MBB Nerd Polls 2024-25

Here's a look at the ACC in this early stage:

#4 Duke
#5 Pitt (!)
#18 Clemson
#26 North Carolina (lol)
#30 Louisville (what a difference a year makes)
#64 SMU (decent showing for a conference newcomer)
#67 Florida State (off to a strong start, relative to expectations)
#78 Cal
#80 Stanford (the lowest-ranked new ACC member is in the top half of the confernence)
#91 NC State
#97 Notre Dame
#115 Wake Forest (disappointing given preseason expectations)
#125 Virginia (this is probably Ron's one and only season as HC in Charlottesville)
#150 BC
#175 Georgia Tech (ouch)
#177 Syracuse (Red alert)
#191 Miami (retirement sounds nice)
#233 Virginia Tech (yikes)
 
DavidBenAkiva said:
Here's a look at the ACC in this early stage:

#4 Duke
#5 Pitt (!)
#18 Clemson
#26 North Carolina (lol)
#30 Louisville (what a difference a year makes)
#64 SMU (decent showing for a conference newcomer)
#67 Florida State (off to a strong start, relative to expectations)
#78 Cal
#80 Stanford (the lowest-ranked new ACC member is in the top half of the confernence)
#91 NC State
#97 Notre Dame
#115 Wake Forest (disappointing given preseason expectations)
#125 Virginia (this is probably Ron's one and only season as HC in Charlottesville)
#150 BC
#175 Georgia Tech (ouch)
#177 Syracuse (Red alert)
#191 Miami (retirement sounds nice)
#233 Virginia Tech (yikes)
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Those are discouraging rankings for the ACC😡
 
arnie said:
Those are discouraging rankings for the ACC😡
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It just means there are is no margin for error with teams below Louisville. Simply put, Duke cannot afford to lose a game.

Duke's schedule includes just one game each against Louisville, Clemson, and Pitt. Two of those are on the road. Then there are the two game against UNC. In an ideal world, Duke wins all of those. They can probably afford to lose 2-3 and still have a good shot at a #1 seed as long as they don't lose any games to the rest of the conference. Ideally, they win by 20-30+ against the worst teams.
 
I am so surprised that Mike Young has VT in such a disastrous position (although #142 in KP, still worst in conference, granted preseason skew).

I really liked his coaching the past few years. I'm surprised they are a bad 3-4.

- Chillin
 
ChillinDuke said:
I am so surprised that Mike Young has VT in such a disastrous position (although #142 in KP, still worst in conference, granted preseason skew).

I really liked his coaching the past few years. I'm surprised they are a bad 3-4.

- Chillin
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Maybe their NIL program is weak?
 
I want to make sure we're appreciating how good this Duke team is. I know the two early losses dimmed the hype a bit, but no matter.

Let's talk about KenPom numbers. Not just ordinal rankings, but efficiency numbers themselves. You might see that Duke is "only" #2 in KenPom behind Auburn. Well, Auburn is having a dominant season for the ages, with an adjusted efficiency margin of +36. That means they would be expected to beat the average D-I team by 36 points over 100 possessions.

An efficiency margin of +30 is elite. Teams who are +30 are on the short list of national title contenders. Some years only 1 or 2 teams finish the season at that level. This year there are currently 5: Auburn, Duke, Tennessee, Houston, and Iowa State.

Duke's adjusted efficiency margin is currently right at +35. That is a dominant number. Now, as a caveat to my next statement, hear this: adjusted efficiency margin is not directly comparable to teams in different seasons. It is a rating of teams relative to the rest of D-I in that season. As such, it doesn't necessarily tell you that a +30 team in 2017 would beat a +28 team in 2007. However, it is useful as a way of measuring dominance against a team's peers in that season.

Now, that caveat out of the way. The current squad has the best efficiency margin for a Duke team since the 2000-2001 season. That is a wild stat. There's a long way to go in the season, of course. But at minimum, this looks like a special team that is going to be on the short list of title contenders. At maximum, this could be the most dominant Duke team in almost 25 years.
 
