ACC Basketball Update (1-22)

Photo from Ethan Hyman of the News & Observer

 

Last week had several games worthy of note:

BC pulls off another home upset by beating FSU mid-week. (Betting line FSU -3.5).

In a less than surprising result, UNC beat Clemson in Chapel Hill. (0-59 for those keeping score at home). UNC even managed to comfortably cover the 6 point spread.

Good Road Wins:

Duke over Miami (Duke -4)

Louisville over ND in Double OT (Surprising point spread at ND-3)

FSU rolled into Blacksburg for a matchup between two teams on last week’s Bubble Graph. FSU needed a win to move back towards “IN” and VT needed a win to keep from falling off of the back side of the Bubble. VT was a 2 point favorite (which surprised me), but FSU won convincingly.

Now let’s move to the conference standings to see what impact last week’s results have had:

 

RPI SUMMARY TABLE


From ESPN

I normally only include the columns that I’m going to talk about. But I think that it would be better just to include everything so that hopefully all of you can find stuff of interest that I miss.

In preparation for next week’s mid-season entry, I started putting together something on ACC SOS. With those conclusions still in mind, there were several things that stuck out when I copied this table from ESPN.

1) Yes, Duke’s conference schedule is really that easy and doesn’t look to be getting much tougher with the exception that both UNC games are in the second half schedule. This is easy to prove since their H/A opponents this year are UNC, WF, VT, and Pitt. But their OOC SOS is more than making up for the overall drop in SOS that their conference schedule will bring.

2) I had just concluded that VT had the toughest conference schedule this year when I saw that they had one of the weaker ACC schedules to date. With Duke, UVa, L’ville, and Miami for H/A opponents, I feel pretty good about my ranking. The only logical conclusion is that they will have a murderous second half to their conference schedule. So I checked and their last 9 conference games include four games against teams currently ranked in the RPI Top 10, 2 games against Miami, and they play host to L’ville. In other words, VT’s second-half ACC schedule has seven of nine games against teams headed for the NCAAT.

I’ll have more to say about the rest of the conference next week.

BC had a tough schedule last week with a home game against FSU (win) and a road game Sunday at Louisville (loss). With State playing WF and Miami, BC just snuck by State for the nation’s hardest conference schedule to date.

As we’ll see once again in the trend graphs, home losses moved both VT and State off the back side of the Bubble.

 

RPI TREND GRAPHS

In case anyone was wondering, I normally try to add data points to the trend graphs on Mon and Friday to capture the results of the weekend and mid-week games.

Duke, UNC, and UVa all went 2-0 this week to stay in the RPI Top 10. With UVa’s graph, we see that road wins against two of the worst teams in the ACC don’t always boost your RPI ranking.

Clemson went 1-1 (with a road loss to UNC) to stay a little better than even with last week.

Louisville is riding a four-game winning streak and people are beginning to say “Rick who?”.

Miami lost a little ground with a 1-1 record last week. Comparing Clemson with Miami (both teams lost on the road), it’s easy to see that it is difficult/impossible to predict how a given game’s result will impact the RPI ranking because movement is always relative to the teams on either side of you in the rankings.

Syracuse broke a four-game losing streak by beating Pitt at home….and fell into our Bubble graph.

If you look at both graphs, you can see the ups and downs of FSU’s week with a road loss to BC followed by a road win at VT.

ND is currently riding a four-game losing streak into regions of our graph that they don’t want to see.

BC went 1-1 this week to remain on the back side of the Bubble…with the midweek win against FSU giving a nice boost to their ranking.

The results of State’s two home games dropped them off the back side of the Bubble. A home win against a weak team doesn’t always help and home losses usually hurt.

VT’s loss at home dropped them out-of-sight low (0-1 for the week). I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see them here again this season.

 

ACC STANDINGS

Not a lot of changes since last week. But it’s beginning to look like the top 5 teams are starting to pull away from the middle of the pack.

Of those five, UNC easily has the hardest conference schedule. I’ll show how much harder next week.

