Tracking the ACC regular season race

[wgl1228]

About 7-8 years ago some students started to storm after a UNC game but K waved them off. So I think the Dockery buzzer beater might be the last time it happened.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

About 7-8 years ago some students started to storm after a UNC game but K waved them off. So I think the Dockery buzzer beater might be the last time it happened.

That was embarrassing to me...a team Duke shoulda killed....lucky to barely beat...at home...I didn't like that storming at all.

[uh_no]

About 7-8 years ago some students started to storm after a UNC game but K waved them off. So I think the Dockery buzzer beater might be the last time it happened.

maybe 2011 or 2015. both big comebacks

[Billy Dat]

ESPN's quant-focused college basketball scribe, John Gasaway, has a cool little piece talking about how, within the ACC, Duke and Louisville are kind of identical

https://johngasaway.com/2019/02/05/t...ision-edition/

Great closing section:

"The Cards actually make threes, with Jordan Nwora, Ryan McMahon, and Dwayne Sutton all shooting 37 percent or better on their threes in ACC play. Conversely if Duke ever does that, it will make Coach K’s team effectively unstoppable. If at some point this season you see multiple Blue Devils consistently hitting shots from beyond the arc, think of it as the college hoops equivalent to the moment in Jurassic Park when the velociraptors learned how to open doors."

[CDu]

ESPN's quant-focused college basketball scribe, John Gasaway, has a cool little piece talking about how, within the ACC, Duke and Louisville are kind of identical

https://johngasaway.com/2019/02/05/t...ision-edition/

Great closing section:

"The Cards actually make threes, with Jordan Nwora, Ryan McMahon, and Dwayne Sutton all shooting 37 percent or better on their threes in ACC play. Conversely if Duke ever does that, it will make Coach K’s team effectively unstoppable. If at some point this season you see multiple Blue Devils consistently hitting shots from beyond the arc, think of it as the college hoops equivalent to the moment in Jurassic Park when the velociraptors learned how to open doors."

I have one question and one other comment about this article:

Question: Are this efficiency margins calculated based on adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency? I suspect that they are not, but don't know for sure. And Louisville has had an easier schedule than us so far in ACC play (with Pitt twice, BC, and Miami of note).
Comment: Those data fail to account for the fact that we played several games without Tre Jones, one game without Reddish, and half a game without Zion. And we had a slow start in the first game Jones came back.

Torvik has us as a full 3 points better in adjusted efficiency margin (0.5 better offensively and 2.5 better defensively) in his ratings over the last 10 games. And again, that's without key players for a good chunk of the schedule.

[Kedsy]

Question: Are this efficiency margins calculated based on adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency? I suspect that they are not, but don't know for sure. And Louisville has had an easier schedule than us so far in ACC play (with Pitt twice, BC, and Miami of note).

Those numbers are definitely unadjusted. I'm a little surprised that Gasaway doesn't even mention that.

[CDu]

Those numbers are definitely unadjusted. I'm a little surprised that Gasaway doesn't even mention that.

That's what I figured.

And I realize that Gasaway was meaning that as a compliment to Duke: saying how impressive Duke is in virtually every other aspect of the game in order to be as efficient than a team that has been a top-10 efficiency team nationally in conference play despite us not being able to shoot at all. But it's actually underselling it, as we've been even BETTER than Louisville over that stretch of time.

[Kedsy]

That's what I figured.

And I realize that Gasaway was meaning that as a compliment to Duke: saying how impressive Duke is in virtually every other aspect of the game in order to be as efficient than a team that has been a top-10 efficiency team nationally in conference play despite us not being able to shoot at all. But it's actually underselling it, as we've been even BETTER than Louisville over that stretch of time.

Yeah, but the velociraptor line was pretty great.

[uh_no]

Those numbers are definitely unadjusted. I'm a little surprised that Gasaway doesn't even mention that.

yeah... kind of invalidates the analysis

[cptnflash]

The six game stretch that starts with Saturday's match-up with UVa will determine whether we have a shot to win the ACC regular season this year, and also go a long way towards determining whether we wind up with a #1 seed in the NCAAT. As ESPN points out in this article, it's the toughest six game stretch that any team will face this year, based on quality of opponent and location.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-bas...6-game-stretch

I'd say par for the course would be a 4-2 record... 3-3 would feel like a disappointment and 5-1 would be fantastic. Anything outside of those 3 outcomes looks very unlikely.

