This Week in the ACC - 11/4-11/10

[Wahoo2000]

Soooo, the 48-34 score last PM was a *basketball* game...

Yup - our .813ppp just doesn't stack up to your guys' .850ppp. Maybe someday we'll be good at getting that round thing in the hoop... (lol, j/k)

Seriously, there are going to be some rockfights in the league this year I think between how many elite offensive players were lost and the increased distance of the 3pt line. #UglyBasketball

[devildeac]

Yup - our .813ppp just doesn't stack up to your guys' .850ppp. Maybe someday we'll be good at getting that round thing in the hoop... (lol, j/k)

Seriously, there are going to be some rockfights in the league this year I think between how many elite offensive players were lost and the increased distance of the 3pt line. #UglyBasketball

Totally expect that. Blecch.

[jv001]

I'm of two minds. The UVA-positive side is that they were returning, what, the 4-7 guys in the rotation from last year (plus Stattmann, who wasn't even in the rotation) and playing against that godawful Syracuse zone in their first game. There's a compelling argument to be made that last night should be thrown out the window. (I'd just as soon set it on fire or flush it down the toilet, and we won the dang game!)

The UVA-negative side is, well, that they were returning, what, the 4-7 guys in the rotation from last year (plus Stattmann, who wasn't even in the rotation). You go to war with the guys you have, and the guys UVA has might just be an offense-challenged group. Maybe having Huff and Diakite shooting more 3s than is feasible as bigs against a 2-3 zone will help. I feel pretty confident that Key, Morsell and Woldetensae won't combine to go 1-14 from 3 in many games. But that was some ugly ish.

I really don't want to complain too much. 1-0 in the ACC in November is fine with me, and 1-0 as defending national champs is obviously way, way better than fine. But watching Clark pass to Morsell, who held the ball and passed back to Clark, who held the ball and passed to Woldetensae, who held the ball and passed back to Clark, and so on and so forth for 28 seconds, was...not the best viewing experience.

From your description of that offense against the Cuse zone, I could see how that would be hard to watch. Even a good offense against their zone is not fun to watch. Not the best game to open your season. Glad it was the Hoos and not Duke. GoDuke!

[wsb3]

Pitt in trouble late vs Nicholls St..

[DukieInBrasil]

Can i not be impressed by Cole Anthony scoring 20 pts on ~27 possessions? His 34 pt performance was indeed impressive, and against a not-bad opponent (ND), although Brey has never been noted as a defensive-minded coach. Overall CA is averaging 27 pts shooting just under 40% on FGs, but about 45% on 3s. So, i'm not trying to say he's not playing pretty well. I guess Carolina fans and the media get all excited about pt totals. However, our own Cassius Stanley scored 19 on 11 shots, or less than half the shots Anthony used to get 1 more pt.
Anyway, as for the rest of the CHeaters, it looks like Brooks is playing pretty well so far. Their grad tranfer Pierce has played well. Leaky Black has been neither good nor bad. Bacot got injured (apparent concussion?) but looked rather mediocre in his 1st game, so he gets a pass.
Anyway, the CHeaterholes are ahead of Duke in the ACC standings, due to schedule fluke, but at this point in the season, they've got at least more questions about their team than Duke does. So far, Duke has shown good balance on offense, or at least pretty balanced distribution among players, and a very stout defense. I would chalk up the balance to Tre Jones being a very good, cerebral PG, and wouldn't be surprised to see a few games this year when Stanley, Hurt or Carey find that they can really abuse an opponent and go off. OTOH, CHeaterville has a PG who has shown that his ceiling is the roof apparently, but that he doesn't do much to make his teammates better, but perhaps that will change. There don't appear to be other players who can create offense (although aside from Jones, that is true of Duke, too) and there is a sharp drop-off in productivity after their top 3. The defense at the Dump seems to be at least pretty good so far this year though.
It's only 2 games in, and it's probably too early to really say that any questions have been answered about any teams, but i do like some of the hints we're getting about Duke. I'm guessing Holeville is pleased with Anthony, but perhaps a bit less enamored of the rest of the team.

