This Week in the ACC - 11/29-12/5

[PackMan97]

I swear you post more about Iowa than Duke.

I swear you post more about people posting more about Iowa and Virginia than you do about Duke.



Fwiw, i know I post more about state and Carolina than i do about Duke.

[OldPhiKap]

I swear you post more about people posting more about Iowa and Virginia than you do about Duke.

Well, all my posts can’t be about Radiohead now can they?

[robed deity]

Prentiss Hubb has had an awful start to the year. He's now 4-28 from 3. Which means of course he'll go 6-7 or something against Duke.

[rasputin]

I used to care more about the "challenge" than I do now. No non-Duke ACC fans want Duke to beat their "challenge" opponents, and, although I understand that it is better for Duke to raise the level of the ACC in general, that doesn't require me to root for scummy programs like Louisville, or Virginia Tech for that matter. (The unmentionables are best left unmentionable.)

[OldPhiKap]

Big Ten - 2
ACC - 0

And the ACC was home for both games.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I used to care more about the "challenge" than I do now. No non-Duke ACC fans want Duke to beat their "challenge" opponents, and, although I understand that it is better for Duke to raise the level of the ACC in general, that doesn't require me to root for scummy programs like Louisville, or Virginia Tech for that matter. (The unmentionables are best left unmentionable.)

I used to care about these "challenges" and ACC pride. I agree my rooting interest has waned recently, but this season our conference looks horribad, and we could really use a lift. If not for conference pride, for practical pro-Duke reasons.

[CDu]

I used to care about these "challenges" and ACC pride. I agree my rooting interest has waned recently, but this season our conference looks horribad, and we could really use a lift. If not for conference pride, for practical pro-Duke reasons.

If we win at OSU, I don't think we need to worry too much about conference strength. We'll be undefeated out of conference, with neutral site wins over two top-10 teams and a road win over a top-30ish team. That will insulate us from some of the concerns about conference strength. We can afford to lose a few games in conference and still be in really good shape NCAA wise.

The conference strength concerns would be much more relevant if we were not clearly the best team in the conference. And we appear to be clearly the best team in our conference.

[gumbomoop]

Big Ten - 2
ACC - 0

And the ACC was home for both games.

I think Illinois was home to ND.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

If we win at OSU, I don't think we need to worry too much about conference strength. We'll be undefeated out of conference, with neutral site wins over two top-10 teams and a road win over a top-30ish team. That will insulate us from some of the concerns about conference strength. We can afford to lose a few games in conference and still be in really good shape NCAA wise.

The conference strength concerns would be much more relevant if we were not clearly the best team in the conference. And we appear to be clearly the best team in our conference.

Sure. But lots of strange things happen over the course of a season. I don't have sufficient hubris to declare that conference strength won't be a factor down the road.

[wilson]

I've never cared about ACC/Big Can't Count Challenge results. I like that it makes for some interesting December matchups (exactly its raison d'être, to create television content), but other ACC fans throw projectiles, curse our mothers, denigrate our players, impugn the integrity of our program and university, and attribute all of our success to "the refs," and then we're supposed to root for them to beat Penn State on a Tuesday night the week after Thanksgiving? No thanks.
Duke has never had a problem with NCAAT seeding in a season where our team took care of regular season business, and that won't happen this year either. Let the B1G win 13-1 for all I care.

[flyingdutchdevil]

I've never cared about ACC/Big Can't Count Challenge results. I like that it makes for some interesting December matchups (exactly its raison d'être, to create television content), but other ACC fans throw projectiles, curse our mothers, denigrate our players, impugn the integrity of our program and university, and attribute all of our success to "the refs," and then we're supposed to root for them to beat Penn State on a Tuesday night the week after Thanksgiving? No thanks.
Duke has never had a problem with NCAAT seeding in a season where our team took care of regular season business, and that won't happen this year either. Let the B1G win 13-1 for all I care.

While I do not disagree with you, I think, selfishly, having a better ACC is better than not. And the ACC/Big 10 Challenge goes a long way to solidifying that.

Everyone and their mother complains about the Zags and other mid-majors steamrolling through their conferences. I'm not saying the ACC is like the WCC, but a top Big 10 team (or Big 12 or SEC team) can easily say that being second in their conference is a bigger achievement than winning the ACC.

I want the ACC to beat the Big 10 solely for this purpose.

[jjasper0729]

I usually root for the roof to collapse, but in this case I'm not sure if it's the roof or the ceiling.

(I'm only 12 miles away, I'm afraid some pieces of the meteor might come close.)

I'd have to agree with you on this one. I'm a little farther away (but not by much) at about 25 miles, so a meteor shockwave would cause some problems.

[wilson]

...Everyone and their mother complains about the Zags and other mid-majors steamrolling through their conferences. I'm not saying the ACC is like the WCC, but a top Big 10 team (or Big 12 or SEC team) can easily say that being second in their conference is a bigger achievement than winning the ACC.

I want the ACC to beat the Big 10 solely for this purpose.

