This Week in the ACC: 12/6-12/12

[CameronDuke]

Nova beat Cuse 67-53 last night.

Cuse is now 5-4 and 60th on Kenpom.

[dukelifer]

Yeah. Within the first game or two it became clear UVA's pieces weren't coming together as well or as quickly as hoped (the transfer we brought it to be a serious outside scoring threat is 0-18 from 3 over his last 4 games and 11-54 on the season) and the team's absolute ceiling was probably somewhere around a 6-8 seed. They were likely to be bubble team. Which is stressful, you know? Going 20-13 and hoping to make the NCAAs is a long and narrow path that's not as much fun as Syracuse makes it look.

The bright side, such as it is, is that losing to JMU means UVA is probably not even a bubble team and we can just throw in the towel on expecting to win. UVA has some young players with solid potential and now we can just root for them to develop without, um, worrying about whether UVA will win the overall game. Because their odds won't be great against anyone good.

Not buying it. Sure they are struggling now but they will right the ship in league play. I have seen this movie before.

[CDu]

Not buying it. Sure they are struggling now but they will right the ship in league play. I have seen this movie before.

I can understand folks' PTSD on this. But it really isn't as good a team as they've had over the past decade.

For reference, right now they are 6-4, and their defense is around #50 nationally and their offense is around #140 nationally. This is about as bad as their offense has been under Bennett, AND about as bad as their defense has been. They've had recent years with comparably bad offense (2020) and years with a comparably bad defense (2021), but never at the same time since their true emergence under Bennett (~2014).

By year, here are their first-semester losses and rankings (overall, offense, defense) according to Torvik:

2022 season: 4 losses (2 bad losses), #78 overall*, #142 offense*, #52 defense*
2021: 1 loss (1 bad loss), #21, #20, #40
2020: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #34, #215, #1
2019: 0 losses, #2, #2, #9
2018: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #2, #31, #1
2017: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #7, #48, #2
2016: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #3, #9, #7
2015: 0 losses, #6, #32, #2
2014: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #4, #26, #5
2013: 2 losses (2 bad losses), #29, #67, #21
2012: 1 loss (1 bad loss), #29, #131, #5
2011: 3 losses (1 bad loss), #77, #122, #47

The most comparable seasons to this are the 2011 and 2013 seasons. In both of those seasons they lost in the first round of the ACC. In 2013, they were in the NIT. In 2011, they were a barely .500 team that didn't compete in a postseason tournament.

Since Bennett got UVa to good, we've never seen them be this bad this consistently in the pre-conference season. So, while we have seen this movie before, the ending isn't with UVa storming back to relevance.

If Bennett turns this team around to contend for the ACC title, it'll be a absolutely amazing coaching job. But nothing that's happened to this point suggests that this UVa team is going to be anywhere near the UVa teams from 2014-2021.

[weezie]

The chortling in non-hoo Virginia is loud today.

I enjoy the chirping of the various alumni species.

[RetireVergaJersey]

Mike Scott, Joe Harris, Ty Jerome, DeAndre Hunter, Kyle Guy, Malcolm Brogdon.

According to site I found Guy is not in the NBA at this time

[RetireVergaJersey]

According to googling ACC players in the NBA Virginia has 8 current players on rosters. 3 score in double digits. Brogden, Harris and Hunter.
All time UVA has had 36 players on a roster with only the above 3 plus Sampson and Stith averaging double digits
UNC has 11 players on current rosters with only Barnes and Anthony averaging double digits.
All time 91 players with 25 averaging double digits.

Duke has 23 currently playing with 9 averaging DD. All time 87 players with 29 averaging double digits.

[wilson]

Mike Scott, Joe Harris, Ty Jerome, DeAndre Hunter, Kyle Guy, Malcolm Brogdon.

According to site I found Guy is not in the NBA at this time

Guy is on a two-way contract with Cleveland this year, currently playing in (and lighting up) the G League.
...but the point isn't that this or that UVA alum is or isn't in the league this year. It's that you claimed there weren't any 'Hoos of note currently in the league (false), that Bennett is past his prime (debatable, but largely laughable), then claimed you never said he was past his prime (false).

