Dave Sez

Paladin Pride

I don't think I've posted too many (OK, any) Furman stories, but I can't skip this one. For some reason, the mighty Paladins scheduled a game against a school named "Virginia Intermont." I grew up in Virginia and I've never heard of this school.

As you might imagine, Furman won. By a lot. By 93 points, in fact. They were up 69-8 at halftime.

Nothing says you have a proud program like scheduling a NAIA Division II (who knew there even was such a thing?) team. In fairness, while scheduling the game was gutless, it was probably pretty fun for the Furman scrubs.

Thanks to Ken Pomeroy for the find.

First Semester Prouty Ratings

I'm a bit of a stats geek. I like playing around with numbers and seeing what I can learn. Maybe it's the engineer side of me. When it comes to evaluating basketball performance, the standard measures like points, rebounds or assists per game just don't do a good enough job. They isolate only one aspect of the game.

That's why I like some of the various player rating systems like Tendex or Prouty. You can read a bit about these calculations here. I like the Prouty in particular, because it takes the team's overall record into account. While that may not be a great measure of individual contribution, it helps fill the gaps for all the things basketball players do to help their team win that don't show up in the box score, like setting a good screen, boxing out, fighting through screens, diving for loose balls, etc. If a team has players doing those things, they'll likely be more successful and that will be reflected in part in the overall team record.

The whole Prouty calculation is this: [{Points / (Field Goals Attempted*2 + FTA)} + {(Points + Assists*2 - Turnovers) / Minutes} + {(Rebounds + Steals + (Blocks/2) - Personal Fouls) / Minutes} + {(Minutes / (TEAM TOTAL Minutes / 5)) * Team Winning Pct} ] / 4

If you look closely, you'll see that there are four main sections. I'll call them Offensive Efficiency (how many points you score per shot), Points Per Minute (how many points you score or help others score per minute), Possessions Per Minute (how many possessions you gain or lose your team per minute) and Win Effect (how responsible you are to your team's win percentage, based on minutes per game).

As you can see, it factors in most items in the box score, points, rebounds, assists, steals, turnovers, fouls, etc. as well as some efficiency ratios. All-in-all, I think it does a good job of identifying those players who do the most to help their teams win.

At this point of the season, most of the pre-conference games are done. There may be a cupcake or two left on some schedules, but basically the first part of the season is over. Now seems like a good time to see who's had the best start to the season. I'll check back later in the year using only conference games to make things more fair, but for now, we just have to live with the fact that teams have played very different schedules.

So without further ado, here are your top 50 ACC players as ranked by Prouty:

Rank	Player	Team	Prouty
1	Julius Hodge	NCSU	0.605
2	JJ Redick	Duke	0.576
3	Sean May	UNC	0.572
4	Daniel Ewing	Duke	0.568
5	John Gilchrist	MD	0.564
6	Chris Paul	WF	0.559
7	Shelden Williams	Duke	0.555
8	Jarrett Jack	GT	0.552
9	Rashad McCants	UNC	0.530
10	Jawad Williams	UNC	0.529
11	Devin Smith	UVA	0.522
12	Elton Brown	UVA	0.513
13	Robert Hite	UM	0.511
14	Raymond Felton	UNC	0.508
15	Sean Dockery	Duke	0.495
16	Luke Schenscher	GT	0.490
17	Chris McCray	MD	0.480
18	Eric Williams	WF	0.471
19	Guillermo Diaz	UM	0.471
20	Justin Gray	WF	0.469
21	Nik Caner-Medley	MD	0.462
22	Andrew Brackman	NCSU	0.461
23	Sharrod Ford	CU	0.459
24	Tony Bethel	NCSU	0.458
25	BJ Elder	GT	0.458
26	Cliff Hammonds	CU	0.458
27	Anthony Harris	UM	0.448
28	Sean Singletary	UVA	0.448
29	Shawan Robinson	CU	0.445
30	Jamaal Levy	WF	0.438
31	Will Bynum	GT	0.437
32	Isma'il Muhammad	GT	0.436
33	Jordan Collins	NCSU	0.436
34	JR Reynolds	UVA	0.435
35	Taron Downey	WF	0.428
36	Zabian Dowdell	VT	0.425
37	Marvin Williams	UNC	0.424
38	David Noel	UNC	0.421
39	Travis Garrison	MD	0.420
40	DeMarcus Nelson	Duke	0.417
41	Carlos Dixon	VT	0.413
42	Cameron Bennerman	NCSU	0.411
43	Ra'Sean Dickey	GT	0.410
44	Anthony King	UM	0.405
45	Akin Akingbala	CU	0.404
46	DJ Strawberry	MD	0.402
47	Anthony McHenry	GT	0.400
48	Ilian Evtimov	NCSU	0.394
49	Shavlik Randolph	Duke	0.393
50	Ekene Ibekwe	MD	0.393

At first glance, it looks like the ratings came about pretty close to what I expected. The guys at the top are generally considered the top players in the league. That's a pretty good sign that the rating system is effective. It should produce reasonable results, but still help you to maybe see some nuances you wouldn't otherwise pick up on.

I was surprised a bit to see McCants so low. I figured he'd be in the top three. It seems that what hurts him is his high number of fouls. Only Eric Williams in the top twenty has committed more fouls (30) than McCants' 28. When your foul total is comparable to Eric Williams', well, you have some work to do.

Conversely, I was also a bit startled to see Nick Caner-Medley up at number 22. From the heat he's been taking from Maryland fans online, I'd have pegged him for much lower. Maybe they need to back off him a bit. Sure, his misses and turnovers tend to be dramatic, but overall, he's the third most effective Terrapin.

I'll put the whole table with the raw source data in a separate file here.

DFT? No!

A small paper in Washingon published a letter to the editor advocating that the NBA institute a new postion - the designated free throw shooter. Ack!

The argument is that it would make fouling more punitive and therefore clean up the game.

A noble premise, but an awful idea.

Can you imagine teams trotting out one of those middle-aged guys with a pooch who can nail free throws all day long? You've seen these guys - they do clinics and whatnot on free throw shooting. That's really what we need in pro basketball - more old, fat guys who can't run to mid-court, but can shoot free throws all day long.

And what about the humor of watching Shaq's face as he stares down a free throw like he's trying to figure out one of those Mensa questions in an airline magazine? I need that.

Thanks to Yoni's College Basketball Blog for the find.

A Measure Of Efficiency

Ken Pomeroy is always coming up with some interesting number crunching on college basketball. His latest project is a ranking of temp and offensive and defensive efficiency. I won't try to explain his numbers. Ken had a .hard enough time himself.