[JasonEvans]

Pitt in trouble late vs Nicholls St..

Nichols 75, Pitt 70

Ouch

[Wahoo2000]

FSU is a 5.5 pt dog playing @UF, tipping in about 40 min on ESPN. Gators are a VERY trendy darkhorse title pick right now, and a big performance from the Noles could be a statement win for the ACC. I really like White and the roster UF has, but will definitely be rooting for the Noles today (though if I had to make a bet, I'd say UF will probably roll them). Should be an entertaining game any way you slice it, and since I'm a lions fan and Stafford now has a broken back, it's ok for me to skip out on the NFL today totally.

[TheOldBattleship]

FSU is a 5.5 pt dog playing @UF, tipping in about 40 min on ESPN. Gators are a VERY trendy darkhorse title pick right now, and a big performance from the Noles could be a statement win for the ACC. I really like White and the roster UF has, but will definitely be rooting for the Noles today (though if I had to make a bet, I'd say UF will probably roll them). Should be an entertaining game any way you slice it, and since I'm a lions fan and Stafford now has a broken back, it's ok for me to skip out on the NFL today totally.

This is a really interesting game, though, one of those rockfights mentioned earlier in the thread. It's 9-8 right now with Florida up. About 8 min in. FSU looks TOUGH defensively thus far, but pretty inept offensively. They're running a 1-2-2 zone press pretty consistently, and are long and fast and rotate well. Florida has looked young and overeager thus far offensively, which isn't surprising, since they are pretty freshman heavy. Glad we won't be seeing as much of Blackshear this year now that he's in the SEC. Not much good going for the guys who are supposed to be FSU's best three players: Walker (MJ; CJ transferred to Ohio State, I think), Forrest, and Vassell.

[MChambers]

FSU up 42-31 with 12 minutes to go.

[TheOldBattleship]

Florida is now 2-18 from three. Mike White's ultra-green light for his guys to take threes whenever they want has always worked pretty well to keep people off guard and to open up the floor for drives and cuts, but a) FSU's length and quickness to contest shots have been very impressive today, and b) whether it's the youth or what, nobody's (even Locke, who was a sniper last year) been shooting well even on open shots for Florida. FSU's willingness to pack the paint and then contest out because of that length/quickness on the perimeter has really kept the Florida offense nailed down so far.

Edit: Florida has just hit back to back completely open threes, so now 4-20; I've jinxed FSU.

[SavDukeGrad]

Good bounce back win for the Noles. Florida may be a trendy pick for the FF, but they certainly didn’t look like it in this game. From the part of the game that I saw, Blackshear was surprisingly pretty much a non-factor, except for his double digit rebounds.

[TheOldBattleship]

Super strong finish for FSU, and they run away with it a bit for a 63-51 win. Big-time win for the ACC and for FSU's tourney hopes. Florida got basically nothing from their guards, including their bigtime recruit freshmen (Lewis and Mann, both of whom have one and done aspirations): Nembhard, Locke, Mann, Lewis, and Glover went 4-29 from the field and 3-18 from three combined. Yikes. Will be interesting to see where they go from here. Like everyone else, I had thought that adding Blackshear to their perimeter talent made this squad a title contender and major threat to Kentucky in the SEC, but they certainly didn't look anything close to that today. Part of it was just fairly open shots not dropping, part of it was FSU's defensive effort and plan (major props to Hamilton: the defensive gameplan was great, I thought), and part might just be youth. Regardless, though, Mike White will have some work to do before conference play, that's for sure.

[TheOldBattleship]

Good bounce back win for the Noles. Florida may be a trendy pick for the FF, but they certainly didn’t look like it in this game. From the part of the game that I saw, Blackshear was surprisingly pretty much a non-factor, except for his double digit rebounds.