UVA alums on NBA rosters as of today:

• DeAndre Hunter, Atlanta
• Ty Jerome, OKC
• Joe Harris, Brooklyn
• Malcolm Brogdon, Indiana
• Jay Huff, Lakers (Full disclosure: Huff is another player on a two-way deal and has been little used for the big club this year, but is currently on the NBA roster
• Sam Hauser, Boston (also getting only a handful of minutes, but still drawing an NBA salary
• Trey Murphy, New Orleans

...and anyway, there are plenty of college coaches whose #1 goal is not to churn out NBA players. Quite frankly, I often pine for the days when Duke's program didn't hold this as a primary objective.
At any rate, you sound an awful lot like the naysayers who used to say Coach K was terrible because "Duke players never make it in the NBA," and as demonstrated by several posts now, you're just flat out wrong about more than one thing.

[CDu]

According to googling ACC players in the NBA Virginia has 8 current players on rosters. 3 score in double digits. Brogden, Harris and Hunter.
All time UVA has had 36 players on a roster with only the above 3 plus Sampson and Stith averaging double digits
UNC has 11 players on current rosters with only Barnes and Anthony averaging double digits.
All time 91 players with 25 averaging double digits.

Duke has 23 currently playing with 9 averaging DD. All time 87 players with 29 averaging double digits.

Okay. And?

This tells us nothing about whether or not Bennett will get UVa back to being a top-tier national team in the next few years. And further proves the silliness of your "name 3-4 UVa players in the NBA" argument.

Look, you had a bad take. Had you gone with a "UVa isn't very good this year", you'd have been fine. But saying "I think Bennett’s days are over being in top tier of NCAA teams.Kids want to run and score," and "name me 3-4 NBA players from Virginia" was silly.

It also misses the fact that UVa's success hasn't come from recruiting elite prospects. Bennett has recruited like 6 top-50 guys ever (and zero top-10 guys) while at UVa, and at least three of those fizzled out of the program anyway. Only Guy, Jerome, and Justin Anderson were top-50 guys (and they were back half of the top-50) who were key to his success.

So it's silly to talk about him not being able to get top prospects when his success has never been built on that. And thus it is silly to talk about him being done as a top-tier program coach, when his success is about continuity and developing lower-tier recruits. So his inability to recruit the top prospects doesn't seem like it will impact his future at all, since he's never recruited those guys to begin with.

[wilson]

...All time UVA has had 36 players on a roster with only the above 3 plus Sampson and Stith averaging double digits...

So you're saying that your point about the deficiency of Bennett's coaching is supported by the fact that 60% of UVA's double-digit NBA scorers of all time hail from the Bennett era, which has lasted only the last 12 years? The ones that included UVA's only national championship?
Mmmkay.

Not sure what Duke or unc's NBA track records have to do with your proclamations about the quality of Tony Bennett's coaching. It's almost as if you're moving the goalposts (again).

[Stray Gator]

According to googling ACC players in the NBA Virginia has 8 current players on rosters. 3 score in double digits. Brogden, Harris and Hunter.
All time UVA has had 36 players on a roster with only the above 3 plus Sampson and Stith averaging double digits
UNC has 11 players on current rosters with only Barnes and Anthony averaging double digits.
All time 91 players with 25 averaging double digits.

Duke has 23 currently playing with 9 averaging DD. All time 87 players with 29 averaging double digits.

Back in the days when UNC fans liked to brag that there were more former UNC players in the NBA -- and that they were bigger stars -- than former Duke players, I frankly didn't give a damn. Now that Duke has the upper hand in that regard, with more former players in the NBA having better stats, I still don't. I may be in the minority, but I'm consistent in my indifference to the relative primacy among college basketball programs with respect to their representation in the pros.

What matters to me is how well the players do in helping Duke's basketball team succeed while they're at the school. When they complete their time in the Duke program, I'm grateful for their contributions, I wish them well, and I'm happy for them if they achieve their goals after leaving Durham, whether that be in the NBA, or playing abroad, or continuing their education with postgraduate studies, or venturing into the business world or the coaching profession. And I certainly appreciate their continued support in promoting the Duke program to prospective recruits. But I don't see how their performance in the NBA provides any basis for me or Duke fans generally to boast. IMO, that's a purely individual achievement.

