Dave Sez

Who's The POY So Far?

In a tangent of my last post, here's the Wilmington Star's look at the likely candidates for the ACC Player of the Year this year.

They include five players, but to me, it's really a three-man race at this point: Tyler Hansbrough, Jared Dudley and Sean Singletary.

A quick rundown:
Hansbrough

• The best player (just barely) on the best team


• #2 scorer in the ACC


• #2 rebounder in the ACC

Dudley

• The best all-around player in the league


• Along with Singletary and Al Thornton, the most critical player to his team in the ACC


• #3 scorer in the ACC


• #1 rebounder in the ACC


• Shooting 55.5% from the floor, a very impressive number for a small forward


• Leads ACC in minutes played

Singletary

• The best point guard - the hardest and most critical position - in the league


• #1 scorer in the ACC


• #4 in assists in the ACC and has only one player to pass to


• #1 FT% (92.3%) in the ACC


• Along with Dudley and Al Thornton, the most critical player to his team in the ACC

At this point, my vote would go to Dudley with Singletary next and Hansbrough third, largely because Hansbrough's team is so deep that he's just not asked to do quite as much as either Singletary or Dudley. Those two guys, Singletary in particular, carry their teams

Scouting The ACC

Sports Illustrated's Seth Davis has an interesting article up with quotes from various NBA scouts about college players they like or dislike.

A brief synopsis of the ACC players mentioned:
Tyler Hansbrough - not athletic enough
Jared Dudley - probably can't play in the NBA
Sean Singletary - concerned about his halfcourt game
Josh McRoberts - at best, a Toni Kukoc
Brandan Wright - an obvious lottery pick
Wayne Ellington - hasn't shown NBA ability
JR Reynolds - too small to play the NBA 2
Javaris Crittenton - intriguing, but a bit too selfish
Thaddeus Young - not as good as expected

All, in all, the ACC didn't fare too well in the comments. But then, most of the comments were negative, so take that with a grain of salt.

In my admittedly worthless opinion, Wright is by far the best prospect in the ACC. The other guys I'd expect to make it:
Ty Lawson (but he's nowhere near ready)
Singletary (although I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't make it)
Hansbrough (not a star, but if he can expand his shot, he could be a Matt Harpring)
McRoberts (maybe)
Sean Williams (the body alone will get him in. He should be a Trailblazer.)
Al Thornton (he has all the tools, but needs to be a bit better at everything)
Crittenton (too good not to)
Young (needs to learn to assert himself)

There are a ton of other guys who could make it, but have a lot of work to do to get there.

(hit tip to ACC Now for the find)

Falling Eagles

I'm sure you've heard by now about Boston College kicking Sean Williams and Akida McLain off the team. McLain hardly played this year, but Sean Williams was one of the top shot blockers in the country and had had several monster games recently. Clearly the loss will hurt BC, but as Ken Pomeroy points out in this great observation piece, the loss will very likely be overstated. BC is 5-0 in the ACC, but four of those games have been against the four worst teams in the league. Their two toughest ACC games, Virginia and Maryland, were both at home.

The Eagles are now entering a part of their season where their schedule gets noticeably tougher. According to Pomeroy's stats, BC would be favored in only three of their eleven remaining ACC games and one of those (home against Clemson) is basically a push. And that's using the Eagles' rating with Williams.

It's debatable how much losing Sean Williams will hurt BC, but it's quite likely that their season would have appeared to be heading down whether he played or not.

Shall We Engage In Some Fisticuffs? Oh, Let's!

Goons have always fought each other in hockey and quite often it has nothing to do with what has happened during the game. These guys just like to fight.

Well, this fight just takes the cake. Phoenix Coyote Georges Laraque and Raitis Ivanans of the LA Kings go at it here, and as luck would have it, Laraque was miked. A barrage of four-letter words that would make a sailor blush? Insults hurled at mothers and sisters? Nope. Just a gentle invitation and acceptance.

"You want to?"
"OK"
"Throw?  OK.  Good luck, man."

And with that, they waited a few seconds for the faceoff and then dropped the gloves and fought.

Hockey - a gentleman's game.