[BandAlum83]

The six game stretch that starts with Saturday's match-up with UVa will determine whether we have a shot to win the ACC regular season this year, and also go a long way towards determining whether we wind up with a #1 seed in the NCAAT. As ESPN points out in this article, it's the toughest six game stretch that any team will face this year, based on quality of opponent and location.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-bas...6-game-stretch

I'd say par for the course would be a 4-2 record... 3-3 would feel like a disappointment and 5-1 would be fantastic. Anything outside of those 3 outcomes looks very unlikely.

C'mon, Flash! I'm going for the 6-0 outcome!

[cptnflash]

C'mon, Flash! I'm going for the 6-0 outcome!

Me too! I think we're all hoping for that outcome! But there's roughly a 1 in 10 chance of that happening so I'm not getting my hopes up. I'll be more than happy with 5-1, which would mean we'd most likely be going into the last game of the regular season at 15-2 in conference and 27-3 overall. That would be a great position to be in too!

[curtis325]

C'mon, Flash! I'm going for the 6-0 outcome!

I'll allow it!

[uh_no]

With syracuse's loss to FSU tonight, they no longer control their own destiny.

11-7 is now the minimum record someone will have to win the title

(Note: i realize my previous analysis was using a 16 game schedule not 18...oops, so GT is really still alive.)

[uh_no]

After today's slate of games, the biggest change is that uva no longer controls their own destiny, having no games remaining against duke (funny how that happened ) leaving just Duke and UNC controlling their own destiny. Assuming a win in all the other games (chortle) duke will win the regular season with a split vs UNC. If UNC also beats uva and wins out, I don't know the tiebreaker off the top of my head for the 1 seed, but we'd be co-champs. Given that duke unc and uva will have a really good chance of being 1-2-3, avoiding the others until the title game could be huge.

The minimum record to win the ACC is still 11-7. For that number to rise to 12, the group of syracuse, louisville, virginia, UNC and duke must collectively win 5 more games against teams not in that set (though could happen sooner if, say, duke and UNC pick up 3 collective wins against anyone). This could happen by a week from today.

[Utley]

I came to the thread to ask the tiebreaker question you referenced here. If both UNC and us win out - other than splitting head to head - who gets the #1? Assuming UVA at 3, 1 vs 2 is a big difference.

After today's slate of games, the biggest change is that uva no longer controls their own destiny, having no games remaining against duke (funny how that happened ) leaving just Duke and UNC controlling their own destiny. Assuming a win in all the other games (chortle) duke will win the regular season with a split vs UNC. If UNC also beats uva and wins out, I don't know the tiebreaker off the top of my head for the 1 seed, but we'd be co-champs. Given that duke unc and uva will have a really good chance of being 1-2-3, avoiding the others until the title game could be huge.

The minimum record to win the ACC is still 11-7. For that number to rise to 12, the group of syracuse, louisville, virginia, UNC and duke must collectively win 5 more games against teams not in that set (though could happen sooner if, say, duke and UNC pick up 3 collective wins against anyone). This could happen by a week from today.

[CDu]

I came to the thread to ask the tiebreaker question you referenced here. If both UNC and us win out - other than splitting head to head - who gets the #1? Assuming UVA at 3, 1 vs 2 is a big difference.

Then it would depend on whether Louisville beats out Syracuse in the rankings. If Louisville is on top, we get the #1. If Syracuse edges the Cards, UNC is #1.

In other words, tiebreaker comes down to record against the next best team. In that scenario, we would “tie” in the UVa comp. So it would go on down until we got to Louisville or Syracuse.

So, yeah, wouldn’t hurt to see UVa beat UNC.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Then it would depend on whether Louisville beats out Syracuse in the rankings. If Louisville is on top, we get the #1. If Syracuse edges the Cards, UNC is #1.

In other words, tiebreaker comes down to record against the next best team. In that scenario, we would “tie” in the UVa comp. So it would go on down until we got to Louisville or Syracuse.

So, yeah, wouldn’t hurt to see UVa beat UNC.

Would 2-0 against UVa not trump a theoretical 1-0 by the Cheats?

[uh_no]

Would 2-0 against UVa not trump a theoretical 1-0 by the Cheats?

"best record" usually means %...so no.

[CDu]

Would 2-0 against UVa not trump a theoretical 1-0 by the Cheats?

"best record" usually means %...so no.

Correct. The ACC sees no difference between 1-0 and 2-0 in terms of seeding. Nor do they see a difference between 0-1 and 0-2.