MBB: This Week in the ACC (11/4-11/10)

Our team is going to really have to be on it's toes when we play them. They play super fast and are hyper-aggressive. I hate to even say it out loud, but they are a very dangerous team this year. They make up for the lack of an intimidating big with speed and threes. We are going to have our hands full. Like all Carolina teams, they will have some inexplicable losses this season that will fool us into thinking they just aren't that good. But when they're on - and they always are when they play us - they're very, very good.
 
<shrug> Carolina looked pretty much like I had expected: very good on offense, very poor on defense. The most important statline of the game was 28-31 on free throws. That's both a very high percentage of makes and a lot of attempts. The latter was a combination of Carolina's style of play, poor Kansas defense and very tight refereeing. I thought Carolina was getting rewarded for the offensive player running or jumping into the defender and getting the call. Halve the number of foul calls and it's a double-digit Kansas win. On the flip side, we shouldn't expect Davis to play that poorly frequently. 3-15 and 1-7 are bad numbers, and he is a very good shooter.
 
So, after Friday's games, the ACC is 27-2, with UNC losing by 3 at Kansas (92-89, box score) and Boston College losing by 25 to VCU (80-55, box score) on a neutral court in the Annapolis.

That's a nice record, but I'm pretty sure that Kansas (KenPom #7) and VCU (#36) were the two toughest opponents any ACC team faced this week, and the league went 0-2 against them. The ACC's best win so far might be Pittsburgh over #122 Murray State.

brevity said:
Saturday, November 9

Louisville hosts #12 Tennessee, 12pm ET, ACCN
Florida State at Rice, 7pm ET, ESPN+

Sunday, November 10

Georgia Tech hosts North Florida, 1pm ET, ACCNX or ESPN+
Wake Forest vs Michigan in Greensboro, 1pm ET, ESPN2
Miami hosts Binghamton, 2pm ET, ACCNX or ESPN+
Click to expand...

There are only 5 games this weekend involving ACC teams, and the two most notable ones feature Tennessee (KP #14) and Michigan (#24) as opponents. Time to see if Louisville and Wake are as good as predicted.
 
Phredd3 said:
Our team is going to really have to be on it's toes when we play them. They play super fast and are hyper-aggressive. I hate to even say it out loud, but they are a very dangerous team this year. They make up for the lack of an intimidating big with speed and threes. We are going to have our hands full. Like all Carolina teams, they will have some inexplicable losses this season that will fool us into thinking they just aren't that good. But when they're on - and they always are when they play us - they're very, very good.
Click to expand...
Who knows but Kansas does not play defense like Duke. Dickinson is just soft on both ends and UNC had a lot of open shots. UNC also got a lot of follow jams I don’t think we will allow. The key will be if our offense can score consistently enough - ie make all the wide open looks UNC will give up. I like the matchup but certainly don’t think it will be easy…
 
Phredd3 said:
Our team is going to really have to be on it's toes when we play them. They play super fast and are hyper-aggressive. I hate to even say it out loud, but they are a very dangerous team this year. They make up for the lack of an intimidating big with speed and threes. We are going to have our hands full. Like all Carolina teams, they will have some inexplicable losses this season that will fool us into thinking they just aren't that good. But when they're on - and they always are when they play us - they're very, very good.
Click to expand...
Phredd3 I love your posts but you are excluding a very important fact. UNC sucks. It's who they are. Even when they are good they suck. Their entire being is infused with an epic amount of suckitude. I'm not a physicist but I am pretty sure UNC's suckiness is Newton's 4th law.
 
azzefkram said:
Phredd3 I love your posts but you are excluding a very important fact. UNC sucks. It's who they are. Even when they are good they suck. Their entire being is infused with an epic amount of suckitude. I'm not a physicist but I am pretty sure UNC's suckiness is Newton's 4th law.
Click to expand...
They can still be dangerous, even if (or maybe especially because) they suck.
 
MChambers said:
The new and supposedly improved Louisville loses at home to Tennessee 77-55.
Click to expand...

SavDukeGrad said:
Didn’t watch the game. But is Tennessee that good? Or is Louisville worse than expected?
Click to expand...

Tennessee is ranked #12 and is considered a top 3 SEC team, just behind Alabama and Auburn. With Baylor and UNC losing, they'll probably enter the top 10 on Monday.

Louisville, bizarrely, was favored in this game by 2.5 points. That's a lot of faith for a team with a new coach and a completely reconstituted roster. It's hard to predict the performances of teams like Louisville, Arkansas, California, Kentucky -- all of whom had to rebuild mostly through the portal.
 
brevity said:
Tennessee is ranked #12 and is considered a top 3 SEC team, just behind Alabama and Auburn. With Baylor and UNC losing, they'll probably enter the top 10 on Monday.

