This Week in the ACC - 12/2-12/8

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pfrduke

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We head out of Feast Week and into ACC/SEC Challenge week with a couple of surprising bright spots (Pitt, Louisville – although that spot has been slightly diminished with the Pryor injury announcement), a few really ugly performances (Miami, Virginia Tech), and an overall feeling of “meh” about the conference to date. Of particular note, while prior seasons have had a series of disappointing upset losses to lower caliber conferences (which have also occurred in instances this year for sure), this season has been marked by a particularly ugly record against major conference foes.

This week is a real test for inter-conference mettle as the SEC has been by far the highest achieving group in the pre-conference season with 5 remaining undefeated teams and a host of others who have looked impressive or notched impressive wins (and, to date, a 12-1 record against ACC opponents). Per Pomeroy, the lowest rated SEC team is South Carolina at 77, which checks in ahead of 9(!) ACC squads. Needless to say, the conference is an underdog for the challenge this week, with only Louisville, Clemson, Duke, and UNC as slight favorites.

And then we get conference play this weekend!

Monday is dark

Tuesday
[93]Miami (+3) hosts [43]Arkansas (7:00, ESPN2)
[73]Notre Dame (+6) at [46]Georgia (7:00, ESPNU)
[116]California (+11) at [54]Missouri (7:00, SECN)
[127]Boston College (+2) hosts [77]South Carolina (7:00, ACCN)
[101]Syracuse (+21) at [2]Tennessee (7:30, ESPN)
[64]SMU (-17) hosts [234]Alabama State (8:00, ACCNX/ESPN+)
[97]Wake Forest (+12) at [27]Texas A&M (9:00, ESPN2)
[39]Louisville (-4) hosts [42]Mississippi (9:00, ACCN)
[106]Georgia Tech (+12) at [41]Oklahoma (9:00, ESPNU)
[58]Florida State (+4) at [50]LSU (9:00, SECN)
[25]Clemson (-1) hosts [12]Kentucky (9:30, ESPN)
[91]Stanford (-10) hosts [187]Utah Valley (10:00, ACCNX/ESPN+)

Wednesday
[16]North Carolina (-2) hosts [10]Alabama (7:15, ESPN)
[102]Virginia (+15) at [8]Florida (7:15, ESPN2)
[4]Duke (-2) hosts [1]Auburn (9:15, ESPN)
[13]Pittsburgh (+1) at [28]Mississippi State (9:15, SECN)
[69]NC State (+1) hosts [35]Texas (9:15, ESPN2)
[142]Virginia Tech (+3) hosts [71]Vanderbilt (9:15, ACCN)

Thursday and Friday are dark

Saturday
[73]Notre Dame (-6) hosts [101]Syracuse (12:00, CW)
[93]Miami (+6) hosts [25]Clemson (12:00, ESPN2)
[97]Wake Forest (-7) hosts [127]Boston College (12:00, ACCN)
[16]North Carolina (-16) hosts [106]Georgia Tech (2:00, ACCN)
[142]Virginia Tech (+11) hosts [13]Pittsburgh (2:00, ESPNU)
[64]SMU (-7) hosts [102]Virginia (2:15, CW)
[69]NC State (-2) hosts [58]Florida State (4:00, ESPNU)
[116]California (-1) hosts [91]Stanford (4:00, ACCN)

Sunday
[39]Louisville (+5) hosts [4]Duke (6:00, ACCN)

ACC v. Non-Conf: 94-41
ACC v. Power 5: 12-30

AAC: 3-0
America East: 2-0
ASUN: 4-2
A-10: 2-2
Big 12: 3-8
Big East: 2-4
Big Sky: 2-0
Big South: 11-1
Big Ten: 6-6
Big West: 5-1
CAA: 5-1
Horizon: 3-0
Ivy: 1-1
MAAC: 1-0
MAC: 1-0
MEAC: 6-0
MVC: 2-1
MWC: 2-1
NEC: 5-0
OVC: 1-0
Patriot: 6-0
SEC: 1-12
Southern: 6-0
Summit: 2-0
Sun Belt: 2-0
SWAC: 3-0
WAC: 4-1
WCC: 3-0
 
In addition to the news that Louisville's Kasean Pryor (ACL tear) is out for the season, here are some ACC and SEC injury reports for this week. Jon Rothstein has briefly posted about most of these, but I've linked to full articles.