Tigers Turned To Butter

Last night's UNC-Clemson game was an interesting one. Because of their success so far this year and Carolina's lofty ranking, the crowd had a ton of energy and it seemed to feed into the players. Clemson pressed and ran all night and were quite successful in forcing turnovers. It seemed like the Heels coughed it up every third possession and the Tigers blocked a lot of the shots UNC managed to get off. Sounds like a perfect scenario for a big Tiger win, right? Nope. When Carolina didn't turn it over and didn't have their shot swatted, they scored, mostly on easy layups and dunks. If anyone kept such a stat, I think Brandan Wright might have challenged the ACC record for dunks in one game.

On the other end of the floor, if the Tigers didn't turn a steal into a layup, they probably weren't going to score. They played way too fast and seemed to be trying a bit too hard. They simply didn't have the patience to beat an excellent Tar Heel defense.

The net result was a surprisingly easy win for Carolina. Even though their point guards played a fairly awful game, the Heels still beat the Clemson press time and again for easy shots. I couldn't figure out why Oliver Purnell didn't try to reel his guys in a bit. Clearly they brought the necessary energy, but you just can't stick with a press once your opponent has shown that they can beat it. Just ask Pete Gillen.

I didn't see the other game of the night, Virginia Tech's loss at Florida State, but the write-ups I read this morning confused me. Both articles went on and on about what a wonderful second half Al Thornton had. There's no question that 27 points in one half is extremely impressive, but how come neither writer noticed that in the first half, when Thornton was shutout and the Noles were getting offense from a number of guys, they built a big lead? When Thornton took over in the second half, the Hokies nearly came all the way back and won. That should tell you a little something about basketball. It's almost always better to not have to rely on a single star to provide all of your offense, no matter how talented and effective he is. Good teams will overcome one great player.

ACC A Football League?

Caulton Tudor, JP Giglio and maybe some other writers for ACC Now (the News & Observer's blog) put together a list of their All-NFL and All-NBA teams using only ACC players. Click on the links in that sentence to see their picks.

While that was an interesting and fun read, I was completely baffled by Tudor's article talking about the lists. Tudor looked at those and somehow decided that the NFL team was better! He justified it by saying that they had to leave off Bears running back Thomas Jones (a former Virginia Cavalier).

I guess Tudor forgot that their NBA team featured not just the five starters, but seven bench players. The NFL team had only starters.

On top of that, the NBA team didn't even include perennial all-star Rasheed Wallace. Off the top of my head, a few other guys not included:
Grant Hill (full-time starter, 15ppg)
Stephon Marbury (full-time starter, 15ppg)
Steve Francis (injured, but an all-star caliber player when happy)
Mike Dunleavy (11ppg)
Shane Battier (full-time starter, 10 ppg, US Olympic team member)
Chris Duhon (starting PG for Bulls)

Don't get me wrong, those aren't great players (although Hill, Francis and Marbury have been great), but the ACC just hasn't put out that kind of depth in the NFL.

Texas Talent

In today's world where the ACC has swollen to 12 teams and most of the games are televised, it's quite easy to lose track of what's going on in other parts of the country. It's not that you don't care, it's that you just don't have time. Well, let me offer you a tip. Texas freshman Kevin Durant is good. Really good. He's not just the best freshman in the nation, he might just be the best player, period.

Check out this table (stolen from that Sports Frog link above) of Durant's recent games:
28 points and 13 boards against Oklahoma
34 points and 13 boards against Missouri
37 points and 16 boards against Colorado
26 points and 8 boards against Tennessee
28 points and 13 boards against Arkansas
21 points and 9 boards against Michigan State
29 points and 10 boards against Gonzaga
10 points and 11 boards against LSU

And that doesn't even count his 37 and 12 from last night's classic against Oklahoma State. I mean, look at those numbers! The kid leads the Big-12 in both scoring and rebounding (by wide margins). He can shoot - he's eighth in field goal percentage, third in free throw percentage and eighth in three point field goal percentage - and he can defend - fourth in blocked shots. It's just staggering what he's doing.

And how about this for a thought - Durant was thisclose to going to UNC! Can you imagine a frontcourt of Tyler Hansbrough, Brandan Wright and Kevin Durant? Scary.

OK, now you can go back to only paying attention to the ACC.

Had To Have It

The ACC season is still young, but that doesn't mean that last night's Virginia-Maryland game wasn't hugely important. It was the most significant contest of the season so far (just beating out Duke's game against Miami that the Blue Devils had to win).

