ACC play doesn’t begin in earnest until January but listening to the G-man and Dan Bonner this past weekend kicked off the conference season in my mind. I got the schedule and attempted to predict the winner of each game and the final standings (see below). In my defense, I did this while fighting off a cold, dog watching (our Tibetan tried to show my boys’ Lab/Boxer mix and Lab puppy who was boss in our household), and in spite of my bias (Duke and Maryland fan).

1. UNC 14-2
2. Duke 13-3
3-4. Clemson, NC State 10-6
5. Virginia 8-8
6-7. Florida State, Georgia Tech 7-9
8-10. Miami, Virginia Tech, Maryland 6-10
11. BC 5-11
12. Wake 4-12

I think that there are only four good teams in the league and that State needs to play hard to overcome their weakness in the backcourt to be one of these teams. The Heels and Devils will run the table at home but will lose some games on the road. Virginia and Florida State need to show that they can win on the road and Georgia Tech has a lot of talent but it is not clear to me that they can get it together over a 16 game schedule. If Tech can’t defeat Florida State at home this coming Sunday, I don’t see them coming close to .500 in conference. The last five teams will win a few and lose a lot. Their order could be shuffled but I don’t see any coming close to .500 in ACC play. I know that Miami is 12-0 and that they have some good players but they need to prove that they can beat the league’s bad teams (Wake, BC and VT) on the road. If they can, they are an NCAA tourney team.

Just my thoughts after seeing ¾ of the teams play so far this year.

gw67