Syracuse fell into the Bubble graph this week. With a conference record two games below 0.500, that’s probably about where they should be.

I had no positive expectations for State entering into the season or when ACC play started on New Year’s Eve. But I have to admit that I was disappointed with the Miami loss since a win would have given State a winning conference record for the first time in 3 seasons. But in the end, I don’t think that anyone would have expected State or BC to be sitting at 3-4 in conference after playing the top two conference schedules in the nation.

 

UPCOMING ACC SCHEDULE

State has two road games this week to finish its first half of the ACC schedule. Hopefully, this year’s trip to Chapel Hill will have nothing in common with last year’s visit. After the UNC game, State will have a week off to get ready for the Irish when they come to Raleigh on 2/3.

Not a lot of top-level matchups this week, but we have a few:

  • Clemson at UVA
  • L’ville at Miami
  • UVa at Duke (defense vs offense)
  • Miami at FSU

GT has already pulled off two upsets this year in Atlanta. Given the limited viewing options on Sunday evening, I’ll catch at least the first half of the Clemson/GT game to see if the Jackets have another upset in them.

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

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Home Forums ACC Basketball Update (1-22)

Viewing 18 posts - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
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  • #129261
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Last week had several games worthy of note: BC pulls off another home upset by beating FSU mid-week. (Betting line FSU -3.5).
    [See the full post at: ACC Basketball Update (1-22)]

    #129264
    Pack1997
    Participant

    Clemson lost their second best player due to injury. They aren’t a deep team so expect them to fall considerably, just as ND has done. As for the Pack, better than anyone expected at this point I think.

    #129265
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Thanks for the update on the Clemson injury

    The Tigers knocked off Notre Dame for the first time ever on Saturday, but the euphoria from the 67-58 triumph at Littlejohn Coliseum was tempered by a late-game injury to senior forward Donte Grantham, who left the game with 10:54 remaining and didn’t return.

    On Sunday, Coach Brad Brownell’s worst suspicions were confirmed when an MRI revealed that a torn ACL in Grantham’s right knee will effectively end his playing career at Clemson…

    Grantham, who started 113 of 114 games at Clemson, ranked second on the team in scoring at 14.2 points per game and rebounding at 6.9 per game. He was shooting a career-best 56 percent from the floor, including 42 percent from 3-point range, and was a key reason that the Tigers are 16-3 overall and 5-2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference and bidding for their first NCAA Tournament berth since the 2010-11 season.

    https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/sports/college/clemson/2018/01/21/win-lose-clemson-basketball-tigers-top-irish-but-lose-donte-grantham-season/1052104001/

    #129266
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Not as devastating as Clemson’s, but I forgot to mention it when I was doing this week’s update:

    Notre Dame basketball is having a tough time with injuries, adding DJ Harvey to the list, who will miss four weeks with a bone bruise…

    We saw what Harvey was capable of in his first career start against NC State. He found his rhythm shooting six-of-nine from the floor and three-of-four beyond the arc for 17 total points. The guard also pulled down three rebounds in the 30-point victory for the Irish.

    https://slapthesign.com/2018/01/19/notre-dame-basketball-injuries-dj-harvey/

    #129267
    Wolfanatic
    Participant

    A great update, VaWolf82. Thanks. I appreciate your effort.

    #129269
    etab4u
    Participant

    Agreed, a great update. I always enjoy the analysis.
    Also – in Blacksburg, it looks like VT may get a win over the holes. That’ll probably get Roy good and PO’d and looking to prove a point going into our game with them on Saturday.

    #129270
    ryebread
    Participant

    I think losing a legitimate national player of the year candidate in Colsen is easily the biggest personnel loss any team in the conference has had. Grantham is probably second though because Clemson has much less talent.

    #129271
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    That’ll probably get Roy good and PO’d and looking to prove a point going into our game with them on Saturday.