Virginia came into this season with reasonable expectations of making the NCAA Tournament. After they beat Arizona to start the year, some folks (OK, only the crazy Jimmy Dykes) were even calling the Cavaliers a darkhorse Final Four squad. Then came the Puerto Rico disaster and the recent three-game losing streak. Heading into their Terps tilt, the Hoos were just 9-6 overall and 1-2 in the ACC. Yesterday, I showed you that the Cavs are currently clearly on the outside looking in at the NCAA Tournament.

They had to beat Maryland.

To add to the drama of the game, Maryland really could have used the win as well. After a great early season, the Terps quickly fell to 0-2 in the ACC. Their shocking loss to Miami at home indicated that there are problems in Garyland. A loss to the Cavs would drop Maryland to 1-3, but on the flip side, a win would put them at .500 and give them a solid road win.

It was a big game.

And Virginia stepped up. From all accounts (my damn TV package didn't include the game), it was a sloppy, but entertaining affair. As they do in all Cavalier wins, the guards were excellent and were the difference. Virginia built a 20-point first-half lead and then blew that. They built it back up, blew that and then built it back up a third time for the win. Whatever it takes. The Cavaliers haven't climbed out of their hole yet, but at least they've stopped digging (the win helped them jump 7 spots in Ken Pomeroy's ratings and 30(!) spots in the RPI).

The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Bob Lipper had a similar take on this games importance.

Number Crunching

I've been trying to wrap my head around the ACC so far this year and I just haven't figured it out. Clearly the conference is better than last year - there's been an amazing influx of talent - but I just can't tell which teams are the legit contenders and which aren't. Sure, a few teams are pretty obvious. Carolina is going to finish at the top and NC State, Wake and Miami are the three worst teams, but other than that, I just can't tell. Duke was the clear #2 for a while, but stumbled and then fell. BC was supposed to be at the top, but they sputtered along before finally finding their legs. Clemson has come out of nowhere to be extremely solid. Virginia Tech was tentatively thought to be good, but struggled before their recent explosion of success. And then you have Maryland and Virginia - two teams who seem capable of beating or losing to anyone.

So to help me figure out how things are right now, I turned to the best sources I know - the computers. Computer ratings don't care what color blue you wear, how many seniors you have or how you fared last year. They just look at results on the court and, if configured properly (which excludes the RPI), show a very nice, objective measure of a team's worth.

The ratings I looked at were Ken Pomeroy's Jeff Sagarin's and the RPI. I don't like the RPI, but obviously it's important, so I felt it should be included. The two other measures were Pomeroy's offensive and defensive efficiencies.

Here is the league as of now, sorted more-or-less in order of how the power ratings rank the teams:

Team	Overall	ACC	Pomeroy	Pom. Off.	Pom. Def.	Sagarin	RPI
North Carolina	15-2	2-1	2	3	10	2	4
Duke	14-3	1-2	6	48	1	16	10
Clemson	17-1	3-1	23	18	29	8	8
Georgia Tech	13-4	2-2	11	8	33	19	30
Maryland	15-3	1-2	17	52	8	23	24
Virginia Tech	13-4	3-0	20	36	16	32	35
Florida St.	12-5	0-3	48	57	42	36	26
Boston College	12-4	4-0	52	26	83	40	38
Virginia	9-6	1-2	70	38	118	74	119
North Carolina St.	11-6	1-3	97	61	147	102	139
Wake Forest	9-7	1-3	102	92	130	118	128
Miami FL	9-9	2-2	103	73	161	133	159

Thoughts and observations:

• I was surprised by how poorly BC rates. If I had ranked the teams by hand, I think I would have had them at #2. I guess I was a bit too impressed by how they handled NC State and Wake Forest on the road last week. The computers only saw the misleading margins of victory and of course, Wake and State are two of the three weakest teams. Still, I expect BC's numbers to rise.


• Don't get too excited about the RPI numbers yet. That rating is notoriously slow to come around and it's not there yet. As an example, the RPI still rates Florida as #29.


• There is a clear demarcation between the top eight teams and the bottom four. The way things are right now, the top eight would all make the NCAA tournament and none of the bottom four would.


• Eight ACC teams have better offenses than defenses. That's a bit surprising, because folks generally associate defense with good coaching and you'd assume that the ACC is well coached. One explanation could be the league's youth. It takes a while to learn good team defense, but many freshman can come in and play offense right away.


• I don't think anyone is surprised that UNC's offense ranks in the top five in the country, but I wouldn't have guessed that their defense would rank in the top ten. Ol' Roy is doing another good job with this bunch, even if they do still need to learn how to maintain intensity throughout games.


