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  1. #1
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    MBB: Dork Polls, 2021-22

    So, Bart Torvik of TRank has put out his early 2021-22 predictions. Here are the pages for Duke and the ACC.





    Right away the PPG and and role of Wendell Moore jumps off the page for me. Bart seems to think we will see quite a bit of growth from the junior wing. I think Baker will find enough of a role as a shooter to score more than 3ppg. I also think Mark Williams will get more than 10ppg. Based on these numbers, we look like a heck of a rebounding team (something I really agree with).

    In the ACC, I'm surprised by how low he ranks Virginia. I don't expect them to be as good as in recent years, but the Cavs system and coaching probably makes them a top half of the conference team even with somewhat lesser talent. Florida State is another one that feels like they should be better than just a top 35 team. I am in full agreement with Torvik that Notre Dame rises back up to the top tier of the conference next season. They bring everyone back and have even added a couple nice pieces.

    I am sure this will spark some conversation... enjoy!
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  2. #2
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    I will be shocked if Virginia is that bad as well.

    They have won 13+ games in the league each season since 2013-2014. They know how to win against ACC teams. They have a senior point guard next year that has as much experience in the league as anyone and a national title. If they’re that bad, something will have to go seriously wrong in their program for it to occur.

  3. #3
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    Some of the projected jump for Moore has to do with minutes. Torvik has Moore adding about 3-4 mpg over last year, so about half of his increase in scoring comes from that minutes jump alone.

    For Williams, Torvik is assuming "just" 27 mpg. But even still he has Williams averaging fewer PPG than he did from the Ga Tech game through the season's end: 10.8 ppg in 21.3 mpg over that stretch vs a projected 10.1 in 27 mpg. So that does still feel a bit weird, and is likely just a function of Williams' nonlinear growth this past season.

    I suspect he's a bit low on the following guys:
    - Roach: I would expect a bigger improvement in minutes per game as well as assists; the points probably are about right
    - Griffin: I would expect more minutes and more points
    - Williams: hard to say, but I'd expect more points and perhaps more rebounds. It just comes down to how much of the scoring load the other guys eat up

    And he's probably a bit high on Moore in terms of scoring (I think Griffin and Williams will take bigger scoring loads) and too low in assists (he averaged 2.7 apg this year, so 2.2 apg in more minutes seems unlikely).

    I think he has a fairly reasonable assessment of guys 7-10 in the rotation, if not a bit too high on Jones.

    Keels feels like he should probably score a bit more than 6.9 ppg, but it's not wildly off given the 22 mpg expectation. He feels more like an 8-9 ppg guy than a 7 ppg guy over that minutes load.

    Torvik uses a metrics-based system, so it's agnostic to some things that we are privy to (especially Mark Williams for example, and likely AJ Griffin too). Given that, it's not at all an unreasonable framework for discussion.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by CameronDuke View Post
    I will be shocked if Virginia is that bad as well.

    They have won 13+ games in the league each season since 2013-2014. They know how to win against ACC teams. They have a senior point guard next year that has as much experience in the league as anyone and a national title. If they’re that bad, something will have to go seriously wrong in their program for it to occur.
    see: duke 20/21
    1200. DDMF.

  5. #5
    TRank really doesn't like the offense for Virginia. They were 20th in AdjOE in 2021 with their frontcourt players Huff, Hauser, and Murphy leading the way. Without those 3, Torvik sees them returning to the 2020 offense but without the rim protection they had each of the past 2 seasons. It's a bad combination. Bennett is going to have to figure out how to get his teams to score and defend the rim. I feel more confident in his ability to get his team to defend. The pieces they have right now do not lend themselves to being an effective offense. Of course, that hasn't stopped them before.

  6. #6
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    UVa is an interesting one. They lost SOOOO much this past year, and so far haven't been able to replace it. Assuming Murphy, Hauser, and Huff all remain in the draft, that's their top four frontcourt guys gone. And it isn't like they were great WITH those guys: #21 this year and #34 last year (without Murphy and Hauser but with Diakite and Key).

    Shedrick and Gardner should be good as starters, but the backcourt was weak this past year and hasn't gotten better so far this offseason. And while Shedrick and Gardner are good, they are very likely a BIG step down from Huff/Hauser/Murphy.