    HOKIES WIN BY 11 ~+= which otherwise would be just cause for celebration, but…

    let’s see…

    1. Keatts first trip to the Dean Dome… remember it took Jimmy 11 trips to bring home a W….
    2. Uncle Roy hates State worse than Dook…
    3. His hotshot kids got ‘humbled’ tonight in the mountains…
    4. Five days to regroup and prepare…

    Yeah… Roy should be ready by Saturday…
    if he don’t have a medical event first…

    POP!!!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #129273
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Even before last night’s game, teamrankings.com had State’s game at VT as the second toughest game left on State’s schedule (obviously behind Chapel Hell).

    They only give State a 22% chance of winning in Blacksburg.

    https://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/team/nc-state-wolfpack/projections

    #129274
    44rules
    Participant

    Hey, if you had told me after Clem’s Son Part I and the Holy Friars that we would be anywhere near bubble talk, I would have ordered two of what you were drinking.

    Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy. Mao Zedong

    #129444
    freshmanin83
    Participant

    Road wins help even if it is Pitt. Rpi now 72.

    #129447
    GoldenChain
    Participant

    Well we’ve played three terrible games with no defense and just passing around outside and shooting 3’s we could’t hit. And we won two (come from behind) of them and one on the road!
    Hope we get a AZ/Duke effort at the cheaters as I think they can be had because they aren’t as strong as their ranking.
    Yeah based on what I see with what little he has to work with I LOVE Keatts! He’s doing more than Gott did with twice the tallent. Imagine if Smith Jr was on this team!
    And man is UVA for REAL or what?! May be their year.

    #129451
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    Imagine if Smith Jr was on this team!

    Welcome back GC.. we’ve missed you…
    and fwiw, there’s maybe a dozen people here who know what “The Golden Chain” really is…

    Now… the observation above derives from three totally different scenarios…

    1. Keatts is the new Coach who inherited DSJ…
    2. Keatts is the old Coach who recruited and landed DSJ…

    Case 1: I really got my doubts… I think they might have made each miserable for one season…
    Case 2: Yeah… Keatts woulda showed DSJ some things, but if DSJ was a solid one and done… I still got my doubts as to how much would stick after just one season…
    Case 3: DSJ, just like CAT, would have 1st Team ALL ACC and maybe MVP after a couple of season, but even then… he wouldn’t have gotten a proportional amount more on his first NBA contract…

    So… it’s all ancient history, water under the bridge, anyway…

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #129452
    rthomas44
    Participant

    IMHO Keatts is not looking for 1 and done types. Those types are not really coachable and don’t really make good anchors to build a team around.

    #129453
    wolfmanmat
    Participant

    In the current basketball environment you are going to get one and dones even if you recruit kids that you don’t think are one and done. And if he doesn’t recruit kids that “could” be one and done (ie high 4 stars), then we won’t consistently be a player in the ACC. I’d imagine Keatts would take one and done 5 star if it’s the right kid (ie he would have taken Bagley, Carter, Williamson, etc if they would have us).
    Let’s just hope he recruits the “right” kids and not kids that come in selfish. But if it’s the right kids who happens to be a probable one and done, you gotta take him.

    #129459
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    But if it’s the right kids who happens to be a probable one and done, you gotta take him.

    Character always matters. Obviously it can be hard to judge the character of an 18 year old, but bad characters are not usually that difficult.

    There’s a difference in recruiting someone who is one-and-done versus recruiting a team of one-and-doners like Kentucky. The chances of State being in the later category any time soon is essentially zero. But in the end, I agree with mat. I would go even further and say that you need that level of talent to move to the top of the ACC.

    #129476
    GoldenChain
    Participant

    Character always matters. Obviously it can be hard to judge the character of an 18 year old, but bad characters are not usually that difficult.

    WTFReak? Thank you voice of ‘whatever’. And the school 25miles down the road has how many banners with how many players that were kept eligible by what fake class means?!

    And spare me the self righteous ‘well if I can’t win fair and square’ BS. Everett Case didn’t live by that, he was a live by the sword die by it kind of competitor!
    Thank you for being soft wooshie.

    #129807
    TheCOWDOG
    Moderator

    Va…you got your work cut out for ya this week.

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