• No team in the league has a greater offense/defense disparity than UVA. I thought Dave Leitao was a defense-first guy?


• Wake Forest doesn't appear to be very good at anything. Remember when Skip Prosser knew how to coach? He sure looked smarter when he had Chris Paul running the show.

Name That Site 7

It's been a long time, so get ready for your favorite (I'm sure) recurring feature of Dave Sez - Name That Site! Below you'll find a Google Earth pic of some famous ACC landmark. It might be a building on campus or simply a place where some significant ACC history has taken place.

So, what's this (click for a larger view)?

If you think you know the answer (give me the place and its significance), leave it in the Comments.

If you liked that one (or thought it was too easy), go back to one of the previous contests (one, two, three, four, five, six) and have a guess at those. Since I lost all of my comments last spring, those contests were wiped clean. You can look like a genius!

The Best Week Ever

How about that eight-day stretch for Virginia Tech? They went down to Durham last Saturday and knocked off the Blue Devils in Cameron - exorcising the demons from last year. They beat patsy UNCG during the week like enjoying a bit of sorbet between courses to cleanse the palette. Then they hosted the #1 ranked Tar Heels in Cassell and damn near ran them out of the building.

Pretty amazing, huh? Not too many teams get to knock of UNC and Duke in succession, particularly programs like Virginia Tech. I can't say for certain, but it might well have been the best three-game stretch in Hokie history. If it's not, you'd probably have to go back to the days of Bimbo Coles and Wally Lancaster or even Dell Curry to find something better.

Frankly, if that's not enough, the big wins helped propel the Hokies into the top-25 for the first time in over a decade!

So what's up? Are the Hokies really this good? If so, what about their losses to Western Michigan, George Washington and Marshall?

The answer is that the Hokies are quite good. Now. A month ago, they weren't very good. This is an experienced team, one of the most senior in the ACC, and as they showed against the Heels, they are deep as well. Tech also boasts one of the best two or three backcourts in the league and a tenacious defense. So why the struggles against bad teams? I'd say their problems go back to last season when everything that could go wrong did. That team was also good, but fell apart after an endless series of on- and off-court troubles. The problem was, all of last years losses left this team without a good idea of how to win. It sounds like a cliche, but it's really true that teams need to learn how to win. They need to expect success, not just to hang close against good teams. And it looks to me like the Hokies have finally figured that out.

If you look at Ken Pomeroy's numbers (and I don't think he stacked the deck for his alma mater), you'll see that they are ranked #20 overall and boast the 16th best defense in the nation. They rank #28 in turnovers forced, #19 in blocked shots and a #9 in steals. All those steals of course lead to plenty of easy baskets. Give a team 3 extra cheap baskets a game and they'll win 4-5 more games a year. The Hokie offense is pretty good too, at #37 overall. They are particularly adept at taking care of the ball (#7 in turnovers and #23 in steals) and they also excel at hitting the three (#33).

The bottom line - the preseason prediction for a sixth-place finish in the ACC might be a bit low, particularly if youngsters AD Vassallo and Nigel Munson continue to improve and bring production off the bench.

ACC Video Of The Day

If you younguns haven't seen Randolph Childress in action, check this little vid out. This is Childress knocking Jeff McInnis down with a crossover and then drilling a three in his face. This was during the 1995 ACC Championship, the year that Childress dominated the entire tournament.

And for extra goodness, there are links off of that YouTube page to highlights of each of Childress' three games that weekend. Truly magical stuff.

ACC Review - 1/12/2007

Saturday, Jan. 6
Va. Tech 69, Duke 67 (OT)
I talked about this one here. The bottom line is that Duke is going to have problems with any team with good guards and/or athletic wings and the Hokies have very good guards.

With this loss by Duke, the ACC no longer has a clear #2 team. It could be just about anyone other than Miami, NC State or Wake.

BC 74, N.C. State 58
The Eagles have definitely cured whatever was ailing them a few weeks ago. Of course, getting Jared Dudley back was the main medicine. The Eagles were just too deep, too strong and too organized for the Wolfpack in this game. That said, I was again impressed by the play of the Pack. Gavin Grant, Brandon Costner and Ben McCauley are three of the most skilled and versatile players in the league. The problem is that the Pack has no real point guard (even when Engin Atsur plays) and not enough depth. That means that everything comes too hard and they are exhausted by the end of games.