    Bennett's system should help, although they will again be inexperienced together. So I do expect them to be worse next year than we are accustomed to seeing. But maybe not "#83" worse.

  7. #7
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    scottdude8 is online now Moderator, Contributor, Zoubek disciple, and resident Wolverine
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    If this is how the ACC shakes out, that'll be great for us... a lot of opportunities for road Q1 wins against teams ranked in the lower bit of the Top 75, and some possibilities to steal Q1 wins at home against teams in the lower portion of the Top 30, but without a clear second dog to us. Obviously things will vary greatly from this early prediction, but it vibes with my general guess that there might be a bit of a gap between us and the rest of the ACC this year, given how poor the conference was last season and the fact that there's a big gap between our and perhaps FSU's recruiting classes and the rest of the conference (247 has us at #3, FSU at #4, and the next best ACC squad as Louisville at #18).

    I remain very, very excited for this season.
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  8. #8
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    ACC down again?

    Is the ACC going to be this bad again? 3-4 teams in the top 25 with only 1 in the top 20?
    Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill

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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by flyingdutchdevil View Post
    Is the ACC going to be this bad again? 3-4 teams in the top 25 with only 1 in the top 20?
    I would wager several pies against that.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by flyingdutchdevil View Post
    Is the ACC going to be this bad again? 3-4 teams in the top 25 with only 1 in the top 20?
    This is a classic debate. The depth of the conference is going to be better than it has been in a few seasons. As many as 10 teams in the conference will enter the season with hopes or even expectations of making the NCAA Tournament. At the top of the conference, though, there are few or even no heavyweights.

    Compare that to the SEC for next season. They have legitimate Final Four/Title contenders at the top, including Alabama, Tennessee, and maybe Kentucky and Arkansas and Auburn. Florida could be a top 25 team much of the season as well. After that, there's LSU and then a huge step down. The bottom half of that conference is incredibly soft. The Mississippi teams, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, and Georgia are just not going to compete with the top half of the conference.

    As a conference, the ACC looks to be the polar opposite of 2019, a year where there were 3 1-seeds, including 5 teams that reached the Sweet 16, and then 5 teams that won 14 games plus Wake Forest at 11-20. The middle of this year's ACC is better but the top end isn't there.

  11. #11
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    A few weeks ago, Lunardi's espn 2022 tournament prediction included 8 ACC teams. Florida State got the highest seed (3), while we got a 4.
    https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/st...ness-men-field

    An ncaa.com article from last month suggested the ACC would lead all conferences in teams in the top 25.
    https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball...2021-22-season

    Vegas is asserting Duke has about a 7% chance of winning the tournament, which puts the team somewhere between 3rd and about 8th. Of course, Vegas's aim is less about accuracy than about splitting the bettors--and the Duke team's very popular (except where it's very unpopular).

    I guess they still have to play the season (fingers crossed).

  12. #12
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    The other unknown in all this is transfers. We don't have a good sense of how various rosters will fit together with so many players moving to new teams. It creates a situation where teams may need more time than usual to gel and figure out how to play together (this may not affect Duke as much as we typically have new players every season, though they are freshmen not transfers). That is one reason I am such a big fan of Notre Dame's prospects for next season, they bring so much back it should help them to hit the ground running as well as any team in the country.
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by DavidBenAkiva View Post
    This is a classic debate. The depth of the conference is going to be better than it has been in a few seasons. As many as 10 teams in the conference will enter the season with hopes or even expectations of making the NCAA Tournament. At the top of the conference, though, there are few or even no heavyweights.

    Compare that to the SEC for next season. They have legitimate Final Four/Title contenders at the top, including Alabama, Tennessee, and maybe Kentucky and Arkansas and Auburn. Florida could be a top 25 team much of the season as well. After that, there's LSU and then a huge step down. The bottom half of that conference is incredibly soft. The Mississippi teams, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, and Georgia are just not going to compete with the top half of the conference.
    I'm not saying the above is a mischaracterization, but Torvik's rankings don't agree with you. Putting Georgia aside, the SEC teams you've labeled "incredibly soft" are ranked #69, #82, #87 and #108, while two of the 10 ACC teams you say have "hopes or even expectations of making the NCAA Tournament" would have to come from a group of teams rated #81, #83, #85, #90, and #96. Both of those characterizations can't be true. Also, you've labeled #22 Arkansas and #25 Auburn as maybe "legitimate Final Four/Title contenders," but dismissed #19 Virginia Tech, #26 Notre Dame, and #27 UNC as non-"heavyweights."

