College Hoops 2009: ACC Preview

The goal is to get six of these up in the next month. Hopefully this goes better than the Looking to October "series".

The conference odds in the table below were taken from Bodog. The latter three columns are each team's overall, offensive, and defensive Pomeroy ratings from last year.


North Carolina: This isn't how it's supposed to work. One of the five best teams in the country is not supposed to have 85% of their minutes returning, including their top six guys. For proof, look at the teams that finished in the top five in the Pomeroy ratings in each of the last four years:

(Team: Key players lost; parenthesis means the "key" tag is debatable/wrong)

2008:
Kansas: Chalmers, Rush, Robinson, Arthur, Jackson, (Kaun)
Memphis: Rose, Douglas-Roberts, Dorsey
UCLA: Westbrook, Love, (Mbah a Moute)
UNC: None
Wisconsin: Flowers, Butch

2007:
UNC: B. Wright, Terry
Florida: Green, Brewer, Horford, Noah
Kansas: J. Wright
Ohio St.: Oden, Conley, (Cook)
Georgetown: Green

2006:
Florida: None
Texas: Tucker, Aldridge, Gibson, (Paulino)
UCLA: Farmer, (Bozeman), (Hollins)
UConn: Gay, H. Armstrong, Boone, M. Williams
Duke: Redick, S. Williams

2005:
Illinois: D. Williams, Head
UNC: Felton, May, J. Williams, McCants, (M. Williams)
Duke: D. Ewing
Michigan St.: A. Anderson
Louisville: F. Garcia, E. Myles, L. O'Bannon

Florida obviously won the title in '06, and finished first in the Pomeroy ratings, but their rating (.9737) was actually slightly lower than UNC's last year (.9811).

You may recall that that loaded '06-'07 UF team lost five times: to Kansas in OT in Vegas in November, at FSU in early December, and then three SEC road games in February, against Vandy, LSU, and Tennessee. After that loss to the Volunteers they won their last 10 by an average of 15.7 points (12.7 if you leave out the Jackson St. game, which you probably should).

The Tar Heels have already gotten through the meat of their non-conference schedule, destroying both Notre Dame and Michigan St. on neutral courts. (Although, not to take anything away from Carolina, but it's unclear that either of those teams are as good as their preseason billing; the Spartans lost by 18 to a Maryland team that proceeded to lose their next two games by a combined 49 points, and ND lost to a relatively unknown (but possibly quite good) Ohio St. team in Indianapolis on Saturday.) It would take a monumental upset for UNC to lose before their fourth ACC road game on January 11th against Wake Forest.

So what's a reasonable expectation for this juggernaut? Two conference losses seems about right; I don't know that I'd be comfortable taking either the over or under on that (although, to be honest, 1.5 might be a more realistic total.) They'll probably win the conference tournament, but that's unlikely to matter, as something pretty weird would have to happen for them to not be a #1 seed in the big tourney.

They're definitely the best team in the country, and probably by a wide margin. But what's the highest percentage you can put on them winning it all? Even if you give them an extremely optimistic chance of advancing in each round -- say 99%, 94%, 85%, 80%, 75%, and 70% -- that's only about a 1 in 3 chance of cutting the nets down in Detroit. It may seem like they're going to destroy everything in their path -- and that's essentially what Florida did down the stretch three years ago -- but given the setup, 33% is about as high as you can realistically get at this point. There's a reason they're between +150 and +180 to win it all at various books.

Duke: Couldn't figure this team out in March. Still couldn't in June. Still can't in December.

They certainly don't make it look easy. Look awesome in West Lafayette one game, then start out 3/27 from three in a loss in Ann Arbor a few days later.

Do they rely too much on threes? It sure seems like it, but I don't know that they have much of a choice with that roster. Last year they were 64th in the nation in 3PA/FGA, which is about the 80th percentile; high, but not ridiculously so. When it comes down to it, just about any team that shoots 10% from deep over the first 35 minutes is going to struggle, and it's not like they were playing Indiana on Saturday; Michigan now has two pretty impressive wins.

For the second straight year, Duke is a good but rather obviously flawed team. There's a good chance that that'll be goood enough for another second place finish in the ACC, but it's just hard to see them making a deep run in March with this group, and that's obvoiusly the standard in Durham.

Wake Forest: Is it too much to ask to play anyone out of conference? What an empty 8-0 record. Oh, you beat Baylor by 13 in Anaheim. Great. I'm sold.

Wake should be above average in the ACC and a solid tournament team, as they return 97% of last year's minutes and add Al-Farouq Aminu, the #1 recruit in the conference who has averaged 12 and 9 thus far. But we won't know much about them until they host UNC on January 11. (And really, how much will that 20-point loss add to our knowledge base?)

