Dave Sez

Break Out The Slide Rules

A regular reader (and college professor) just figured out who's going to win the ACC Tournament. He took Pomeroy's ratings, applied them to the Log5 prediction method and PRESTO! - we have a champeen!

Actually, it just spits out the percent chance of each team winning, but going by the seedings if things ended today (and he put UNC as the 1 see, VT as the 2 and UVA as the 3), Carolina would be the overwhelming favorite. While their rating isn't that much higher than Duke's, they have a three times greater chance of winning the ACC Tourney. Check the results:

As I pointed out, it's interesting to see just how big a gap the Tar Heels have on the field. The best explanation for this is that according to the Pomeroy ratings, Duke is the second best team followed by Maryland and Georgia Tech. Well, all of those teams will have relatively difficult seeds. VT, UVA and Boston College will make up seeds 2-4 (again, if things ended today), but they have the fifth, sixth and eighth best power ratings.

It'll be interesting to rerun this once the real seeds are known. I have a hunch that either UVA or VT is going to be the top seed, not UNC.

If you want to see the whole calculation and give yourself a nasty flashback to your college math classes, check this PDF.

He also ran similar projections for the Big 12, CAA and Conference USA.

ACC Video Of The Day

This one comes courtesy of StateFans Nation. They have a piece up about what they call "The worst call in NCAA Tournament history," when Rick Hartzell whistled Chis Corchianni for a phantom traveling violation. The video they include is pretty damn conclusive - no travel. Not even close. It wasn't even one of those times where a guy takes long, awkward strides that looks like a travel until you see the replay. No, this one looked legit the first time and everytime thereafter.

Of course, you already know my feelings about Rick Hartzell.

One sidenote about this game is that it marked Jim Valvano's last NCAA Tournament game. The NCAA placed the Wolfpack on probation for the 1990 and 1991 seasons, barring them from postseason play. Valvano was fired in March of 1990, leading to a decade-long slump for NC State basketball.

Virginia Is For Leaders

Bob Lipper of the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a great article today on Virginia and Virginia Tech and their big game coming up on Thursday.

Not only is this by far the most important game in the history of their basketball rivalry, it might the be only important one ever. Let's face it, until a couple of years ago, UVA didn't really care much about this basketball rivalry. Tech wasn't in the ACC and they just weren't good enough to get fired up about. Cavalier fans were much more concerned about Carolina, Duke and Maryland. On the Hokie side, they just didn't really care that much about hoops at all. Sure, they always enjoyed beating UVA because they knew that hurt the Cavs, but if they lost, it didn't matter.

This could be one of the few really good things about ACC expansion - Virginia Tech might start caring about hoops and their rivalry with UVA might blossom.

Regardless, right now it's a hell of a big game and that's pretty amazing.

More Human Than Human

ACC fans have known for a few years now what a special athlete Calvin Johnson is. He's big, he's fast, he has fantastic hands and he seems like a great kid. He tore up the ACC in his three years in the league, setting all kinds of receiving records at Georgia Tech.

Well, now you can add NFL Combine Legend to his resume. Johnson showed up in Indianapolis this weekend planning NOT to workout. He wanted to wait until Georgia Tech's NFL day in a few weeks, so that some of his teammates could workout in front of the mass of scouts who would show for Johnson. He did agree to weigh in though, and when he tipped the scales at 239, some scouts got worried. Was he out of shape? Was he going to balloon as he got older?

Johnson took care of those concerns. He found a pair of running shoes to borrow (from ECU QB James Pinkney) and blazed through a 40 in 4.35. The man is 6'6", 239lbs and ran a 4.35! Only two receivers ran faster. Top-rated running back Adrian Peterson helped his standing by running a 4.38, slower than Calvin's time.

Incredible.

Bubble Watch - 2/26/2007

Can you believe it? We only have one week left before the ACC Tournament! Where has the time gone? The season's always so fast. You better believe Georgia Tech, Florida State and Clemson think so. Bet they would like some more games to help them shine up their resumes. Actually, Clemson would probably rather the season was about three weeks shorter. They were in great shape a while back, but just can't stop losing these days.