Actually, the concepts are that difficult. Tempo refers to the pace a team likes to play (duh) and is measured in possessions per 40 minutes.

Offensive and defensive efficiency are a bit more complicated, but basically measure how many points a team would score or allow in 100 possessions. According to Ken, a typical game has about 70 possessions, so these numbers are gonna be higher than standard points-per-game calculations.

The results are here.

Tempo is only partially related to actual performance, as teams win with many different styles. Three ACC teams - Maryland, UNC and Georgia Tech - rank in the top 20 of pace. I was surprised at how low Wake ranked, number 73. I considered them an uptempo team, but I'm either wrong or they haven't been as effective as they'd like.

Offensive and defensive efficiency are much more closely related to actual success. Not surprisingly, when you rank by those measures, you see mostly Top 25 teams near the top. Carolina is the most efficient offensive team in the ACC, followed by Duke and Wake. Georgia Tech is the best defensive team in the country, with Duke #2. Carolina comes in at #6, showing that Ol' Roy has had some success with his preaching this year.

A quick look at the numbers shows that Duke has the best Offensive-Defensive efficiency in the country, just ahead of Oklahoma State. That says good things about the Blue Devils, methinks.

Going Poston

Yeah, this is old news, but I just saw it and it is damn funny.

Don't click here if you don't like a little bad language.

Can Jason Williams Return?

Jason Williams (I just can't call him Jay) is still working hard on what would be an incredible comeback. In his latest blog entry he mentions that he recently had his last scheduled surgery. It sounds like he is really getting all his pieces put back together.

Does that mean he'll make it back? No, but at least he has a chance, and that's pretty incredible. In a previous post, he mentioned that he dunked for the first time since his accident. Anyone who's his height (about 6'2") and can dunk has damn good springs, so that's promising. But then, every 6'2" player in the NBA can dunk, so we'll see. Frankly, in his rookie year before his injury, he didn't prove that he could be a good NBA player, so I'm doubtful that at even 95% of what he used to be he can play in the league. It's a tough business.

BTW, if you really want, you can get to Urkel's thoughts on the NBA from this link. You know you want to.

The ACC In Boston: Wicked Anonymous

The N&O did some digging around in Beantown looking for people interested in Boston College's upcoming bowl game against Carolina. No one knew or cared about it. So, they expanded their search to see if there was excitement about BC's impending acceptance into the ACC. The response? Yawn. Read it fo' yo'self.

One telling quote came from a guy who claimed to know everything about Boston sports. After being corrected when he said it was too bad that BC couldn't get in the ACC (clue #1), he said "They're going to be playing with some real schools now... Miami, Maryland, Syracuse? I don't really know. Isn't there some school in New York?"

Yeah, that's about what I figured.

They don't care up there. It's a pro town and always will be. I complained about this during the painful expansion talks. Sure, it's a huge media market, but all those fans want to watch the Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots and Bruins (well, the Bruins in theory). I understand that 3% of the Boston market is probably still better than all of Blackburg, but is that really what the ACC aspires to? To being the fifth or sixth (don't forget the New England Revolution!) local sports interest? It's disgusting.

If they try to put the ACC Tournament up there, I'm going to go on a three state shooting spree.

Back In The Garden

The News & Observer has a nice article today about Julius Hodge and his return to New York City. Tonight, the Wolfpack plays Columbia in Madison Square Garden, Hodge's first game in the hoops mecca.

Although the N&O's story was good, I liked it better when the Winston-Salem Journal wrote the same one yesterday.

Ripping Randolph

I was out of town for Christmas, but got back yesterday to see a slew of letters to the editor of the N&O lambasting Caulton Tudor for an article he wrote about Duke's Shavlik Randolph. Naturally, I looked it up.

Tudor wrote that Randolph was a bust, his decision to go to Duke was a bad one and that Coach K recruited him not to use him, but to keep him away from Carolina and NC State. Pretty tough statements. And pretty poor.

Is Randolph a bust? Probably, at least in comparison to his hype out of high school. Folks forget, but he was widely considered a lottery pick if he had skipped college. On the flip side, he's rarely been healthy at Duke and he's not a guy with so much natural talent that he can afford to be hobbled.

As to whether he or Duke made a bad decision, I can't really agree. Randolph isn't failing because he's at Duke. That's preposterous. In fact, I think he probably rather enjoys being on a winning team and getting a great education on and off the court.

Lastly, there's the whole issue of ripping college kids as busts. I don't like it, certainly not for a guy like Randolph, who's been a class act all the way. If he had run his mouth, gotten in trouble, fought with his coach and then flopped, then fine - call him out as a failure. That's not the case here. Tudor picked the wrong guy and those letters show that I'm not alone in that opinion.

Edit: You can read those letters here.

Duke Gets Top Football Recruit: Cats And Dogs Living Together

This is one of the most surprising sentences you'll ever read, "Vince Oghobaase, a 6-foot-6, 310-pound defensive tackle, committed to play football for the Blue Devils, choosing Duke over national powers Miami and Oklahoma."

In addition, "Scout.com ranks Oghobaase as the third-best player in the football-rich state of Texas." I'm aghast. What happened? Maybe he hopes to walk on to the basketball team or something.

Ranking The ACC Basketball Coaches

Back at the beginning of the football season, instead of predicting the order of finish of the teams, I ranked the coaches. My reasoning was that predicting final outcomes was damn near impossible, but I could weigh the relative strengths of the coaches. It turns out that my coach ranking came closer to predicting the final standings than I would have come by ranking the teams.

Now I'm gonna do the same with the basketball coaches.

When weighing the strengths of the coaches, I'm including all aspects of the job, or at least all of those that pertain to winning games. This includes recruiting, preparation, player development and in-game coaching. The great coaches, and you need to be a great coach to succeed in the ACC, excel in all four areas. Lack in any one, and you'll never maintain any success in this league.

1. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke - Well, duh. Coach K is well on his way to being considered the greatest college coach of all time. He might not be there yet, but he has to be in the conversation, along with Dean Smith, John Wooden, Adolph Rupp and probably Bobby Knight. Another title or two might just push Krzyzewski over the top. Let's run down a few of his accomplishments so far:

• The sixth winningest active NCAA coach (700+ wins)
• The second winningest ACC coach (trailing only Dean Smith)
• Eight ACC Tournament championships
• Ten ACC regular season championships
• Eight times national coach of the year
• Three national championships
• Ten Final Fours
• 64 NCAA Tournament victories (second most all-time)
• 78 weeks ranked as #1 team in the country
• 79.0 winning percentage in NCAA Tournament

I could go on, but you get the gist. The man is a living, working legend. You don't get that too often, but ACC fans have been blessed to have had two with K and Dean Smith. It could be decades before another like them comes along.