Miami (FL): It's worth noting that the Hurricanes were up 19-7 on Ohio St. before leading scorer Jack McClinton got ejected for slapping OSU's Anthony Crater. So that five-point loss should be taken with a grain of salt.

Miami was probably better than their 8-8 ACC record by the end of last year, losing to Texas by just three points in the second round. And this year they return five of the top six from last year's rotation, with Anthony King being the lone departure.

Dwayne Collins only averaged 20 minutes per game last year, but was very efficient when he was on the court (as long as he stayed away from the FT line), shooting 55% from the field and pulling down rebound at a very high rate. He's up to 26 mpg in the first seven games of his junior year; he could be a very nice complement to McClinton in an increased role.

Clemson: The Tigers have gotten off to a quiet 9-0 start against a pretty mediocre schedule, although they did notch a good road win against Illinois. That undefeated record should really be put to the test in their next two games, home tilts against South Carolina St. and North Florida.

The team that blew an 18-point lead against Villanova in the first round of last year's tournament loses Cliff Hammonds and James Mays to graduation, but returns a pretty solid core. KC Rivers was one of only two guys in a major conference to shoot over 40% from 3 with a turnover rate of under 10% (St. Johns' Larry Wright being the other). Sophomore Demontez Stitt will try to fill Hammonds' shoes at the point, and it looks like senior Raymond Sykes will see his minutes increased after Mays' departure. Clemson's success will likely be determined by the performance of Stitt and Sykes in their more prominent roles.

Georgia Tech: This is an interesting team. Notice that I didn't say good -- they don't play a whole lot of defense, are comically bad from the line, foul too much, and did lose to Penn St. at home last week -- but it's an intriguing collection of talent.

Gani Lawal was a somewhat heralded recruit who had a pretty quite season last year, but he's come into his own in 2008, averaging 20 and 11 over the first six games. Lawal, senior Alade Aminu and junior Zach Peacock killed Vandy on the offensive glass on Saturday, combining for 18 boards on that end and 31 total (compared to 10 and 30, respectively, for the entire Commodores team).

McDonalds All-American recruit Iman Shumpert has also gotten off to a fast start, averaging 13 points, six assists and four rebounds per game, although his shooting percentages and turnovers could use some work. Senior guard Lewis Clinch is academically ineligible for the fall semester, but should be back soon and will step in to complete a rather impressive starting five. It remains to be seen if Paul Hewitt will do anything with it; they had a pretty good group two years ago and failed to make it out of the first round.

These previews are going to focus on the top half of each conference, but the weaker teams won't be ignored entirely. Virginia Tech already has three losses, but by a total of just seven points. Deron Washington is gone, but they return everyone else to a team that had the best defense in the conference last year. If Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen can improve offensively in their sophomore years, they should be a bubble team once again.

Maryland lost their backcourt tandem of James Gist and Bambale Osby and has, as noted above, gotten off to a strange start, upsetting Michigan St. in Florida and them proceeding to get blown out by both Gonzaga and Georgetown. They'll probably experience more of the latter result once ACC play starts, as it looks to be a pretty thin group beyond junior PG Greivis Vazquez. Florida State followed up their championship in something called the Global Sports Classic with a loss against an improved Northwestern team, but then rebounded to edge out rival Florida on Sunday night. They've added Chris Singleton, #12 on the Rivals 150, but lost three starters and will be hard pressed to repeat last year's 7-9 ACC record.

Boston College lost a lot of size, in graduates Tyrelle Blair and John Oates, but Tyrese Rice returns along with the rest of the backcourt. Joe Trapani, ineligible last year after transferring from Vermont, has gotten off to a nice start, averaging 13.5 and seven over the first eight games. They could improve substantially on last year's 4-12 record with a decent amount of production from Trapani and sophomores Corey Raji and Josh Southern down low.

North Carolina State's first four games make Wake Forest's non-conference schedule look daunting, although they did just play Davidson and have Marquette and Florida coming up in the next month. They lost Gavin Grant and J.J. Hickson, two of the most productive players on last year's 4-12 squad, so that's not looking too promising. Finally, the post-Sean Singletary era at Virginia has already included a home loss to Liberty. That offense was bad with Singletary's 20 points and six assists per game last year; they're 75:1 to win the conference for a reason.

Predicted standings:

I don't find any of the "To win conference" lines even remotely attractive. I may be relatively bearish on UNC's title hopes, but they may very well have a 85%+ chance of winning this conference, although I certainly wouldn't advise laying -475.