The Tigers are still a fascinating case study. They couldn't possibly be playing any worse and have lost 9 of 11 games. But if you ignore when the games were played and look at their overall results, they are NCAA Tournament-worthy. 19-9 with and RPI of 41. Not sensational, but those numbers will normally get you in. The Dance Card agrees, putting them at #37, about 10 spots above the cutline. But the Dance Card relies mostly on empirical numbers and power ratings. The RPI doesn't care when games were played, but humans notice. There's no question that Clemson's recent struggles will make the committee round them way, way down. If they had to pick today, they'd likely be out. Unfortunately for Clemson, they don't have an easy way to help their cause. They should beat Miami at home this week, but Miami's so bad that win or lose, that game will hurt Clemson's RPI (just like beating NC State actually hurt Florida State this weekend). Put that down as one of the many reasons why the RPI sucks. Clemson could win by 60 and still be damaged just for playing the game. Their only other regular season game is on the road in Blacksburg against a Hokie squad looking to finish on top of the league. Senior Day, no less. That would be a HUGE win, but I seriously doubt it will happen. No, the best bet for the Tiggers at this point is to win at least two ACC Tournament games. Do that (and beat Miami), and they'd have 22 wins. I just can't believe an ACC team could win 22 and not get in. I could be wrong, but I don't think a 20-win ACC squad has ever been denied.

For the other bubble teams, BC and Virginia might have cemented their bids with critical wins over other bubble teams. The Cavs' RPI is still an unimpressive 38, but with a 10-4 league record, you'd have to think this thing is done. Granted, I'm one that keeps pointing out that the committee ignores conference records. If UVA loses their last two games (and that's entirely possible), they be right to be a bit nervous.

Georgia Tech really has to be kicking themselves about now. They had UVA on the ropes for most of that game, but just like Clemson a month ago, the Jackets simply stopped scoring and let the Cavaliers score the last 13 points of the game. Poof. Just like that, their bubble burst. Their still alive, of course, but right now they're probably on the outside looking in. Their final two games are at home, but they are UNC and BC. A win over the Heels might do the trick, but that won't be easy against an angry, well-trimmed Carolina squad. The BC game will be an absolute must-have.

Florida State took the first step of their long journey, destroying a disinterested NC State. Miami is next. The Noles will win that one to, but it might be yet another Pyhrric victory, as the Canes are so bad that the RPI will punish FSU just for playing. No, FSU will have to win that one and probably two more in the ACC Tournament to get back in the discussion.

I added one more column to my table, Joe Lunardi's current predictions. He has the ACC with six teams in right now. That's probably right, but I really think at least one of those teams is going to step up and become the seventh. Odds are, at least two of them will play each other in the first round of the ACC Tourney. Someone has to win that game!

Tarred and Pumiced Heels

After reading this article about how many North Carolina Tar Heels like to get frequent pedicures, let's just say I wasn't that surprised when the Heels blew a late lead against Maryland. Pedicures. The men's team.

So, maybe they lost a tough road game, but man those feet were beautiful! Soft as a baby's bottom and smelling of lavender.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Rock Chalk Spreadsheet

The good folks (or is it folk?) at the Phog Blog paid a little visit to Ken Pomeroy's stats, fired up Excel, tippy-tapped on a few keys and cranked out a few nifty graphs that are worthy of your perusal.

What they looked at was the offensive and defensive efficiencies of the top ten (using Big Tenleven math) teams in the country over the course of the season. The graphs exposed some very interesting trends. As a whole, it is clear that the best teams get better and better offensively as the season goes on. No surprise there. What I wouldn't have guessed is that the defensive efficiencies showed no such clear trend. Some teams have gotten better, some have gotten worse and many are all over the place.

Interesting, huh?