[tommy]

With Syracuse's loss to Villanova, the opportunities remaining for ACC teams to get significant, out of conference victories against Power 5 teams are really starting to dwindle. While there are still some games left, and using the current KenPom ratings as a guide, our league's chances to win very many of them vs quality teams seem pretty slim. Here's what's left, with KenPom ratings next to each team's name, unless I missed something:

112 Boston College: nothing vs. Power 5, just has one at mid-major St Louis (ranked 90)
51 Clemson has South Carolina (102) and vs mid-major Miami Ohio (121)
37 FSU also has South Carolina (102)
86 Georgia Tech has LSU (17) and Southern California (13). Great opponents but not beating either of those teams.
39 Louisville has Depaul (101) and at Kentucky (20). Beating Kentucky in that one would be nice for the league, and do-able. But I wouldn't bet on it.
73 NC State has (2) Purdue. Fuhgeddaboudit.
28 UNC has (8) UCLA. That could be an interesting game. Would be good for the league if UNC wins, but of course can't really root for that, them being UNC and all.
50 Notre Dame has Kentucky (20) and Indiana (30). Winning even one of those would be nice.
196 (!) Pittsburgh has @(69) St John's.
60 Syracuse has @ (116) Georgetown.
35 Va Tech has two mid-majors, (41) St Bonaventure and @(94) Dayton.

That's it. Woulda really looked better had our league been more successful in the Big 10 Challenge. Come tournament time, we're just not going to have very many quality OOC wins.

[ElliottHoo]

I can understand folks' PTSD on this. But it really isn't as good a team as they've had over the past decade.

For reference, right now they are 6-4, and their defense is around #50 nationally and their offense is around #140 nationally. This is about as bad as their offense has been under Bennett, AND about as bad as their defense has been. They've had recent years with comparably bad offense (2020) and years with a comparably bad defense (2021), but never at the same time since their true emergence under Bennett (~2014).

By year, here are their first-semester losses and rankings (overall, offense, defense) according to Torvik:

2022 season: 4 losses (2 bad losses), #78 overall*, #142 offense*, #52 defense*
2021: 1 loss (1 bad loss), #21, #20, #40
2020: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #34, #215, #1
2019: 0 losses, #2, #2, #9
2018: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #2, #31, #1
2017: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #7, #48, #2
2016: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #3, #9, #7
2015: 0 losses, #6, #32, #2
2014: 1 loss (0 bad losses), #4, #26, #5
2013: 2 losses (2 bad losses), #29, #67, #21
2012: 1 loss (1 bad loss), #29, #131, #5
2011: 3 losses (1 bad loss), #77, #122, #47

The most comparable seasons to this are the 2011 and 2013 seasons. In both of those seasons they lost in the first round of the ACC. In 2013, they were in the NIT. In 2011, they were a barely .500 team that didn't compete in a postseason tournament.

Since Bennett got UVa to good, we've never seen them be this bad this consistently in the pre-conference season. So, while we have seen this movie before, the ending isn't with UVa storming back to relevance.

If Bennett turns this team around to contend for the ACC title, it'll be a absolutely amazing coaching job. But nothing that's happened to this point suggests that this UVa team is going to be anywhere near the UVa teams from 2014-2021.

Wow, well done. This covers it better than I would have, and I have one addition.

In the last 8-9 seasons, UVA has 4 losses to sub-KenPom 100 teams, and 2 of those losses have come this year (yes, one of the other two was the UMBC loss). Next year, UVA should be back on the upswing with a great recruiting class, but I promise it won't be this year. This team's somewhere between our our 2012 and 2013 squads, which went to the NIT and were an NCAA 10-seed respectively. I'm thinking like an NIT ~4 seed.

[CameronDuke]

DePaul just beat Louisville at the KFC YUM! Center 62-55.

Louisville is now 6-3.

[OldPhiKap]

The chortling in non-hoo Virginia is loud today.

I enjoy the chirping of the various alumni species.

Bird’s aren’t real.

[TKG]

Bird’s aren’t real.

As Creed might say: “maybe you’re not real!”

[OldPhiKap]

As Creed might say: “maybe you’re not real!”

Wow, wasn’t expecting an existential crisis of confidence in being this early in the morning.

Kinda makes this muffin seem meaningless, tbh.

[camion]

Wow, wasn’t expecting an existential crisis of confidence in being this early in the morning.

Kinda makes this muffin seem meaningless, tbh.

It is really meaningless in the larger scheme of things.


I'll be happy to remove it as an unnecessary distraction.

[OldPhiKap]

It is really meaningless in the larger scheme of things.


I'll be happy to remove it as an unnecessary distraction.

My biscotti now mocks my very alleged existence.


Meanwhile, I see that Clemson plays Drake today at 2pm. Drake doesn’t seem that fall or agile, at least from his last video. I think the Tigers can take him.

[robed deity]

My biscotti now mocks my very alleged existence.


Meanwhile, I see that Clemson plays Drake today at 2pm. Drake doesn’t seem that fall or agile, at least from his last video. I think the Tigers can take him.

How could you hate the Drake today?

[OldPhiKap]

How could you hate the Drake today?

Is it Canada Day already?