2. Roy Williams, UNC - This was a tough call. I waffled back and forth on which Williams would earn the #2 spot. Roy has a much higher winning percentage, while Gary has that national title. Roy built (OK, maintained) a dynasty at Kansas while Gary built Maryland into a national power. Roy has no peers (other than K) in recruiting, while Gary may be the best in the country at player development.

Eventually, I was swayed by Ol' Roy's career record. Coaching his whole career in a top flight conference, Williams has won nearly 80% of his games, the highest percentage of any active coach and the fifth highest of all time. Allow me to run down a bit of his highlights.

• 14 consecutive years at Kansas with 20 or more wins, the third longest streak of all-time
• 79.6% winning percentage (top among active coaches)
• Four Final Fours
• 35 NCAA Tournament wins (fifth all-time)
• 70% NCAA Tournament winning percentage (seventh all-time)
• 15 consecutive NCAA Tournament bids (tied for third all-time)
• Four Big Twelve (Eight) regular season titles
• Three Big Twelve (Eight) Tournament titles
• Three times national coach of the year
• Seven times conference coach of the year

As you can see, Roy has himself a pretty good resume himself. The one thing missing, the one knock on him, is that he's never won the big one. Despite all those great teams with all those great players, he's never won it all. Unlike his critics, I don't think that makes him a choker. I just think it means he's been unlucky so far. If you recall, there was a time when people said the exact same thing about Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Lute Olson, Jim Boeheim and Gary Williams. I think Roy will get his, cementing his legacy as one of the greats of all-time, just a notch below the immortals (the guys I listed above).

3. Gary Williams, Maryland - Like I wrote above, I very nearly put Gary in the second position. In fact, I had decided to go that way before I did my final checking of career numbers. Roy's were just too good. That said, I'd have no beef with someone who wanted Gary up there. He has two great things on his side - he won that title in 2002 and he's such a great player developer. Maryland has never really been able to recruit with Duke and Carolina, but Gary continues to find those guys who aren't rated quite as high but have the heart and desire to become great - Juan Dixon, Lonny Baxter, Drew Nicholas, Steve Blake. He also found a few supremely talented players that others had apparently slept on - Joe Smith and Chris Wilcox.

The one knock I have on the other coach Williams (and boy does he hate being called that!) is his in-game persona. He screams and yells and loses his composure in just about every game. I just can't believe that that doesn't negatively impact his team. Sure, his players get used to it quickly, but the coach needs to be able to communicate effectively and call upon different emotions at different times to motivate his team. Gary seems to always go with rage. You can't convince me that guys don't play tight when they know their coach will have a Tourettesian outburst if they make the slightest mistake.

In his career, coach Williams has found success at four different schools, American, Boston College, Ohio State and now his alma mater, Maryland. The Terps were in a complete shambles when he showed up in 1989. It took a few years to right the ship, but he now has the program to a point where they are consistently nationally ranked. Maryland isn't yet a full-fledged power, like Duke, UNC, Kentucky, UConn etc, but they have slipped into that second tier of teams that you expect to see ranked every year.

4. Skip Prosser, Wake Forest - There is a pretty big drop-off after the first three guys. It's not so much that the next few guys are much worse right now, but they haven't yet proven over a career that they are Hall of Fame-level guys.

Prosser has done an exceptional job at Wake since coming over from Xavier. The path he followed seems to be the standard for most ACC guys - build a very nice program in a mid-major conference like the Atlantic 10, MAC or Big East and then take on a job at a foundering ACC school. In Skip's case he was lucky; Wake was actually in pretty good shape. He got the opportunity only because Dave Odom got a wild hair (probably in his comb-over) and decided to finish his career in near-obscurity in Columbia, SC.

Prosser very quickly upgraded Wake's recruiting and therefore, talent. Against all odds, Wake is the North Carolina school that seems to grab all the top in-state talent. Wake's three best players, Justin Gray, Chris Paul and Eric Williams, are all natives of North Carolina. With those players leading the way, Wake reached the #1 ranking just a few weeks ago for the first time in their history.

In Prosser's eleven years as a head coach at three schools (he coached one year at Loyola College in Maryland before taking over the Xavier job when former boss Pete Gillen left for Providence), his teams have been in the postseason ten times, including eight invitations to the NCAA Tournament.

If he continues at this pace, Skip Prosser will join the ranks of the ACC coaching legends.

5. Paul Hewitt, Georgia Tech - Paul Hewitt has been a head coach for only seven years, but he seems well on his way to an outstanding career. Before he joined Georgia Tech five years ago, he spent three seasons at Siena, quickly building them into a tournament-worthy team. That quick success got him noticed and the Yellow Jackets snagged him off of everyone's hot list. In Atlanta, he's found things a bit tougher, but his teams have gotten better each season. Bobby Cremins had let things rot a bit, so Hewitt had work to do both in recruiting (Cremins had his bad habit of landing one or two superstars every few years and ignoring the rest) and on the court.

In his first three years, his teams hovered just above the .500 mark, making the tourney his first year and the NIT in his third. While the overall record wasn't stellar, any casual ACC observer could see the difference in the way Georgia Tech's teams played. In particular, they play much better defense than they ever did under Cremins. Last year, it all came together as the Jackets stormed out of the gate, spanking #1 UConn and winning the preseason NIT. They muddled a bit in the middle of the season, but got going again at the end, making it all the way to national championship game where UConn got their revenge.

So while Hewitt's career is still pretty young, you can't do a whole lot better then second place. It's possible he'll never reach those heights again, but for now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying his teams will be forces for a while to come.

6. Herb Sendek, NC State Herb Sendek has had maybe the strangest career of any ACC coach ever. He came into a situation as bad as could be. State was coming out of a long period where they were on probation by the NCAA and then further penalized by having Les Robinson as a coach for way too long. Les was (and is) a great guy, but he was a terrible, terrible coach. State fans hated watching their team and I don't think any sane player wanted to go there.

In stepped Herb Sendek. I'd seen and been impressed by his Miami of Ohio teams (I watched them nearly knock UVA out of the NCAA Tourney in '95), but didn't know much about the guy. From what was said about him, everyone thought that Raleigh was getting a high energy, full-court pressing style. After all, Sendek was a Pitino disciple, right? That run-n-gun-n-win style seemed perfect to fire up a dejected Wolfpack faithful.