This is a valid point too...I myself grouse about Gonzaga's joke of a conference slate every year, although I think it does them no favors as they continually fail to win a game of real consequence when they reach the later rounds of the tournament.
But the rest of that is all water cooler talk. I don't care if someone wants to claim (however accurately) that a 2nd place B1G finish for Wisconsin or a runner-up Florida in the SEC or whatever is "better" than Duke winning a weak ACC. In fact, as I get older, I kind of relish people getting up in arms about it, because it all comes out in the wash eventually anyway.
If Duke wins the ACC with, say, 4 or fewer regular season losses this year, we'll rightly be a #1 seed, whether or not that's a "better" accomplishment than finishing second in some other power league. And then it'll be time for every team to put up or shut up, irrespective of how poor this or that conference might have been this year or what someone did in a contrived "challenge" three months before the NCAAT starts.

[CameronDuke]

FWIW, Iowa was picked 9th preseason in the B1G. UVa was picked 4th preseason in the ACC.

[AGDukesky]

I see four winnable games tonight but none are slam dunks. Pitt is a loss and FSU is not ready to beat Purdue on the road. Syracuse at home has a fighter’s chance against Indiana. Rutgers is not good but is at home against a Clemson team that is not terrible by ACC standards. I think Wake at home will beat NW but would never bet on it. And of course Duke obviously has a good chance.

[TheOldBattleship]

Not really anything substantial to add at this point, but did anyone else catch this play from the end of the Notre Dame/Illinois game? I feel guilty, but I'm still laughing at it. He LEANT INTO that screen, man. You see some weird stuff early in the college basketball season, but this was absolutely one of the funnier moments I can remember.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Not really anything substantial to add at this point, but did anyone else catch this play from the end of the Notre Dame/Illinois game? I feel guilty, but I'm still laughing at it. He LEANT INTO that screen, man. You see some weird stuff early in the college basketball season, but this was absolutely one of the funnier moments I can remember.

Looks like the ACC in a nutshell (minus Duke)

[ElliottHoo]

FWIW, Iowa was picked 9th preseason in the B1G. UVa was picked 4th preseason in the ACC.

Depends on where you look. That was probably the media. IIRC, KenPom had UVA at like 8th in the ACC (currently he has UVA 7th, which might be reasonable in a normal ACC year but would be just god awful this year so I hope he's wrong) and I don't know where he had Iowa to start the year (probably 5th, between Ohio State and Michigan State) but atm he has them 3rd in the Big10.

Everyone was too afraid of underestimating Bennett *again* and assumed the pieces would come together optimally (even though last year was a disappointment). So far, that hasn't been the case.

[CDu]

Depends on where you look. That was probably the media. IIRC, KenPom had UVA at like 8th in the ACC (currently he has UVA 7th, which might be reasonable in a normal ACC year but would be just god awful this year so I hope he's wrong) and I don't know where he had Iowa to start the year (probably 5th, between Ohio State and Michigan State) but atm he has them 3rd in the Big10.

Everyone was too afraid of underestimating Bennett *again* and assumed the pieces would come together optimally (even though last year was a disappointment). So far, that hasn't been the case.

This.

I'd add that we still have no idea what Iowa really is, because they only have the game against UVa as a meaningful data point. And that data point included an unbelievable first half and then an unbelievably bad second half, including an injury to their best player and both teams shooting out of their minds from 3. So it could be that Iowa is legitimately one of the 3-4 best teams in the Big 10, and it could be that they are worse.

For UVa, the fact that they scored so efficiently in the second half provides hope. I don't expect Kihei Clark and Jayden Gardner to combine for 5-6 from 3 most nights, and I'm not sure if Taine Murray is a one-off or for real, but it was nice to see signs of life. Conversely, getting torched by Iowa is either a nice feather in the "Iowa has a really good offense" cap or a concern for UVa's defense (or both).

But basically, I'm not sure this game tells us much about the overall quality of each conference, as (a) we're not sure how good Iowa or UVa are and (b) it was just such an anomalous game from a shooting perspective.

[Rich]

This is a valid point too...I myself grouse about Gonzaga's joke of a conference slate every year, although I think it does them no favors as they continually fail to win a game of real consequence when they reach the later rounds of the tournament.
But the rest of that is all water cooler talk. I don't care if someone wants to claim (however accurately) that a 2nd place B1G finish for Wisconsin or a runner-up Florida in the SEC or whatever is "better" than Duke winning a weak ACC. In fact, as I get older, I kind of relish people getting up in arms about it, because it all comes out in the wash eventually anyway.
If Duke wins the ACC with, say, 4 or fewer regular season losses this year, we'll rightly be a #1 seed, whether or not that's a "better" accomplishment than finishing second in some other power league. And then it'll be time for every team to put up or shut up, irrespective of how poor this or that conference might have been this year or what someone did in a contrived "challenge" three months before the NCAAT starts.

Personally, I prefer a stronger ACC because it better prepares us for the tournament and those games build character (as long as we're not completely beat up by the end of the season). I'm concerned that with a soft ACC we won't be prepared for those gut check games everyone faces at one point or another in the tournament. And while Kentucky, Gonzaga, and Ohio State are great games to play, they're just so early in the season I worry that we won't be able to draw from them later on.