 13 points in a half, the new standings will be:

Virginia 9-1
Notre Dame 9-3
UNC 8-3
Duke 7-3
Louisville 7-3

(Syracuse drops back into a tie with Clemson at 6-4)

Duke would be in a four-way tie for second in the loss column.

It was huge day for Duke's chances to winning a bye into the ACC Tournament quarterfinals. The way things are playing out, Duke has the tiebreaker against Louisville and almost certainly Notre Dame (head-to-head even, but then it goes to Duke's better record against Virginia). And if Duke even splits with UNC, we'll almost certainly have the tiebreaker there (for the same reason -- the Virginia win)

We also have the tiebreaker vs. Virginia but if they hold on tonight, hard to see that coming into play.

Duke needs to keep playing well, but it's looking more and more like a Wednesday game in Greensboro is unlikely.