Only, that's not what they got. Instead, Sendek put in a aggressive half-court defense and an ugly half-court offense. The offense eventually morphed into a Princeton-style passing game, which is pretty only when played perfectly. When it's not clicking, the offense is ugly and boring, not unlike Herb himself who often looks like he's thinking about his taxes while on the sidelines.

For the first several years, the team got a little better, but only a little. Several times though, they made exciting runs to the ACC Tournament finals. Each season, as they failed yet again to get a bid to the Big Dance, the wolves howled louder. In Sendek's fifth year, State actually slipped to sub .500 and no postseason. Against all odds, he wasn't fired and that has turned out to be a great decision. A large part of that faith had to do with Sendek landing top prospect Julius Hodge, a cocky New York City kid who couldn't possibly seem less suited to Sendek and his coaching style. Nonetheless, Sendek kept his job and with Hodge and several other good recruits (how on earth does this man go into living rooms and convince kids to play for him? I'm baffled!) State finally made the tourney for the first time since 1991. Sendek followed that season up with two more that ended in the tourney.

So, what's the final verdict? Is he a good coach? His teams win now, but they still go into unexplainable offensive droughts that can last for ten minutes at a time! I now say that he is a good coach, but for a long time I wasn't convinced. It turned out though that he just needed to figure out what sorts of players work in his system and then get them. Now that he has the right parts, his teams win and they look well-coached while doing it. The only question now is can Sendek break through to that upper echelon of ACC coaches? Can he get a team to the Final Four? That's what it takes to prove yourself in this league.

7. Pete Gillen, Virginia - A lot of people will argue about this one. Many will say that I'm rating Gillen too highly here. That's pretty funny when you think of his reputation just a few years ago (check his winning percentage in the table at the bottom of this column). Back then, he was thought of as one of the best coaches in the country, a guy who could win with anyone and who could then work the press corps after the game like Henny Youngman in his prime.

Gillen came in and took over a Virginia squad that was so depleted he had to occasionally play a guy who had been a campus bartender the year before. Somehow, Gillen got some big wins out of that team and quickly built on that success. Just as quickly as the success came though, it went away. In the 2001-02 season, UVA climbed as high as #4 in the country before completely falling apart and failing to make the tournament. The next year saw nearly the same thing happen, albeit not quite so dramatically.

The thing is, it wasn't just that the Cavs were losing, but how they were losing. Players bitched and pouted. They quit. They got in trouble off the court. Gillen burned through timeouts like Rush Limbaugh popping OxyContin. He looked lost and desperate and his team reflected that.

Luckily for Gillen, Virginia had signed him to a huge ten-year contract, meaning it would be too expensive to fire him. Then, late last season, the light seemed to turn back on. UVA won a ton of close games down the stretch, upsetting Georgia Tech, UNC and Wake Forest en route to the NIT (and nearly getting a bid to the NCAAs). This season has started off strong as well. It seems that Gillen has his fastball back.

Given that his team looks better this year, I'm inclined to give Gillen back the credit he earned during the earlier years of his career when he built Xavier into a power and got Providence into the Elite Eight behind God Shammgod and Austin Croshere. Maybe he's not the national-level coach everyone thought he was a few years ago, but he's still pretty good.

8. Leonard Hamilton, Florida State - Just like in picking between the two Williamses, I had a tough time deciding between Pete Gillen and Leonard Hamilton. Each found great success at two prior jobs, Gillen at Xavier and Providence and Hamilton at Oklahoma State and Miami. In between there, Hamilton had an ill-fated detour to the NBA, but I'm not penalizing him for that. I guess the reason I'm picking Gillen over Hamilton right now is that Gillen seems to currently be on a coaching uptick and I don't think Hamilton is. His team narrowly missed out on the NCAAs last year and were expected to be right back at that level this year. Instead they have started out horribly, losing to Texas A&M - Corpus Christi, Kent State, TCU and Florida International. Not good, and this should be a pretty talented team, with two McDonald's All-Americans. Is it fair to knock Hamilton down for a bad stretch when he's had such a good career? Probably not, but that's how close it is between him and Gillen. If I wrote this same article a month earlier or later, I might pick the other way.

Despite his team's bad start this year (and they did begin to right the ship this weekend in College Park where they almost knocked off Maryland), Hamilton has had a positive impact on the dreadful Florida State program. When the Seminoles joined the ACC back in 1992, they finished a shocking second at 11-5, but it turned out that that team, with Charlie Ward, Sam Cassell, Bob Sura and Doug Edwards, was their best ever. Coach Pat Kennedy was an effective recruiter, but a terrible game coach. After his career fizzled and he left for Depaul, the Noles brought in longtime assistant Steve Robinson. He turned out to be a pretty mediocre coach as well.

So Hamilton had work to do. FSU has little history, plays in a dreadful arena and has a hard time getting decent crowds. Despite that, Hamilton has recruited well, landing those two McDonald's All-Americans (Von Wafer and Anthony Richardson) plus several other highly rated recruits. The team defense is drastically better than it was, but their offense is still erratic. In his first two years, the Noles were competitive when hyper guard Tim Pickett scored and got spanked when he didn't. Unfortunately in the ACC, if you only play well on one end of the court, you aren't going to win a lot. If coach Hamilton can find an effective offense, he could yet build a strong program in Tallahassee. If he does, he might just climb this chart.

9. Oliver Purnell, Clemson - Oliver Purnell has coached in the ACC just one year. In that one year, he tried to pick up the pieces of a program that has rarely managed to compete in the ACC. Purnell's first year went about like most Clemson campaigns - poorly, but he showed promise. While he had a team full of odd players, sort of an Island of Misfit Toys team, he found a way to mold them into a solid, if not ultimately successful unit.

Purnell has had a fairly long career already, climbing the ladder from Radford to Old Dominion to Dayton and finally to Clemson. He won at each rung on the ladder, earning coach of the year honors in each conference he was in. He took both ODU and Dayton to the NCAA tourney, and narrowly missed out in his last year at Radford.

So, while he hasn't been in the ACC long enough to establish himself as one of the top coaches, Oliver Purnell's resume suggests that he could. If anything, he gives Clemson a hope that they haven't really had since Rick Barnes left. And before Barnes, Clemson never really had a good coach. Cliff Ellis was the closest, and I never thought he was much of a coach, just a pretty good recruiter. In fact, as good as he was, even Rick Barnes had a sub-.500 career record in the ACC. I think Oliver Purnell has an excellent chance to be the best coach Clemson has ever had.

