ACC According to ESPN's Lunardi

[gw67]

About six weeks ago I started a thread on the impact of the draft on the ACC. My conclusion at that time was that several of the top players return next year and that UNC and Duke will again be at the top followed by a group of Clemson, Miami, Virginia Tech and Wake. I also concluded that these six teams were likely NCAAT quality teams. According to the link below, Lunardi includes these six teams in his post-draft entry bracketology with Maryland one of the last four out (hmmm…) and Florida State also close. This is consistent with my view that the ACC will be stronger next year.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology?id=3232345

The ACC seeds according to Lunardi are

#1 – Duke, UNC
#5 – Miami
#7 – Wake
#8 – Virginia Tech
#10 – Clemson

Miami continues to get some love from the ESPN types.

[pfrduke]

About six weeks ago I started a thread on the impact of the draft on the ACC. My conclusion at that time was that several of the top players return next year and that UNC and Duke will again be at the top followed by a group of Clemson, Miami, Virginia Tech and Wake. I also concluded that these six teams were likely NCAAT quality teams. According to the link below, Lunardi includes these six teams in his post-draft entry bracketology with Maryland one of the last four out (hmmm…) and Florida State also close. This is consistent with my view that the ACC will be stronger next year.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology?id=3232345

The ACC seeds according to Lunardi are

#1 – Duke, UNC
#5 – Miami
#7 – Wake
#8 – Virginia Tech
#10 – Clemson

Miami continues to get some love from the ESPN types.

This, however, is a much more reasonable place for Miami to be.

I find it hard to disagree with Lunardi's guess at this point. Wake Forest has the biggest swing possibility. Their big guys could all mesh together and they could explode as a top 10-15 team. Or they could continue to be a turnover prone, poor outside shooting team (that nonetheless loves shooting threes) and disappoint. Virginia Tech is going to have a typical Hokie season - maddening losses to inferior competition in the preseason, wins over top tier ACC teams in conference, and difficult to beat in Blacksburg. Of the 6 teams Lunardi has on the outside looking in, I think Georgia Tech and NC State are the most likely to end up with bids.

[mgtr]

While it is ridiculously early, at least who is back from playing with the draft. Lunardi is a smart guy who does his homework. I thought that Davidson at a 5 gives some respect to the coach as well as to Curry. I'll bet their attendance is way up this year.
I really don't know if we will end up as a 1 seed, particularly with the ACC forecast as strong this year, but I am sure that we will have a better team than we did last year. Since, as I recall, were a 2 seed last year, then I guess we should be a 1 seed this year. Hopefully we don't fall short again.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Sort of... ESPN has us at the #1 seed in the South in their stupidly rediculously early bracketology. Tarholes get 1 in the East.

What I thought was most interesting, is the 2 seed in the South, Notre Dame, and Mike Brey. I've seen good pre-season stuff for them next year, hopefully they and us both keep on track for a regional or final 4 showdown. The selection committee salivates at coach-mentor matchups, and throw them out there for early (too early) matchups if they can justify it.

[DevilDan]

It's interesting to look at BRACKETOLOGY, and find that WE are "#1 seed in the South". Alright ! .... but the sum total of significance is NADA (i.e. "stupidly ridiculous" as Miss CB&B reminds us). You could say to this guy "get a life", but apparently this IS his life, haaaaa.

I guess it is nice to think that someone thinks we'll be that good .... ! Another pundit said that DUKE returns the best "four man" nucleus in the country ... this was before the 3 Tar Heels came back home to roost with Tyler.

Time will tell ... I hope to be able to look back in 9 months and say, "Wow, this guy is a genius .... "

[DevilDan]

To Cameron Born & Bred, I have been informed by a caring member that I referred to you in error in my last post here. I do sincerely apologize, my mistake ...

DevilDan in California

[mgtr]

I think we do return the best four man nucleus, UNC be hanged!

[miramar]

I guess there is nothing wrong with starting early.

Everybody knows that Duke will have to be bigger and stronger next year for this to happen, but I found some interesting results in the season statistics at Duke and UNC. Hansbrough had 399 rebounds for the season, while Nelson and Singler (Duke's two best rebounders) had a total of 395. For the season Carolina was +429 versus their opponents, Duke +4. They had 6 guys with more than 150 rebounds, we had 3.

Defense and good shooting can make up for a lack of rebounding to a certain extent, but obviously within limits, as we saw during the West Virginia game.

As Pat Riley used to tell the Showtime Lakers, "No rebounds, no rings."

[mgtr]

I think Pat Riley was right, and our guys have to be hungry. As has been noted in other threads, we have had some key guys (Singler) playing out of position. I think with this years crops we can do better -- we are unlikely to beat Carolino on the boards, but it will be close. I believe that is good enough for us to win. Go Duke.
We packed our Duke shirts and other paraphernalia to take to Florida for the beginning of the season. We are oprtimistic as always, and will continue our subscription to March Madness on D*. We may be nuts, but we love it! Go Duke.

[CameronCrazy'11]

Our rebounding almost has to improve if we can have some combination of Thomas, Zoubek, Czyz, and Plumlee taking all the time at the 5. We were short last year because Singler was our tallest guy on the court at 6'8", followed by Scheyer at 6'5". If we can have another guy over 6'8" hanging out in the post next year, we'll definitely be able to grab some more boards.