As for McCauley, he is the best interior passer in the league, and that includes Josh McRoberts. Of course, that's a bit of a trick answer, because McRoberts never goes in the post.

If Costner played for Duke or Carolina, he'd be in the discussion for freshman All-America.

Clemson 75, Ga. Tech 74
A terrible last defensive play by Georgia Tech and yet another good win for the Tigers. It pays to be a little lucky here and there.

Wake 59, Miami 58
If there were still a Les Robinson Thursday Night Invitational Play-In Game, this would have been a preview. Good for the Deacons in getting a conference win so early in the season. I was honestly concerned that they'd get shut out this season.

Sunday, Jan. 7
Stanford 76, UVa 75
I talked a little about this game here. The Cardinal's strengths are orthogonal with UVA's and on this day, the interior play won out. Stanford is very young, but they have some serious talent and they appear to be very well coached. Nothing Virginia did came easy other than Singletary's drives to draw fouls. Unfortunately, Dave Leitao overcoached the last few minutes of the game, moving JR Reynolds to the point and having Singletary play the two. The result? Singletary took none of UVA's final three or four shots and that's when UVA blew their lead and the game. That really confused me. When you have a point guard who is nearly impossible to stop off the dribble and who shoots 93% from the line, why is the ball ever out of his hands in the final minutes of a close game? Could you imagine the terror of a defender trying to stop him? Play off him and he'll shoot over you. Crowd him and he'll blow by you. Try to be physical with him and you'll probably foul him and the kid is so strong, he'll probably score anyway and get a three-point play. I can't think of another guard with Singletary's knack for getting to the line since Harold Deane or maybe even Randolph Childress. So let's get him the ball next time, OK?

UNC 84, FSU 58
The Heels are getting better and better. I didn't expect the Seminoles to win this game of course, but I thought that the uptempo would help them keep it close. Nope.

Tuesday, Jan. 9
Clemson 87, N.C. State 76
This was the first full game (I think) that I've seen Clemson play this year. They were sensational. Without Atsur to help Grant out, the Tiger guards Vernon Hamilton and Cliff Hammonds were like sharks in bloody water. They jumped all over Grant as soon as he got to midcourt and forced turnover after turnover. James Mays, KC Rivers and Sam Perry also caused turmoil on both ends of the court. Mays' follow-up dunk in the second half was the best I've seen all year. Sick.

But once again, State scrapped and fought so that the final margin was closer than the game appeared. It's too bad that Sidney Lowe doesn't have enough players to make this a special team. They really could have something, but the reality is that you can't play four players more than 35 minutes a game at this level and expect to win consistently.

From the ACC Release:

MINUTES PLAYED

## Player-Team              Cl G Minutes Avg/G

-------------------------------------------------

1.Jared Dudley-BC.......... SR 12    457 38.08

2.Gavin Grant-ST........... JR 16    602 37.62

3.Ben McCauley-ST.......... SO 16    569 35.56

4.Brandon Costner-ST....... FR 16    565 35.31

5.Courtney Fells-ST........ SO 16    558 34.88

BC 95, Wake 85
I watched the first half of this game and then turned it off. It looked like BC was playing a Division II team. It looked like they were just picking on Wake. Darius Rice, Sean Marshall and Jared Dudley would let Ishmael Smith bring the ball up and then just jumped the poor kid at halfcourt. In fact, it looked a lot like what Clemson did to NC State, the difference being that BC isn't really a pressure team. They just brought that out because they had so little respect for Wake's guards.

Like I said, I turned this one off at the half and was shocked to see the final score. I really thought the Eagles might win by 30 or 40 points. Wake must have had a hell of a run in the second half. Apparently there was some controversy over the reffing, but let me assure you Deacon fans - you did not lose that game because of the refs. You lost it in the first few minutes when your 5-0 lead was quickly turned into a 22-5 deficit. You can't give up 22-0 runs in too many games and even have a prayer of winning.

BTW, in case you hadn't noticed, Sean Marshall is by far the most obnoxious player in the league. He's a shoo-in for the Dahntay Jones Excellence in Woofing Award this year.

Wednesday, Jan. 10
GA Tech 74, Duke 63
I'll say it again, Duke 2007 reminds me of Duke 1995. I hear that Coach K's artificial hip is flaring up.