10. Seth Greenberg, Virginia Tech - Now we get to the tricky part - ranking the coaches who haven't yet coached in the ACC. Of the two, Seth Greenberg and Frank Haith, it's pretty easy to pick the stronger candidate. Greenberg had very impressive results at two small schools, Long Beach State and South Florida before his one year in Blacksburg, while Haith is in his first year as a head coach. Advantage Greenberg.

Coach Greenberg really earned his rep as a good coach and great recruiter at his first gig at Long Beach State. In six years, he made the NCAA Tournament twice, won a game at Kansas and sent three players to the NBA. He then moved on to South Florida and Conference USA for seven more seasons. He never got the Bulls into the Big Dance, but he racked up tons of wins against major conference teams including Ohio State, Texas, Florida State, Wisconsin and Pittsburgh. No one wanted to schedule South Florida.

In his one year at Virginia Tech, the Hokies finished at 7-9 in the Big East. For VT, that counted as a monumentally successful season. The Hokies' Bryant Matthews led the Big East in scoring and was second in assists behind his teammate Jamon Gordon. With Gordon returning and a solid recruiting class, the Hokies could be a surprise in the ACC. I say "could," because, like Florida State, they've had a rough start to the season, losing to VMI and a decimated St. John's squad. The season is long though, and Greenberg's team last year turned it on late in the year. If he can even approach 7-9 again this year, he'll get some consideration for ACC coach of the year.

11. Frank Haith, Miami - Someone has to be last, and I had to go with the new kid on the block. The ACC's a tough place to break in, especially at a school with little basketball history like Miami. I don't have a whole to write about Haith, because I don't put too much credence in what guys did as assistants. All head coaches at major schools have impressive assistant coaching backgrounds, so there's nothing there to separate Haith. One thing I do know is that his career has had a good start. Very little was expected of the Hurricanes this year, but they already have a big upset, winning at Florida. That kind of offsets the loss to South Carolina State.

Haith is taking advantage of three talented guards, depending on them for the bulk of his offense. It remains to be seen how that approach will work in the ACC where there are a ton of talented backcourts, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Hurricane trio outplays a few more highly touted guard combos along the way.

Career Records:

				All-Time			ACC games		

			W	L	%		W	L	%

Mike Krzyzewski		694	240	74.30%		239	108	68.88%

Roy Williams		437	112	79.60%		8	8	50.00%

Gary Williams		522	293	64.05%		132	104	55.93%

Skip Prosser		232	107	68.44%		31	17	64.58%

Paul Hewitt		142	81	63.68%		31	33	48.44%

Herb Sendek		210	134	61.05%		55	73	42.97%

Pete Gillen		360	193	65.10%		41	55	42.71%

Leonard Hamilton	235	239	49.58%		10	22	31.25%

Oliver Purnell		266	209	56.00%		3	13	18.75%

Seth Greenberg		227	183	55.37%		0	0	---

Frank Haith		0	0	---		0	0	---

Update: A number of message boards have started threads discussing this article. I thought you might want to go check those out to see what folks are saying. I started one or two of those threads before I realized that people had already found it and were starting their own.
TheSabre.com (Virginia board)
Pack Pride Premium (pay site)
Deacon Sports
Carolina Blue (I started this one)
Pack Pride (free board - I started this one trying to find out what was going on in the Premium board)
Tech Sideline (Virginia Tech board)
Inside Carolina (only one post here for some reason)

The Worst Football Fan In America

This story just boils my blood. Students of Texas A&M (the one in College Station, not the basketball powerhouse in Corpus Christi) were camped out in line for tickets to the Cotton Bowl. Some students had been in line for days. In the middle of the night, while most in line were sleeping, a woman walked by them all, right to the front of the line. When the angry campers awoke, they showed her the signup list that proved that she had not earned her spot. Her response? She ate the list.

Despite the ensuing mob anger, she ended up second in line and got her tickets. She even pressed assault charges against a guy who grabbed her by the wrist.

The woman, who for some reason is unnamed (she should be named and have her picture posted all around) claims that she did nothing wrong and was "right with God." God refused to comment on the matter. The list-eater did add in her defense, "if they wanted a spot, they should've woken up."

You can actually see her on video here.

Thanks to the Sports Frog for the story.

ACC Weekend Notes

It was an interesting weekend in the ACC, with the first two conference games, two teams heading out west to play tough opponents and two games against tough Big 12 opponents. The two farthest travelers, Georgia Tech and NC State each lost to Gonzaga and Washington, respectively. Neither loss was terribly surprising as both of those teams are good and it's just tough go that far for a game and play at your best.

For the Wolfpack, it was particularly unsurprising, as State seems to have problems every year with non-conference opponents. It's not really December if the Pack isn't losing ugly to someone like UMass or Temple. In fairness, they played well enough to win this game, but still lost. The biggest problem is that the Huskies are really the only good team NC State has played. It's hard to really know where the Wolfpack stands right now.

In the two conference games, Carolina went up and baptized Virginia Tech in the cold waters of the ACC cellar. The only really interesting thing about this game is that the Tar Heels won by 34 points while getting only three points from Rashad McCants. That says either really good things about UNC or really bad things about the Hokies. Probably both, actually. For Carolina, it worked out much better than the last time they played their first game against a football school newly added to the conference. If you remember, Florida State came into Chapel Hill and upset the Heels behind Sam Cassell, Doug Edwards and Charlie Ward. It was after that game that Cassell gave his famous "whine and cheese" quote about the somnolent Carolina fans.

In the other ACC game yesterday, Florida State nearly pulled off what to me would have been a huge upset. The Seminoles have been terrible this year so to get a win in College Park would have been stunning. I think Maryland has been underachieving a bit so far this year as well, but I never figured this game would be close. Hopefully it indicates that Leonard Hamilton is finally getting through to this team. He really can't point to a lack of talent any more, as his team has as many big-time recruits as any team in the conference outside of the Triangle. Instead I think it just shows that his team is wildly inconsistent, the mark of a poorly-coached, but talented squad. I guess you could say similar things about Maryland, but I know they aren't poorly coached.