Louisville, bizarrely, was favored in this game by 2.5 points. That's a lot of faith for a team with a new coach and a completely reconstituted roster. It's hard to predict the performances of teams like Louisville, Arkansas, California, Kentucky -- all of whom had to rebuild mostly through the portal.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Brevity. I always thought it was kind of weird that Louisville has been projected to be fairly good since, as you say, there are so many unknowns.
 
SavDukeGrad said:
Thanks, Brevity. I always thought it was kind of weird that Louisville has been projected to be fairly good since, as you say, there are so many unknowns.
Click to expand...

The ACC preseason poll ranked Louisville 9th and California 16th, and I can't tell much of a difference between the two. I think people perceive Louisville as a sleeping giant with a decent NIL budget that can fill the power vacuum because the league's top half, aside from Duke, UNC, and Wake Forest, is so uncertain.
 
brevity said:
Tennessee is ranked #12 and is considered a top 3 SEC team, just behind Alabama and Auburn. With Baylor and UNC losing, they'll probably enter the top 10 on Monday.

Louisville, bizarrely, was favored in this game by 2.5 points. That's a lot of faith for a team with a new coach and a completely reconstituted roster. It's hard to predict the performances of teams like Louisville, Arkansas, California, Kentucky -- all of whom had to rebuild mostly through the portal.
Click to expand...
I guess it's hard to predict, but all of the key players for Louisville and Kentucky have played quite a bit of college basketball, so you'd think you'd have a good handle on their abilities. It's not like trying to project how true freshmen will do.
 
brevity said:
There are only 5 games this weekend involving ACC teams, and the two most notable ones feature Tennessee (KP #14) and Michigan (#24) as opponents. Time to see if Louisville and Wake are as good as predicted.
Click to expand...

MChambers said:
Wake beats Michigan, 72-70. Minor victory for the ACC.
Click to expand...

AGDukesky said:
That’s a good win
Click to expand...

It's a very good win. Michigan's KenPom rating slipped from #24 to #25 earlier today, but it's still, by far, the best ACC win from Week 1.

Not as great: Georgia Tech losing at home to North Florida, 105-93. The Ospreys are KP #174, but with power conference road wins this week over South Carolina and now GT, plus a home win over Charleston Southern, maybe they should be reassessed.
 
I was going off of T-rank, which has Michigan at 28 and Wake at 36. The game was in Greensboro, so not a home game for Wake, but the Deacs didn’t have to travel. They only won by 2 points.

Kenpom has Michigan at 25 and Wake at 66, so that makes it look like a bigger win.

My guess is that by the end of the season the two teams will be fairly close in the ratings, but that is just a poorly informed guess.
 
RE: UNC
The biggest surprise for me was the play of their non-guards. Withers was stroking 3s, and Lubin looked way better than the project he is purported to be. The guards are, as expected, really tough. Hubert rode the 3 veteran guards in the second half, but I thought Jackson gave them great minutes in the first half and they should have gone to him more. I think Norman (above) was correct that they got a favorable whistle on many kamikaze drives. Trimble coming back was really important. They have a really solid returning core, and I think they'll be good.

RE: Louisville
I heard someone on a pod point out that it was not an unexpected result when you bring in one of the most experienced groups in Tennessee who is known for smothering defense and they play an offensive machine that has not played together much. Louisville is going to try and shoot 40 threes a game. When they are hitting, they are going to win, and vice versa. On Saturday they shot 26%.
 
Billy Dat said:
RE: UNC
The biggest surprise for me was the play of their non-guards. Withers was stroking 3s, and Lubin looked way better than the project he is purported to be. The guards are, as expected, really tough. Hubert rode the 3 veteran guards in the second half, but I thought Jackson gave them great minutes in the first half and they should have gone to him more. I think Norman (above) was correct that they got a favorable whistle on many kamikaze drives. Trimble coming back was really important. They have a really solid returning core, and I think they'll be good.

RE: Louisville
I heard someone on a pod point out that it was not an unexpected result when you bring in one of the most experienced groups in Tennessee who is known for smothering defense and they play an offensive machine that has not played together much. Louisville is going to try and shoot 40 threes a game. When they are hitting, they are going to win, and vice versa. On Saturday they shot 26%.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the post. One of my church friends who is a Cheat fan, said he thought Kansas became tired in the 2nd half because the Cheats (my words not his), played fast. He likes the fast tempo rather than the slow pace of the last 10 Bacot years.

GoDuke!
 
I don't think people thought Lubin was a "project." He was a quite effective scorer last year at Vanderbilt, especially in SEC play. People thought has was too small to be an effective "big" in the ACC, although he seems to be the same size as Maliq Brown.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top