My theory is that the best coaches put a strong focus on defense in their early practices. By the time the season starts, all of the defensive packages are in place and are already effective. Once the season starts, then they start focusing more on offense. As teams master sets, they add more and they figure out which players are the most effective.

Ken Pomeroy has talked about just how impressive Georgetown's offense is (and when have you ever heard that about Georgetown before?) and this graph really shows that. The Hoyas are WAY better than the other squads. Defensively, Carolina had a similar gap over its peers, but that has gone away. If I had to guess, I'd say they lost it in Raleigh.

The only other ACC team reviewed was Duke. You might not be surprised to see that the Blue Devils started out as the best defensive squad, but have gotten progressively less effective as the season has gone on. Lucky for them, their offense has made up for that. Still, Pomeroy's Pythagorean rating shows them as the weakest of the top teams, while UNC is the best (just barely).

Bubble Watch - 2/23/2007

With things so tight for so many ACC teams, it's worth checking on the standings after each game. While it wasn't a good week for the bubble teams - BC, Virginia, Florida State and Clemson all damaged their standings - things are quite as bad as most would have you believe. If you listen to the TV folks and read what's being written in the papers, you might think that UVA, BC, Clemson and Florida State are all out of the tourney right now. Not so.

From what I'm seeing, only Florida State has played their way out of the tournament at this point. Georgia Tech, Clemson and UVA are all iffy, but still in, while Boston College is in perfectly fine shape. Obviously, each of those teams needs to win another game or two, but they will. They pretty much have to, since some will play each other both in the regular season and in the ACC Tournament.

The current ratings:

Final games for bubble teams:

BC: Clemson, @GT (Pomeroy says 1-1) - One win probably clinches things
VT: Miami, @UVA, Clemson (Pomeroy says 2-1) - Probably already in, but one win cements it
Clemson: @BC, Miami, @VT (Pomeroy says 1-2) - Despite their collapse, one win puts them in pretty good shape. A road upset would be really nice.
GT: @UVA, UNC, BC (Pomeroy says 2-1) - They might need two to feel really good about things, but that could be tough. One here and one in the ACC Tourney might be enough.
UVA: GT, VT, @WF (Pomeroy says 2-1) - They blew one easy chance, but they still have three winnable games. Two would clinch things.
FSU: NCSU, @Miami (Pomeroy says 2-0) - They absolutely need both games and will probably need at least one ACC Tourney win too.

BTW, I'll ask again, nicely this time. ACC cellar dwellers, please, please stop winning games. Just take one (two or three) for the team. The ACC thanks you and your budgets will too. Remember, more Tourney teams means more money.

Best Freshman Classes

Surely you've heard the talk (Washington Post, Mike DeCourcy, Rivals.com) - this year's freshmen class is one of the best in college basketball history, comparable to the legendary 1980 class. Greg Oden. Brandan Wright. Kevin Durant. Spencer Hawes.

Just in the ACC, we have an impressive crop - Wright, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Brandon Costner, Javaris Crittenton, Thaddeus Young, Jon Scheyer, Grievis Vasquez and a few others.

But how does this class rank with some of the great ACC classes of the past? Is this one really the best ever?

I decided to look back at some of the great ACC freshmen crops to see. I only went back to 1974, because that's when freshmen became eligible to play. I factored in their whole career impact instead of just their freshman year, because some guys really don't get a chance to play in their first year or two. It's hard to compare a guy like Tyler Hansbrough last year to, say, Rasheed Wallace who came into a defending national champion returning all of its players.

From the records (God bless Charlie Board's site!) I picked out six exceptional classes. Note that the year I'm using is the spring of their freshman year. Some articles use the high school graduation year, but I find that confusing when talking about college players.

1980
Ralph Sampson, VIRG ***###&&&!!!
James Worthy, UNC *&
Sidney Lowe, NCSU *
Dereck Whittenburg, NCSU *
This class is one of the ones always mentioned as the best ever, but the ACC didn't really get a lot of those players. But the ones we did get were amazing. Sampson of course was one of the most decorated college players ever, winning three National Player of the Year awards. Big Game James led UNC to a national title before bolting after his junior year. Lowe and Whittenberg did the same for State the next year.