In the mini ACC - Big 12 Challenge (yeah, yeah, I'm getting a little carried away with this stuff), the ACC won 2-0. Wake Forest nipped Texas 89-88 in a damn good game and Duke took a little post-exams nap before coming back to beat Oklahoma 78-67. Both wins were good wins against the type of teams you see in the second or third round of the NCAA tourney. Actually, Texas could go even further than that. The Big 12 has an impressive collection of coaches, so it's always good to see the ACC play those teams and win.

ps. If the site registrations are getting you down, go to http://www.bugmenot.com and get their browser extension. It'll give you access to pretty much any site.

Ask George Welsh

TheSabre.com has a very interesting interview up with former coach George Welsh. The article asks a series of questions about football strategy (about spread offenses, pulling guards and special play calls for a talent like Herman Moore) and the legendary coach gave some long, detailed answers. It's good reading.

"Doc" Holliday Hops Along From State

Chuck Amato's football staff took yet another serious blow yesterday when associate head coach John "Doc" Holliday left to join Urban Meyer's staff at Florida. It's bad enough to lose a good coach, but the real damage could be in recruiting where Holliday was known as State's chief Florida recruiting. As you know, the Wolfpack has had good success in recent years in mining the Sunshine State. That will be tougher with Holliday now using his connections for the Gators.

Times could get tough for Amato. This past season also signaled the end of the honeymoon, with fans starting to criticize the team's performance. All the excitement that came with Amato's hire and first few years is starting to turn into crushing expectations. The Pack needs to make a solid run at an ACC title to appease fans, but that's tough to do when you have to shuffle your coaching staff each season. Amato has had nine assistants leave, including defensive coordinator Reggie Herring, since he took the head job.

Breakin' It Down Secondary Style

I always liked the way Dean Smith's teams ran the secondary break. That may be because I had a coach once who was a big Dean fan and made that a big part of our offense. Somehow it didn't work quite as well when we ran it...

Anyway, over the years, as the Heels changed coaches and had some point guard problems, they got away from the secondary break. Out in Lawrence though, Roy Williams' Jayhawks were running like mad, much more even that Dean's teams ever did.

Now that Roy has set up shop in Chapel Hill, the break is back.

Don't miss this nice graphic that shows the basic flow.
Oddly enough, the various shot options don't seem to include Jackie Manuel.

The Logic Of Vitale

Each week "a panel of ESPN experts" picks their top 16 college basketball teams. This week, four of the five guys picked Illinois as their number one team, just like the regular polls did. The one dissenting voice? None other than Dick Vitale.

But, at least he has some solid reasoning:

The Jayhawks were impressive in beating Louisiana-Lafayette over the weekend while Illinois took care of Georgetown and Oregon.

Yeah, that sounds good to me too, Dick. Those Ragin' Cajuns (yes, that's really Louisana-Lafayette's nickname) are one damn fine team. Why they nearly knocked off Georgia State!

You can read it for your own bad self rightchere.

NC State Cream Puffery

An astute reader of mine sent me an email this morning asking if NC State's lofty #9 ranking wasn't the result of some national pro-ACC bias. His argument is that while the Wolfpack began the season at #19, they've moved up ten notches while beating a whopping collection of nobodies. I checked it out and he's right! Well, he's right about the horrid schedule, not the pro-ACC conspiracy. You have to know this guy ...

Anyway, for years, Herb Sendek took some heat for putting together schedule after schedule of Southeast Whatchamazoo States and Northern Technical State A&Ms. He claimed at the time that the team was rebuilding and that once established, they'd put together a schedule commensurate with their strength. OK, when's that gonna happen, Herb?

The best team from a name perspective that State has played was Purdue, and State had to play them as part of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. According to Ken Pomeroy's computer rankings, the best team State played so far was Manhattan. Manhattan is ranked 106 by the Pomeroy Ratings.

In fairness, State does still have a game at Washington and one more at home against West Virginia. Both are decent games, but the only reason that's even mildly acceptable is that the Huskies came out of nowhere last year to have a good team. Historically, they've been even worse than West Virginia, who has pretty much no post-Jerry West tradition.

Check this link to see in numbers just how bad State's opponents have been. In seven games, four opponents have been ranked in the 200's or worse.

Don't be surprised if this team suddenly doesn't look quite so good once the conference season starts. Duke and Wake Forest ain't East Carolina and Liberty.

More On Denny's Dream Date

I've gotten a ton of search hits from people looking for info and pics on Denny Neagle's prostitute. I can't blame them. She's some kinda woman!

So, I thought I'd help folks out and post a few more pics of the fetching lady of the night.

Here she is relaxing at home -

Here she is in a happier moment. Isn't she radiant? -

Awww, and here she is with her doggie! -

And lastly, this one, which unfortunately was a bad hair day -

Stats Fest

During Yoni's vacation, a number of guest bloggers (including me) have been posting on his site. One recurring theme has been some egghead discussion of how to better evaluate player performance using non-standard statistics. There have been several posts on the topic, and they are pretty damn interesting (I never said I wasn't a geek).

Che-che-che, che-check 'em out:
statistically insignificant
stats continued
Wooden Finalists
even more stats

If that isn't enough to fill your eraser head up, check out this geekery-filled site on the NBA. It's chock full of interesting looks at numbers in The League.

Cleveland Wrecks

The Sports Economist often posts interesting articles on the economic impact of sports stadiums on the surrounding communities. This is one of those topics that's difficult to really follow closely because for one thing it's kinda boring and another, it's an emotional thing so it can be hard to get unbiased facts.

This post shows two different opinions (one informed, one not so much) on the impact of Cleveland's new downtown stadiums. Remember this next time your city asks you to vote to raise taxes for a new stadium.

ACC Considering Instant Replay

The ACC is considering experimenting with instant replay for football next year. They aren't yet sure what form the experiment would take. One obvious issue is that not all ACC games are televised. How would they ensure complete camera coverage in those games?

Even if the ACC decides to go forward, they'd need to wait until the NCAA votes on whether they'll approve such experiments again next year. The Big Ten gave instant replay a try this past season.

TA Takes Off

NC State running back TA McClendon has decided to leave school one year early and enter the NFL draft.

It's an interesting decision for TA. When he's healthy, he's as good as any back in the country (except maybe for Adrian Peterson or Reggie Bush). He's a big, powerful runner who is hard to bring down and has enough speed that if he gets in the backfield, he can go all the way.

The problem is that he's seemingly never healthy. I can't remember any player in any sport who had so many different injuries in such a brief period. It's not like he had a nagging knee or ankle injury, it was everything - knees, ankles, wrists, toes, pinkies, earlobes, you name it.

Maybe he figured that he better get a paycheck before he knocks himself out for good.