Dr. Maturin said:
I want to make sure we're appreciating how good this Duke team is. I know the two early losses dimmed the hype a bit, but no matter.

Let's talk about KenPom numbers. Not just ordinal rankings, but efficiency numbers themselves. You might see that Duke is "only" #2 in KenPom behind Auburn. Well, Auburn is having a dominant season for the ages, with an adjusted efficiency margin of +36. That means they would be expected to beat the average D-I team by 36 points over 100 possessions.

An efficiency margin of +30 is elite. Teams who are +30 are on the short list of national title contenders. Some years only 1 or 2 teams finish the season at that level. This year there are currently 5: Auburn, Duke, Tennessee, Houston, and Iowa State.

Duke's adjusted efficiency margin is currently right at +35. That is a dominant number. Now, as a caveat to my next statement, hear this: adjusted efficiency margin is not directly comparable to teams in different seasons. It is a rating of teams relative to the rest of D-I in that season. As such, it doesn't necessarily tell you that a +30 team in 2017 would beat a +28 team in 2007. However, it is useful as a way of measuring dominance against a team's peers in that season.

Now, that caveat out of the way. The current squad has the best efficiency margin for a Duke team since the 2000-2001 season. That is a wild stat. There's a long way to go in the season, of course. But at minimum, this looks like a special team that is going to be on the short list of title contenders. At maximum, this could be the most dominant Duke team in almost 25 years.
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Good stuff. And our trend is upwards with our offense now really clicking. Can we catch Auburn in KenPom? It's very possible.
 
SkyBrickey said:
Is this team possibly surging toward all time great territory?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1875936410315936165
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It is an apples to oranges comparison to list Duke and Auburn's mid-season numbers alongside the final numbers for all these other teams. There have been teams that had in-season numbers higher than where Duke or Auburn are right now. For example, the 2019 Duke team was above 35.5 immediately prior to the Zion shoe blow-out (they never were the same after that). The top number for that 2015 Kentucky team was considerably higher than where they finished.

That said, if Auburn and Duke can continue the path they are upon they are in line to put up some historically great numbers... not even half the season done yet though so some real caution in getting too excited about this.
 
JasonEvans said:
It is an apples to oranges comparison to list Duke and Auburn's mid-season numbers alongside the final numbers for all these other teams. There have been teams that had in-season numbers higher than where Duke or Auburn are right now. For example, the 2019 Duke team was above 35.5 immediately prior to the Zion shoe blow-out (they never were the same after that). The top number for that 2015 Kentucky team was considerably higher than where they finished.

That said, if Auburn and Duke can continue the path they are upon they are in line to put up some historically great numbers... not even half the season done yet though so some real caution in getting too excited about this.
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We can drop lower for sure. We can also go higher.
 
Sure, the season isn't over yet. But we should still acknowledge that this is a historically great Duke team. Not good, great.

The list up above should point out that many of those teams didn't win it all. Duke '99, '15 Kentucky, '21 Gonzaga. Zion's team didn't even end up as high as those listed.

But we shouldn't let minor things like that get in the way of our irrational exuberance!
KenPom also says we have a 25.7% chance of going undefeated in the ACC this year. :cool:
 
dlmzzz said:
Sure, the season isn't over yet. But we should still acknowledge that this is a historically great Duke team. Not good, great.

The list up above should point out that many of those teams didn't win it all. Duke '99, '15 Kentucky, '21 Gonzaga. Zion's team didn't even end up as high as those listed.

But we shouldn't let minor things like that get in the way of our irrational exuberance!
KenPom also says we have a 25.7% chance of going undefeated in the ACC this year. :cool:
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Ha. This is my attitude too. Jon can keep the team grounded and hungry, but as fans let's fully inhale the rarefied air.

Here's reason for optimism on our KenPom rating. Our defense has been consistently great all season built on a deep rotation. With three freshmen starters and basically a brand new team, it's taken a while for our offense to start clicking. But we now have put three outstanding games together. Does three make a trend? We will know more soon.
 
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