1983
Mark Price, GT ***
Johnny Dawkins, DUKE **&&!
Mark Alarie, DUKE **
Kenny Green, WFU
Jay Bilas, DUKE
Len Bias, MD **##&
Brad Daugherty, UNC **&
Now that's some depth! Price scored 20ppg as a freshman, beating out Michael Jordan for the ACC scoring lead. Dawkins, Alarie and Bilas built the foundation for the Duke dynasty and helmed one of the greatest teams to not win a championship, losing in the 1986 finals to Louisville (and their own fabulous frosh, Pervis Ellison). Brad Daugherty played behind other trees for a couple of years and then dominated for two seasons before going #1 in the NBA draft. And of course, you have Len Bias, the best player of this incredible group.

1994
Joe Smith, MARY **#&!
Jerry Stackhouse, UNC *&
Jeff Capel, DUKE
Tim Duncan, WFU ***##&&!
Rasheed Wallace, UNC *&
Harold Deane, UVA
Keith Booth, MD *
Had Smith, Stackhouse and Wallace played more than two years each, this might have been a no-brainer as the best all time. I mean, look at those guys! Three different players won NPOY honors (folks forget that Stackhouse got one) and four were first team All-American.

1996
Stephon Marbury, GT *
Antawn Jamison, UNC ***#!
Terrell McIntyre, CLEM
Courtney Alexander, VIRG
Vince Carter, UNC *
If this list only included freshman-year performance, '96 might be the winner. Marbury and Jamison were great right off the bat and Alexander quickly showed that he was Virginia's most gifted offensive player ever. Carter and McIntyre both grew into great college players. Sadly, Marbury played only one season of college ball.

2000
Joseph Forte, UNC *&
Jason Williams, Duke **&&!!
Carlos Boozer, Duke *
Travis Watson, Virg
Roger Mason, Jr., Virg
Damien Wilkins, NCSU
Steve Blake, MD *
Mike Dunleavy, Duke *&
Josh Howard, WF *#&
This might be your winner! Like '94, four different players in this group made first team All-America. Blake helped lead Maryland to their only national championship while Williams, Boozer and Dunleavy took Duke to a title a year earlier. It's hard to remember, but Forte was actually the best player out of this group at first, but he left school too early.

2003
Chris Bosh, GT
Raymond Felton, UNC *
Rashad McCants, UNC *
Justin Gray, WFU
Jarrett Jack, GT
J.J. Redick, Duke **##&&!
Sean May, uNC *
Shelden Williams, Duke **&
If Bosh had played more than one season, this might have been the best group. Talk about your depth. May, McCants and Felton led Carolina to a title. Jack nearly did the same for Georgia Tech. Redick and Williams made one Final Four and Redick became the ACC's all-time leading scorer.

* = 1st team All-ACC
# = ACC POY
& = 1st team All-American
! = National POY

So, which one do you think is the best? Is there another class that I'm missing? Take it to the comments.

Who's Your Daddy?

Terry Bowden tells a great story about recruiting against his daddy, Saint Bobby. I don't want to steal his thunder, because it really is a great story.

As we walked back out onto the front porch, before I said goodbye, I turned to his mom one last time, hugged her neck and reminded her how much I loved her. Then, with all the sincerity I could muster, I looked that young man directly in the eyes and said, "I have never told anybody this before, but you're gonna win three Heisman trophies at Auburn. You'd win four, but you're gonna be in the NFL by then."

Nice find by FanBlogs.com.

Featherston Peers Into The Bubbles

Tis the season for endless articles about who's in and who's out and what teams still need to do. I love it! If my article from Monday wasn't enough for you (and I'm sure it wasn't), read Al Featherston's lengthy piece at the DBR. Coincidently, Featherston uses the same power ratings I do, but he's obviously a much better writer.