The other knock on TA, and one that might concern NFL reps the most, is that TA had a disturbing tendency to fumble. He fumbled 13 times in only three abreviated years. Many of those fumbles, like the big one at the end of the Carolina game this year, came at critical times.

Caulton Tudor has a pretty good article today touching on many of these same points. Like many of us Tudor, just doesn't know exactly what to make of TA. Was he a great bad player or a bad great player? (Coincidently, I've heard the exact same sentiment about State basketball player Julius Hodge.)

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Ken Pomeroy is on the warpath again. He loves correcting incorrect but popular notions. One of his favorite targets is the myth that free throw shooting is a lost art.

The latest article that Ken attacks is by Rice head coach Willis Wilson.

Wilson claims that "percentages from the charity stripe have declined in recent years," but Ken points out that that's just not true and all it would take is a minute to look it up.

Collins Banned

Former world and US track champion Michelle Collins was suspended for eight years by the US Anti Doping Agency for taking various illegal subtances.

What's particularly interesting about this is that Collins never failed any tests. She was convicted solely based on documents that detailed her relationship with BALCO. The documents specified what she was taking and when and included emails to and from Collins and BALCO sleaze Victor Conte.

This is significant because it shows that Marion Jones could have the same thing happen to her. Jones, as her attorney has pointed out, hasn't failed any tests either, but then that was the whole point of BALCO. You could get steroids and stimulants anywhere, but BALCO specialized in avoiding detection. We now know that BALCO supplied illegal drugs to Collins, Kelli White, Tim Montgomery, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Bill Romanowski and others. Are we to believe that he didn't give Marion Jones the same stuff he gave everyone else?

I'm not buying it. I don't think the USADA or IOC will buy it either. Look for them to ban her eventually and probably revoke her gold medals from the 2000 Olympics.

For more talk about Marion Jones and her troubles, there was a pretty good discussion in the Sports Shack a while back.

The 700 Club

Yeah, it was an easy and obvious title, but sometimes you have to pluck the low-lying fruit.

Anyway, congratulations to Coach K for reaching yet another milestone, win number 700. Krzyzewski is still going strong, so expect these sorts of career achievement celebrations to continue off and on for the next ten years or so. At the end, he'll be the winningest college coach of all time. Mark it down.

Remembering Whittenburg's Foot

In their Return to Reynolds series, GoPack.com put up an article about the game in 1983 when Derrick Whittenburg broke his foot. I'm really glad they picked this one, because it's one of those significant details of history that is often forgotten.

That '83 State team is of course famous for running the table in the ACC and then NCAA tournament, one of the great Cinderella stories of college hoops. The thing is, they weren't really a Cinderella at all. That was a very, very good team. In that game, State was stomping a very good (and #2 ranked) Virginia team. If I remember correctly, the Wolfpack was up by around 20 when Whittenburg came down on Othell Wilson's foot and broke his foot.

With Whittenburg out, the Cavs stormed back and won the game. State went on to lose several more games in a strong ACC before Whittenburg came back just before the ACC tournament. With him in the lineup, State was easily a top ten team, and without him, other players were able to step up and develop their game so that when he returned, they were even better.

The ACC Hoops Blog wrote a bit about this (and one other game) as well.

Banana Nana, Hassan Fofana, Hey Hey Goodbye

There are certain rules that fans have about players on opposing hoops teams. You always hate the good white players, you might like the really good dunkers (depends on how good an overall player they are and if they dunked on your team) and you always like the really, REALLY big guys. I don't know why these things are true, but they are. Don't question.

Case in point, I loved Big Jelly at Florida State a few years ago. The guy was rarely effective, but you just have to love a player that has his own moons.

The closest recent player was the gargantuan and beautifully named Hassan Fofana at Maryland. Unfortunately, Mr. Fofana (true story, his middle name is Banana Nana) is transfering. When he leaves Maryland, he's sure to leave a series of lakes and giant boulders as he scars the land.

Miller Wins Mackey

Heath Miller won the prestigious John Mackey award yesterday. The what, you ask? You know, the Mackey award, given out to the nation's top tight end. Oh, that one.

Anyway, while it's not really a household name award, it is a good one and it's the only national award an ACC player is going to win.

Miller, a junior, actually didn't have as a good a year statistically as he did last year. In many ways this award, like a lot of them, was a bit of a career achievement award. When the Cavs did throw the ball his way, he made some great plays, but they didn't feature him as much as in his previous two years.

Still, Miller's a good guy and a great tight end, so congratulations Heath!

All-ACC Football Teams

The ACC released 2004 All-ACC Football teams the other day.

One of the things that struck me was that despite adding two very good teams to the conference, this is one of the weakest sets of offensive skill position players that I can remember. No offense to the players selected, who all had good years, but it's hard to find a real superstar among their ranks. I guess Bryan Randall is the closest, but he didn't really even wrap up his position until the last game or two of the season.

On the flip side, check out those linebackers! You know it's impressive when guys like Darryl Blackstock and Ernie Sims have to settle for second team honors.

Judging by the voting, Virginia's huge lineman Elton "Big E" Brown had the best season relative to his peers. From what I saw, he was pretty deserving of that honor. It's hard to really follow offensive line play, especially on TV, but big Elton managed to make an impression anyway. When someone that big can move that well, well you know he's gonna make some money next year.

When Superman Fell

GoPack.com has a great little article up on David Thompson's famous fall in Reynolds Coliseum. The game was a second round NCAA tournament game against a physical Pittsburgh squad. I was pretty young when this happened and not yet following sports, so I only learned about it much later. From everything I've read and seen though, it was a horrific play.

GoPack also has two other fairly interesting articles related to Reynolds' history here and here.

Herring Leaves State

In a move that was somewhat overshadowed by bigger sports news (steroids, Notre Dame, the BCS mess, etc), NC State defensive coordinator Reggie Herring packed up and left Raleigh to take the same position at Arkansas. This could be a pretty serious blow to State. Herring was there only one year and quickly changed State from being one of the worst defenses in the league in 2003 to being the number one overall defense in 2004.

When good teams lose their coordinators, it can be a serious blow to the program. The ACC has had numerous examples in recent years of teams taking a dip after a top guy leaves - Ralph Friedgen leaving Georgia Tech, Rich Rodriguez leaving Clemson, Chuck Amato and Mark Richt leaving Florida State, etc.

Head coaches are basically CEOs. They leave most of the day-to-day coaching and play calling to their top assistants. A good coach is often the product of good assistants.