Va. Tech 71, UNCG 54
Miami 63, Maryland 58
The most shocking result of the early ACC season. What the hell happened here? Not only did Miami win in College Park, but they did it without Anthony King and Jimmy Graham got hurt early. I didn't see this game, so I'm just going to have to assume that the Terps were suffering from sort of flu or a severe case of Exree Hippitis. It's losses like that that give you home games in the NIT instead of invites to the Big Dance.

UNC 79, UVA 69
The Cavaliers hung tight in this one for about 25 minutes or so. Then the Heels cranked up their defensive pressure and turned the game around. UVA couldn't get their half-court offense (such as it is) going, so they started settling for deep, contested threes. Miss shots against the Heels and you find yourself chasing them down the court. UVA's insistence on taking the easy way out (just jacking it from 25 feet instead of working it inside) while Carolina pounded it inside is reflected in these two statistics - UNC shot 41 free throws to Virginia's 11 and the Heels outrebounded the Cavs 47-34. Ballgame. You can't give up that many extra possessions (Virginia also turned it over 17 times) to the #1 team in the country.

BTW, Mamadi Diane took 13 shots to Sean Singletary's 11. That should never happen again.

Hodge For Blake

Just a week or so ago, Julius Hodge finally made it back to the NBA, getting some run with the depleted Nuggets. But now that their stars are about to come off of suspension, Les Nuggets felt like they needed to deal with their chemistry. There are only so many shots to be had, so Liliputian gunner Earl Boyken was shipped off to the Milwaukee Bucks for point guard Steve Blake. Hodge was tossed into the deal as well for some unknown reason. If Hodge and Blake cross paths in the airport, think Hodge will throw a forearm Stevie's way just for oldtime's sake?

BTW, I'd tried several times over the past year or so to track down Blake's infamous college paper about Johnny Rockets ("Johnny Rockets, a restaurant that brings people happiness."). Evidently the pages have been taken down from Maryland's servers, but god bless the Internet Archive!

And Byron Mouton's page is here. ("Before televisions, there were only radios. People could just listen and would not see a picture of the information. Television allows communication to be seen and heard.")

Step One: Open Your Phone

Step Two: Take a pick of your junk
Step Three: Make her look at the pic

This is a great story (and I know I'm late to this. I need to make Deadspin a daily read.). ESPN's smiling moron (well, one of their similing morons) Sean Salisbury evidently whipped out his cell phone one day not too long ago, snapped a picture of his Li'l Sean and sent it around to some coworkers, including at least a few women.

That's just great! Isn't Salisbury exactly the kind of guy you'd expect that out of? It's like he's still the bigshot high school quarterback being obnoxious and getting away with it, because well, he's the bigshot high school quarterback.

Don't be afraid to click that link up there. There is no photographic proof.

(Edited to fix stupid typo)

Pomeroy On Paulus

If you watched Duke's loss to Virginia Tech on Saturday, you certainly noticed the play of Greg Paulus. Paulus turned the ball over three times on Duke's first four possessions and finished with six TOs in just 18 minutes of play. And that doesn't even count the last possession when he took a Josh McRoberts pass off of his face and then had his last-second three-point attempt swatted into the stunned crowd. Put simply, Paulus was awful. And that's a huge part of why Duke lost.

Ken Pomeroy wrote up a nice (well, unless you're in the Paulus family) piece looking at Paulus' performance this year and pointing out that he's actually not playing much worse than last year. That last part really surprised me. I thought Paulus was a bit overrated last season, but I would have guessed that he's been WAY worse this year. Nope. His turnover rate was pretty damn putrid last season as well.

BTW, while I'm bashing Duke I'll go ahead and voice a thought I had while watching that game. This year's team reminds me of the infamous 1995 team that fell to the ACC cellar. Both teams have a pretty decent array of players but lack on-court leadership and don't play well together. It's a rare Mike Krzyzewski team that is less than the sum of its parts, but that's the case right now for this group. Fortunately for the Blue Devils (who also lost their first home ACC contest to a football school in 1995), I don't think Coach K is going to check into Duke Hospital and hand the reins over to an unprepared assistant this time around (coincidently, current assistants Chris Collins and Steve Wojelvjioahvoihashski were prominently featured on that '95 squad). There's time to right the ship, but they need to get better point guard play.

Pay To Play

The Boston Globe ran a great, disturbing article the other day about the relationship between Pop Warner youth football leagues and Disney. Each year, Pop Warner hosts age-group national championships at Disney's facility in Orlando and charges the teams ridiculous amounts of money for the honor.