One point that Featherston makes that I should have mentioned is the role of injuries. The NCAA Tournament Committee has always factored in the impact of key injuries. Lose an important player late in the season, and the committee will round your numbers down. Have an important player return late (like Derrick Whittenberg for that '83 Wolfpack team) and the committee will round your numbers up.

The two ACC teams that affects are Boston College and Florida State. BC will be seen as slightly worse than their record shows, because they no longer have Sean Williams. In fairness, he's been gone a while, but they did win a bunch of games with him. For Florida State, if they can get Toney Douglas back before the season's over, that could really help. In fact, he might be more valuable to them hurt than healthy, assuming he does return. At least this way, they can claim that they would have won another game or two without having to prove it.

Big Four Hegemony Over?

Growing up as an ACC fan outside of North Carolina, I quickly learned to resent the Big Four schools. I mostly hated UNC, of course, but I was also really annoyed at how the conference really only seemed to exist to serve the schools in North Carolina. The ACC Tournament was nearly always there, players from those schools littered the all-conference teams and the media focused on Tobacco Road. It felt like Virginia, Maryland, Clemson and Georgia Tech were just around to fill things out a bit, like we were part of the club, but still couldn't go into the VIP Lounge in the back.

Over the years, I grew to learn that things weren't really artificially tilted toward the Old North State. Yes, North Carolina was and still is the main focus, but that's for a very good reason - the conference (and I'm talking basketball here) has been dominated by those four teams. In addition, it's served the ACC very well over the years to have this geographic and cultural center. It's here in North Carolina where the ACC matters the most and where the league's heart truly lies. Expansion has diluted things, but make no mistake, the ACC still revolves around the Big Four.

But the absolute dominance might be wavering. David Glenn wrote a brief piece today echoing a fact someone told me last week - this could be the first year in ACC history that fewer than two Big Four teams will finish in the top four of the ACC standings. That will happen unless Boston College, Virginia or Virginia Tech slip and Duke moves up. Of course, that's probably exactly what's going to happen.

If things do hold like they currently stand, I don't really think it means much in the long term. For one thing, the ACC simply has more teams now. For a long while, finishing in the top four only meant you were in the top half of the league, and considering that the Big Four made up half (or so) of the ACC, it's really not that surprising. Hell, UNC alone has only missed being in the top three a handful of times in league history. Also, both Duke and Carolina are still among the nation's top five programs. They aren't going anywhere and they'll be fighting for ACC supremacy for the foreseeable future.

So, non-North Carolina teams, you better resign yourself to more of this:
ACC Men's Basketball Championships

Duke — 16
North Carolina — 15
N.C. State — 10
Wake Forest — 4
Everyone Else Combined — 8 (Georgia Tech 3, Maryland 3, South Carolina 1, Virginia 1)

Former Cavs

It's completely predictable. A coach of a struggling team is fired and before his replacement has even unpacked his boxes, several key players transfer. It makes sense. Things weren't going well and the guys are obviously frustrated. They don't know what to expect from the new guy, so they head out for greener pastures.

When Dave Leitao came to Virginia, he lost two key players, big man Donte Minter and wing guard Gary Forbes. Minter eventually popped up at Appalachian State while Forbes went to UMass. Each of those guys is now the second leading scorer on a tourney-worthy (or close) team.

Before Leitao was even hired, UVA lost talented wingman Derrick Byars, who transferred to Vanderbilt. Byars is now the leading scorer for the Commodores and helped lead their upset over #1 ranked Florida last weekend.

Given how much UVA relies on two players for their scoring, don't you think Leitao would have liked to have kept those guys? And just how bad was Pete Gillen? Leitao has this team, with almost all Gillen players, in first place in the ACC even without those three. Gillen led that bunch to dead last in the ACC.