[CameronBornAndBred]

To Cameron Born & Bred, I have been informed by a caring member that I referred to you in error in my last post here. I do sincerely apologize, my mistake ...

DevilDan in California

Was gonna correct you but then I saw this post, hehe. My sister is the Miss CB&B, but she doesn't watch basketball. I don't know where my parents went wrong with her.

[Kathy S]

Am I the only one who was taken aback by the slogan at the end of pfrduke's post? Maybe it's intended as a joke (I hope).

[dukeimac]

No, nothing wrong with that comment.

One calls it like they see it.

[pfrduke]

Am I the only one who was taken aback by the slogan at the end of pfrduke's post? Maybe it's intended as a joke (I hope).

It is indeed. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/09/fox-anchor-calls-obama-fi_n_106027.html) I'm now going to attach that link into my signature, to make it more obvious.

Edit: <diversion> as I've made clear on the PPB (which I know many people don't visit) I am very much an Obama supporter. </diversion>

Now, how bout some ACC basketball talk?

[CameronCrazy'11]

I think a 5-seed (#17-20) is probably more realistic for Miami than the #8 seed Katz gives it. Miami's gonna drop one or two games against a quality opponent out of conference and probably not gonna win more than one game against UNC and Duke put together.

On another note, UNC and Duke are both 1-seeds. Could this finally be the year that we face them in the tournament? Can you even imagine how ridiculous a UNC-Duke Final Four or National Championship match would be?

[91.92.01DUKE]

Lunardi's early predictions aren't worth much. We know nothing about either team other than both are highly ranked. They both have to get there before we imagine anything of the nature is going to happen.

[CDu]

Lunardi's early predictions aren't worth much. We know nothing about either team other than both are highly ranked. They both have to get there before we imagine anything of the nature is going to happen.

The irony of this is that when Lunardi started presenting his bracketology on ESPN, he kept having to remind people that his brackets were not a prediction, but rather a reflection of the teams' bodies of work to that point in the season. People kept complaining that he had a team rated too high or too low based on their talent, ignoring the fact that his brackets had very little to do with talent so much as performance.

As such, it never made sense for him to put the bracketology posts up until late-January (at the earliest), when teams had built up a reasonable body of work. But I guess his work got so popular that people demanded it earlier and earlier, to the point that he's now doing exactly what he said his bracketology wasn't supposed to do. He's now putting together brackets based on zero body of work in the 2008-2009 season.

[speedevil]

I think we do return the best four man nucleus, UNC be hanged!

i think we have a great 3 man nucleus, (scheyer, henderson, singler), i think paulus is an average point. so calling them the best 4 man nucleus is wrong.

[Turk]

The irony of this is that when Lunardi started presenting his bracketology on ESPN, he kept having to remind people that his brackets were not a prediction, but rather a reflection of the teams' bodies of work to that point in the season. People kept complaining that he had a team rated too high or too low based on their talent, ignoring the fact that his brackets had very little to do with talent so much as performance.

As such, it never made sense for him to put the bracketology posts up until late-January (at the earliest), when teams had built up a reasonable body of work. But I guess his work got so popular that people demanded it earlier and earlier, to the point that he's now doing exactly what he said his bracketology wasn't supposed to do. He's now putting together brackets based on zero body of work in the 2008-2009 season.

Exactly correct. In addition to evaluating a team's body of work, the other half of Lunardi's efforts involve applying the rules followed by the NCAA committee, e.g. "team X is actually a #5 seed but they can be moved to #6, since they can't play in Bada-Bing Arena against Team Y and are not as strong a #5 seed as team Z..." and also "their Top Ten AP poll ranking has absolutely nothing to do with seeding..."

And he's often downplayed the importance of the January bracketology results himself, often comparing them to April / May batting averages (with all due respect to Chipper Jones). Conference play hasn't really started at that point and there is a lot of movement before March...

My guess is Lunardi's just getting a head start on next season: setting up the top teams, getting the bulk of his data entered, etc. Then all he has to do is download the actuals and run the updates when the season finally starts...

That said, I find it more fun and equally as pointless as guessing about the 2010 or 2011 recruiting classes...

[CameronCrazy'11]

i think we have a great 3 man nucleus, (scheyer, henderson, singler), i think paulus is an average point. so calling them the best 4 man nucleus is wrong.

Paulus is an average point guard with an excellent 3-point shot. He's not on the same level as Henderson or Singler but he meshes quite well.

[Bob Green]

i think we have a great 3 man nucleus, (scheyer, henderson, singler), i think paulus is an average point. so calling them the best 4 man nucleus is wrong.

IMO, we have a great 5 man nucleus: Singler, Henderson, Scheyer, Paulus, & Smith. Nolan Smith averaged 5.9 points in 14.7 minutes per game, while shooting 46.7% from the field. I'm looking for him to be significantly improved as a sophomore. We are in good shape.

[gw67]

I agree with Bob. The Duke perimeter players plus Singler are very good and that includes Paulus. As pointed out in the link below, he and Singler made 3rd team All ACC last year and I don't see him regressing. Paulus may not have the skills for the pros but he is better than most pgs in the college game and, IMO, is well above average.

http://www.theacc.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/031008aab.html

gw67