The agreement between Pop Warner and Disney stipulates that each participant on every team stay four nights at an official Disney hotel and buy at least two day passes to a Disney park.

From the article:

While rooms were available at a nearby Comfort Inn through Expedia.com for $51.43 a night during Pop Warner's championships, Disney's least expensive package for the Pop Warner teams required a three-night stay (four persons per room) at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort and a four-day theme park pass for $319 per person. At that rate, Disney received $1,276 per room, or nearly $425 a night.

Given that Pop Warner often caters to inner-city kids (the league are only $30 to join for a season) and the teams have a short time to raise funds for their trips (and find flights), many teams and coaches take on tremendous debt to get the kids to the tournament.

The whole thing makes me sick. First up on "deserves an ass-kicking" podium is the Disney spokesman who had the balls to say "We understand it can be difficult for some teams. That's why we do all we can to work with them." Please. For Disney, "doing all that they can" would include making it free. I understand that they are a business, but extorting kids is bad enough. Don't lie to us too.

Next up on the podium are the Pop Warner leaders who agreed to this ridiculous arrangement. They claim that no other venue can handle the tournament, but that's ludicrous. There are probably hundreds of locations that could support the tournaments. Maybe they wouldn't quite as nice as Disney, but they wouldn't require volunteer coaches to max out their credit cards to get the kids there either.

Last up are all the parents and coaches who agree to go through with all of this. Why would you go to debt for a damn youth football tournament? So little Johnnie can get another trophy? Do they really think the kids wouldn't be perfectly satisfied with a regional or state title? Is it really worth having no Christmas for or having your heat turned off? Somehow I don't think the power company is going to be sympathetic that you just had to take a week's vacation to Orlando so you can't pay the bill this month.

People piss me off sometimes.

ACC Review - 1/5/07

With my holiday travels, I didn't really get to see much basketball over the past couple of weeks. I'm just now starting to catch up to what I missed as we head into the meat of the ACC season (five conference games this weekend). Since I saw few of these games, my comments probably will be a bit thinner than usual.

Friday, Dec. 22
Ga. Tech 78, Georgia 69

A nice win for the Yellow Jackets, who had been on a skid. It's always nice to beat an in-state rival, but this game actually meant even more for Tech. The Bulldogs were the third top 50 (Pomeroy) that Tech has beaten. That's a pretty nice non-conference record.

UNC 69, Saint Louis 48

Not the Tar Heels' best effort, but check out the points allowed. If this team can play defense, watch out.

Wake 72, Richmond 59

Any win over the Spiders is a good one, especially for this Deacon squad.

Saturday, Dec. 23
Cincinnati 80, N.C. State 71

The ACC continues to struggle against the Big East this year. 3-7.

Clemson 103, Western Carolina 60
FSU 76, St. Peters 63
Maryland 66, American 54
Kansas 84, BC 66

Oof. Kansas is a good team and all, but you'd like to think that an experienced BC squad could stay within 20. Is it too early to declare the preseason prediction of a third place ACC finish was too high for the Eagles? I don't think it is.

On the flip side, Sean Williams had a monster game with 19 points, 15 boards and 7 blocks. Where did that come from? Will we see it again?

Louisville 82, Miami 59

Louisville really isn't that great. Miami just sucks. 3-8.

Va. Tech 94, Campbell 70

Thursday, Dec. 28
Ga. Tech 85, Troy 55
Duquesne 98, BC 93 (OT)

Losing by 22 on the road against Kansas is bad, but somewhat understandable. Not many visitors come out of Allen Fieldhouse with a W. But losing to Duquesne at home? What's wrong with this team? Maybe I underestimated the calming influences of Craig Smith and Louis Hinnant.

Upon further review, BC was without Jared Dudley, so this loss is at least somewhat excusable. Also, Sean Williams had another huge night with 19 points, 10 boards and 13 (!) blocked shots. It's hard to understand how he can be playing so well but the team still losing.

UNC 87, Rutgers 48

Hey, a Big East win! 4-8.

N.C. State 64, ECU 57
Clemson 75, Georgia 60

God bless the Bulldogs. They are providing the ACC some of their best non-conference wins. Clemson is becoming quite the media darling this year. I hope they can live up to it.