    The SEC has three top 15 teams while the ACC has just one but, again according to Torvik's pre-season rankings, the ACC's depth is really only one team deeper than the SEC (8 top 50 ACC teams vs. 7 top 50 SEC teams).

  14. #14
    Wow. I hope UVA isn’t that bad. I expect a down year, but by far the worst of the last decade feels like a stretch. I mean, worse than 2017 when a (generously) listed 6’7” Wilkins was our center? Though I guess a worst-of-the-decade team has has to show up sometime.

    I do find it weird he projects UVAs offense in the same ballpark as 2 years ago when they were arguably the worst offense among Power Six teams, with one player at 115 (Huff), one player at 100 (Diakite) and everyone else under 95 (in some cases way under 95, like Morsell at 71). That was the 205th best O in the country and this year he puts UVA at 198th despite projecting most players over 100.

    Something feels off about that projection and ranking.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by ElliottHoo View Post
    Wow. I hope UVA isn’t that bad. I expect a down year, but by far the worst of the last decade feels like a stretch. I mean, worse than 2017 when a (generously) listed 6’7” Wilkins was our center? Though I guess a worst-of-the-decade team has has to show up sometime.

    I do find it weird he projects UVAs offense in the same ballpark as 2 years ago when they were arguably the worst offense among Power Six teams, with one player at 115 (Huff), one player at 100 (Diakite) and everyone else under 95 (in some cases way under 95, like Morsell at 71). That was the 205th best O in the country and this year he puts UVA at 198th despite projecting most players over 100.

    Something feels off about that projection and ranking.
    I'm with you Ehoo.
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  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by chrishoke View Post
    I'm with you Ehoo.
    Thanks. I’ll add that it feels about right to me for Duke, though. Stacked team next year, and good blend of talent and experience. Poor Baker, projected to be the very worst offensive player on the roster.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by ElliottHoo View Post
    Though I guess a worst-of-the-decade team has has to show up sometime.
    Dunno about you, but it always feels to me like that team shows up about every ten years.
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    Dunno about you, but it always feels to me like that team shows up about every ten years.
    You always get so darned technical on us.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    UVa is an interesting one. They lost SOOOO much this past year, and so far haven't been able to replace it. Assuming Murphy, Hauser, and Huff all remain in the draft, that's their top four frontcourt guys gone. And it isn't like they were great WITH those guys: #21 this year and #34 last year (without Murphy and Hauser but with Diakite and Key).

    Shedrick and Gardner should be good as starters, but the backcourt was weak this past year and hasn't gotten better so far this offseason. And while Shedrick and Gardner are good, they are very likely a BIG step down from Huff/Hauser/Murphy.

    Bennett's system should help, although they will again be inexperienced together. So I do expect them to be worse next year than we are accustomed to seeing. But maybe not "#83" worse.
    Do the experts on this Board feel that Bennett's system negatively affected his ability to get transfers in the recent free for all market of college basketball free agency? I'd especially be interested in hearing from the Wahoo posters.
    Rich
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Rich View Post
    Do the experts on this Board feel that Bennett's system negatively affected his ability to get transfers in the recent free for all market of college basketball free agency? I'd especially be interested in hearing from the Wahoo posters.
    Not a UVA fan, but it seems hard to me to make that claim. He brought in Sam Hauser and Justin McKoy for last season and then former Indiana G Arman Franklin and former ECU F Jayden Gardner for this season. Gardner is a two-time all conference player in the American Athletic Conference. That's between a mid-major and high-major in terms of a conference. Considering how Bennett doesn't go deep into his rotations and rarely plays freshmen, adding two starter-level transfers a high-major and just-below-high-major team seems pretty good to me.

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