So, this hurts State. Their defense is what salvaged what was otherwise a pretty disappointing season. Without that stout D, they probably would have lost another game or two. The Wolfpack still has a lot of talent, so a new coordinator will have plenty to work with, but he'll have a tough time matching what Herring did in his one season.

Congrats To The Hokies

Somehow I've managed to avoid congratulating Virginia Tech on wrapping up their first ACC Championship this past weekend. They couldn't have earned it in grander fashion, beating Miami in the Orange Bowl to win the title outright.

I'd have to say that the job that Frank Beamer did with this team has to rank among the all-time best coaching performances in ACC history (it's up there with Maryland in 2001, Georgia Tech in 1990 and Clemson in 1981). This was a team picked to finish in the bottom half of the conference. They lost their first game of the season (albeit in a good showing against #1 USC) and then were beaten up in their second ACC game by NC State. You may recall that the State defense sacked Bryan Randall ten times in that game. Ten times! So the Hokies lost to a team that ended up not even being bowl eligible.

But then, the Hokies got better. And better. And better. Each week they improved a little, which is the best sign of outstanding coaching. That offensive line, the same one that gave up ten sacks to the Wolfpack, is now as dominant as any in the conference. The Hokies can run the ball and they can keep you from running. Randall can throw the ball and they can keep you from throwing.

In their last two games, Tech beat two of the three other teams that had a shot at the title (they never played Florida State this year). You can't do any better than that - beating the contenders straight up. Both Florida State and Miami, the two giants of the conference, lost to lower teams in the conference. Twice. Virginia was never upset, but they lost to all of the other top teams.

The Hokies won the ACC and they couldn't have deserved it more. Hokie, hokie, hokie, hi.

The $19M Prostitute

Denny Neagle was arrested and will likely have his $19 million contract voided for the hooker in this picture. Wow.

I have nothing really to add here, I just thought that was about the funniest picture I've ever seen. Who looks at that and thinks "oh yeah, I got to get me some of that, even if I have to pay for it?" Apparently Denny Neagle, that's who.

Paulus Fooled Us

You may have seen the headlines that Greg Paulus announced that he is indeed heading to Duke to play basketball. When I saw that, I didn't bother to read about it, thinking that the troubles at Notre Dame probably helped him make his decision.

I was wrong.

It turns out that he's a little sneak. He actually signed and returned his Letter Of Intent back on November 16, but kept it secret. His football team, Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse, NY was in the state playoffs and he says he didn't want to make a distraction. So, he waited to announce. He pulled it off and says it went exactly as planned (his team won the state championship), but it seems to me that he created more attention by appearing to be wavering about committing to Duke. I guess he wanted his teammates to think that he was still considering a career in football or something.

You can read Greg's very words on the matter here.

Two Timing

You may or may not have noticed, but I'm not being completely loyal this week. Yoni of the College Basketball blog is on vacation this week and asked me to guest blog a bit on his site. Since I have a wandering eye and his site is dead sexy, I said yes. Hey, I'm only a man.

Tommy's Tight-Lipped Tumult Tears Tigers

Tommy Bowden has been going on a firing spree down at Clemson. A quiet, surgical firing spree, not unlike a mob hitman taking out his revenge. First, it was coordinators Mike O'Cain and John Lovett and then coach Thielen Smith.

The way he's gone about, without telling anyone what's going on, is ruffling some striped fur.

Check the description of the O'Cain execution:

According to sources familiar with the meeting, Bowden told O'Cain he wanted to make changes to an offense that was one of the Atlantic Coast Conference's worst in 2004. O'Cain asked him if that meant he no longer had a job. Bowden said yes and ended the meeting, which lasted no more than a minute.

I wonder if he gave him a kiss on the cheek first?

6-0

First, let me say that this is my second post on the (unofficial) ACC - SEC Challenge, and it's already the second time I have to admit to screwing up. As helpful reader Kevin Ryan pointed out to me, I completely spaced on the Virginia - Auburn game from Friday night. Considering that I'm a Cavalier fan and watched the whole game, you'd think I'd have remembered. Nope. But, as Kevin wrote, the Virginia - Auburn game being one day before the other games nicely paralleled the ACC - Big Ten "Challenge," where NC State beat Purdue one day ahead of the other games.

So, that game, plus the four on Saturday, makes five (yeah, I'm pretty good at math). For the finale, Georgia Tech met their rivals Georgia on Sunday night. It was ugly. The Yellow Jackets beat the Bulldogs even worse than they did Michigan earlier in the week. They spanked Uga and friends by 38 points! It was the worst beating ever in the rivalry. What a way to end the ACC - SEC Challenge!

Six games. Six wins for the ACC. Even if all eleven teams had played, the ACC would have already clinched the win. And remember, of the five ACC teams that didn't play an SEC opponent this weekend, four of them are ranked.

Who's next?

The ACC - SEC Challenge

Edit: I'm a retard. When I orginally wrote this, I completely forgot about USC - Clemson even though the game was going on when I wrote it. I had even just checked the score! So I'm fixing that now.

There was an ACC - SEC Challenge today. Of sorts. By pure coincedence, there were four ACC - SEC games today. The ACC won all four. Now the Big 10 has a shoulder to cry on.

Carolina hosted #8 Kentucky and led the whole game before winning by 13. If you hadn't noticed, this Heels team is very good.

Florida State went on the road and beat a pretty weak Ole Miss squad. With the Seminoles' shaky start though, this was a key win.

The big surprise of the day was Miami knocking off #19 Florida. In Gainesville, no less. It's starting to sound like Miami has quite a set of three scoring guards. The depth of the ACC's guards just crossed the border from ridiculous and has moved over to sublime.

In the fourth and most exciting game of the day, Clemson knocked off rival South Carolina in overtime. The Tigers' Cheyenne Moore hit a three in the waning seconds to win the game.

Four games. Four ACC wins. And three of those wins came from three of the four unranked ACC teams. It was a good day.

On Sunday, Georgia Tech takes on rival Georgia. Could it be a sweep? I say yes.

ps. Kudos to Ken Pomeroy for being the first to email me about missing the Clemson game!

Ineptitude Defined

Washington State was outscored today by The Naval Academy 42-29. The real problem for the Cougars, is that they were playing basketball against Oklahoma State (who scored 81), while Navy was plaining football against Army.

29 points.

That my friends, is pitiful. Actually, I think they'd need to play better to reach pitiful. The halftime score was 36-10.

Maybe it's time for Dick Bennett (who knew he had gone to