I actually thought that Blackshear was pretty good (granted, they probably want him to be more than "pretty good," but still). They had a TON of trouble getting him the ball, and FSU doubled a lot right on the catch. Blackshear tried to move the ball out quickly, but FSU's rotations to that first shooter off the pass were really, really impressive in taking away any advantage off the double (and the fact that Florida couldn't hit a shot to save their lives helped). Classic FSU strategy to contest every shot he took SUPER aggressively, too (who else even plays enough guys to commit that many fouls with their bigs?); it really worked well, as Blackshear shot a ton of free throws, but wasn't a big factor offensively otherwise. Again, props to Hamilton on the plan and on committing to it even when it meant giving up 15 free throws to Blackshear.

[Nrrrrvous]

I've been thinking this for a couple weeks but today just made me have to say something.

The talking heads have been saying that Blackshear is going to transform Florida basketball. That he takes them from a middle of the road team to a national title contender, etc. etc. Where does this come from? I figured I would keep my mouth shut, that maybe they see something that I don't but today just reminded me.

Look at it this way, Buzz surrounded him with lights-out shooters that could not be ignored. So for the past couple years he's been able to go one-on-one down low. He's put up good numbers, last year was ~15 and 7 but not anything, in my opinion, that lead me to believe that this year he would lead a team to the championship! Am I the only one thinking this?

So today, against FSU, a projected mid-upper tier ACC team, not a bad line, 10, 13, 2, 2, 1 but again, pretty much what he has done for VT for a couple years. (BTW, all 10 points came from FTs. He was o-fer from the field)

[Wahoo2000]

Watched the FSU@UF game in its entirety. Florida could not throw the ball in the ocean. They had one guy show up offensively, sophomore forward Keyonte Johnson, who was 8-12 from the field, including 1-2 from 3. The ENTIRETY of the rest of Florida's roster went 6-38 from the field (15.7%) and 3-20 from 3 (15%). Yuck. Certainly some props go to FSU's defense, but it was definitely only part of the equation and UF's players get a ton of credit for being just plain bad too.

I haven't looked at any global stats across D1 yet, but it seems like the vast majority of games I've watched so far have been rife with awful shooting and sloppy turnovers - much moreso than your typical "November basketball". I wonder if moving the 3pt line back is having the opposite effect of what was hoped for when they made that rule change...

[BobBender]

Nichols 75, Pitt 70

Ouch

What’s the unabashed rooting for Pitt about, especially in the JD King morning updates? I know Jeff Capel is appreciated as a Blue Devil, but he took a job within the conference and they are just another foe. And he’s now 44 years old and has had a few other HC jobs before. It’s not like he moved on from starting as a Duke assistant to this job. Rather, the stop back in Durham was realistically a chance to rehab a sullied reputation. And yes, he was admittedly a master recruiter.

[akg4y]

Hoos held their second straight team to 34 points... Beating JMU 65-34. JMU only made 4 two pointers and shot 24% from the field with 19 turnovers.

UVA continues to struggle from 3, shooting only 4-24 but were 21-37 from two not including the walk ons, and had 14 offensive boards.

Casey Morsell and Kody Stattman the two new starting guards for UVA combined to shoot 2-18, rest of the team was 23-43 not including the walk ons.

Assuming the guards start making shots this team could be better than expected.

[Nrrrrvous]

Assuming the guards start making shots this team could be better than expected.

Where have I heard that before?

[JasonEvans]

What’s the unabashed rooting for Pitt about, especially in the JD King morning updates? I know Jeff Capel is appreciated as a Blue Devil, but he took a job within the conference and they are just another foe. And he’s now 44 years old and has had a few other HC jobs before. It’s not like he moved on from starting as a Duke assistant to this job. Rather, the stop back in Durham was realistically a chance to rehab a sullied reputation. And yes, he was admittedly a master recruiter.

I don’t know why you would be surprised to see that this site pays extra attention and gives extra love to teams that are coached by members of The Brotherhood, especially a former associate head coach like Capel. There is no requirement that other Duke fans feel the same but plenty of us are going to care more about Pitt’s success than we do about Clemson or BC.