Maryland 91, Mount St. Mary’s 50
UVa 91, American 70

Normally I wouldn't bother to comment on a game like this, but given the Cavaliers' struggles in Puerto Rico, it's worth pointing this out. Beating American shouldn't mean much but the fact that Sean Singletary erupted for 33 and JR Reynolds went for 26 is promising. Those guys are really the only two constants on this team - or they should be. As I mentioned in a previous post, Singletary seemed to be trying to get his teammates involved earlier this season and it just wasn't working. The other players weren't stepping up and his lack of aggressiveness was hurting everyone. Well, 33 points on 16 shots, including 13 of UVA's first 15 points shows me that he had a change of heart. That's good.

Friday, Dec. 29
South Florida 75, Wake 67

Is it just me or is it the new Big East teams that are causing so much trouble? 4-9.

FSU 92, Providence 62

Hey, a big win against the BE! 5-9. For the Seminoles, it's their eighth straight win, although six of those wins were against terribly bad teams. Could this be the year that Leonard Hamilton finally gets on the right side of the NCAA bubble?

Saturday, Dec. 30
N.C. State 72, UNCW 51
Marshall 59, Va. Tech 58

Ouch. The Hokies were supposed to be better this year. The problem is that they still can't win close games. Their four losses are by 3, 5, 1 and 1 points. I think Seth Greenberg is a good coach, but something's going on there.

Nebraska 82, Miami 67

That would have been a great football game about 15 years ago. The Hurricanes are now just 7-7.

Ga. Tech 87, St. Francis (Pa.) 43

Sunday, Dec. 31
Duke 70, San Jose State 51

Was this game necessary? Couldn't Duke find a scheduled win that didn't require the patsy to fly across the country?

Maryland 94, Siena 75
Clemson 67, Ga. State 57
UNC 81, Dayton 51

That win is more impressive than it appears at first blush. First of all, Dayton's not a bad squad. Beating them by 30 says something. Second, it's the fourth opponent the Tar Heels have held under 52 points. Given their early defensive frailty, I'd say I have a good idea what Ol' Roy's been working on in practice.

BC 87, Northeastern 82

A close win over a bad team is always better than a loss. Dudley missed this one too.

Monday, Jan. 1
Wake 81, ECU 65

ECU is really bad. I wonder if Terry Holland has the stones to fire his former player, Ricky Stokes?

Tuesday, Jan. 2
Duke 73, Temple 55
State 95, UNCG 93 (OT)

Whew! That would have been embarrassing. With their six-player rotation, State needs to avoid overtime games. Four different players scored at least 18 points in this game. Supposedly Engin Atsur will play in their next game against BC tomorrow. That should help a lot, as you just can't keep running guys that much at this level.

Miami 72, UMass 71

Well, well. A nice win for the Hurricanes!

Wednesday, Jan. 3
BC 72, Yale 56
Clemson 68, FSU 66

A road win to start the ACC for the Tigers! That hasn't happened too often. Hell, any road ACC wins are rare for Clemson. Maybe that 15-0 actually does mean something this year.

GT 97, Winston-Salem State 46
VT 65, Richmond 53
UNC 102, Penn 64
UVa 108, Gonzaga 87

I watched this game last night on the TiVo and enjoyed the hell out of it. Let me point out that the 21-point margin of victory is misleading. The game wasn't nearly that close. The Cavaliers, led by Sean Singletary, jumped on the Bulldogs from the opening seconds and never let up. I can't recall a Virginia game quite like that since the early Pete Gillen days when they trounced #4 Tennessee with a suffocating press. In this game, Singletary came out firing, hitting deep threes, knifing through traffic and stripping the ball from the hapless Zags throughout. It was as dominant and individual performance as I've seen all year. The rest of the Cavaliers seemed to feed off his play, nailing 18 threes for the game (beating the school record by 5) and leading by 34 points at the half. Remember, this same Gonzaga team beat Carolina earlier this year and gave Duke a good run a couple of weeks ago.

I think it's fair to say that Dave Leitao identified and fixed whatever was broken in Puerto Rico. Does this mean that Virginia is a great team? Far from it (it was Gonzaga's fourth straight loss), but with impressive wins now over Arizona and the Zags, the Cavaliers have shown that they can compete with anyone.

Thursday, Jan. 4
Maryland 88, Iona 57

The Terps have kind of quietly put together a nice 14-2 record. Six of those wins have been against teams ranked 200+ or worse, but still. Like a lot of the ACC squads, we'll really see what kind of team Maryland has in the next month as they get into the ACC schedule. I tend to think that they are an upper-tier squad, but I wouldn't bet the mortgage on that.