Alabama: Latrell Wrightsell Jr (ruptured Achilles) out for the year.
Louisville: Koren Johnson (shoulder) will have season-ending surgery and plans to redshirt.
Miami: Nijel Pack (lower body) is questionable against Arkansas tonight.
Missouri: Caleb Grill (neck) will sit out tonight's game against California as a precaution.
Syracuse: JJ Starling (hand) will miss tonight's game against Tennessee.
 
Watching #3 Tennessee against Syracuse in Knoxville. Vols up by 10 at the half. Orange playing without their injured best player, JJ Starling. Not impressed with the Vols. ‘Cuse doesn’t look good, shooting 3-10 FTs, I would expect Vols to be running away with it.
 
FosterCoachK82 said:
Watching #3 Tennessee against Syracuse in Knoxville. Vols up by 10 at the half. Orange playing without their injured best player, JJ Starling. Not impressed with the Vols. ‘Cuse doesn’t look good, shooting 3-10 FTs, I would expect Vols to be running away with it.
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Vols dominating in the 2nd half. They look good now and are crushing Syracuse, although I think Syracuse is pretty bad tonight. Vols up by 31 with 7 minutes to go.
 
SkyBrickey said:
So ACC spots the SEC a 5-0 lead and is the underdog in the next 4 games tonight??

I guess NIL talks and walks. 🙃
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Many of these teams are nearly all seniors. Duke is a very extreme outlier in its class composition with 3 freshmen starters. I don’t believe that there is a younger team than ours in any of the P4 conferences or even in the lesser conferences. Of course I hope that our young talent can overcome the experience of teams like Kansas, Auburn, Kentucky, and the vast majority of P4 teams, but I am skeptical. NIL is not Duke’s friend. But this year will be a good test. If we can’t win with freshmen this year I don’t think we can ever win with freshmen within the current lawlessness that is college basketball.
 
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FosterCoachK82 said:
Many of these teams are nearly all seniors. Duke is a very extreme outlier in its class composition with 3 freshmen starters. I don’t believe that there is a younger team than ours in any of the P4 conferences or even in the lesser conferences. Of course I hope that our young talent can overcome the experience of teams like Kansas, Auburn, Kentucky, and the vast majority of P4 teams, but I am skeptical. NIL is not Duke’s friend. But this year will be a good test. If we can’t win with freshmen this year I don’t think we can ever win with freshmen within the current lawlessness that is college basketball.
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And yet we have the #1 KenPom defense. This whole narrative that we are struggling is strange. We are Vegas favorites to win it all. Do we want our Coach to schedule a tough non-conference slate or not? I just choose to enjoy it and see what happens knowing we will have some stumbles along the way.

Next season we will have another very talented young roster and with no more COVID 5th years, the rest of the country will come back down to earth a bit. There won't be any RJ Davis or Hunter Dickerson's. But I guess there won't be any Sion or Mason's either.
 
SkyBrickey said:
And yet we have the #1 KenPom defense. This whole narrative that we are struggling is strange. We are Vegas favorites to win it all. Do we want our Coach to schedule a tough non-conference slate or not? I just choose to enjoy it and see what happens knowing we will have some stumbles along the way.

Next season we will have another very talented young roster and with no more COVID 5th years, the rest of the country will come back down to earth a bit. There won't be any RJ Davis or Hunter Dickerson's. But I guess there won't be any Sion or Mason's either.
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Coach cannot "win". Schedule good, tough OOC games [win]. Lose a couple and the sky is falling, and Coach's philosophy on top freshmen doesn't work anymore [not in]. Like you, Sky, I'm enjoying the journey. As others say, losing these tough OOC games hurts NCAAT seeding... makes it harder to get to the FF. But as those who wanted tough OOC schedule, this will help the team by the NCAAT. March/April is the goal... not Nov/Dec. GO DUKE!!!
 
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