Bubble Watch - 2/19/2007

Things are getting serious. Nine ACC teams have a very good chance of getting into the NCAA Tournament - although not all nine will - but only three have wrapped up bids with two weeks left. Carolina is really only playing for seeding - a one or a two - at this point. It probably doesn't make that much difference this year, as there aren't enough really good teams out that to make it all that different if they are lined up against a three seed (as a two) or a four (as a one) to get to the Final Four.

Duke and Maryland have also both sewn up bids. That Maryland claim may surprise some, but the Terps have quietly won three straight and now have 20 wins. There is no way in hell that an ACC team gets 20 wins and doesn't get a bid, especially in a year where like this, where the ACC is very good (but not quite great).

The conventional wisdom is that two teams, Clemson and Florida State, have played their way out of the tournament. I disagree. The Noles certainly have put themselves in a bit of a whole, but Clemson's situation is nowhere near as dire as some would think. The Tigers have already won 19 games and still have an RPI of 30. Those are NCAA-worthy numbers. Sure, they are sliding, but one more win out of their final four will get them to 20. I already stated my position on that. I don't believe ACC team has ever gotten to 20 wins and missed out on a bid. 19 wins is no guarantee, but 20 seems to be the magic number. I think the Tigers will make it.

FSU needs to win at least two of their final three and then get one or two ACC Tourney wins to feel safe.

Georgia Tech is still an interesting team. Their overall record is worse than all the ACC bubble teams except for Florida State. They have a losing ACC record. They've lost to both Miami and Wake Forest. But the computers still like them. Joe Lunardi says they're in. So does the Dance Card. In reality, they probably need to win two of their last four games to feel somewhat comfortable, although they'd really want to follow that up with a first-round ACC Tournament win. Three of those last four contests are against Virginia (on the road), BC and UNC. No easy ones there, but they do get Wake at home and that should be a gimme, especially considering that they lost in Winston-Salem earlier.

The three other teams who are on the high side of the bubble right now are Virginia, Boston College and Virginia Tech. The former Big Easters had tough weekends, while the Cavs got a solid win over Florida State. Virginia and Virginia Tech both had pretty meager computer ratings just a few weeks ago and have been steadily climbing to where they are in pretty good shape. None of these three teams can afford to lose out, but all are probably just a win or two from being a lock, particularly BC and UVA who already have nine league wins. Supposedly the Committee doesn't consider conference records in making their decision, but there's no way that they turn down an ACC team that won 10 conference games. No freaking way.

One interesting statistical note is that UNC lost their fourth game this week, a home upset by Virginia Tech, and yet lost nothing in the computer ratings. In fact, they actually jumped up in the Dance Card rankings from 7 to 2. I really can't explain that. I went ahead and pointed their arrow down anyway because that just makes sense.

The table below is in the same format as the one from last week. I included several pertinent rankings and colored in the teams according to their NCAA standing (in my opinion) at this point. Red = out, Green = in and Yellow = could go either way. I was probably a bit harsh on UVA and Clemson because I really think both are in at this point.

Final games for bubble teams:

BC: @VT, Clemson, @GT (Pomeroy says 1-2)
VT: BC, Miami, @UVA, Clemson (Pomeroy says 3-1)
Clemson: Duke, @BC, Miami, @VT (Pomeroy says 1-3)
GT: WF, @UVA, UNC, BC (Pomeroy says 3-1)
UVA: @Miami, GT, VT, @WF (Pomeroy says 3-1)
FSU: @MD, NCSU, @Miami (Pomeroy says 2-1)

The Message Board

Pardon me for a little site-related post here.

Lately we've had some good discussions in the comments of my articles. There are a lot of intelligent, knowledgeable ACC fans reading and posting here, fans from nearly every school in the ACC. Each day, Dave Sez receives at least 500 unique visitors, some days seeing well over 1,000. Granted, a large hunk of those are surfers searching for sexy pictures of Serge Zwicker or meat-cutting tips from Shavlik Randolph's mom, but there are still a great many ACC fans coming here looking for some good ACC talk.

What a lot of people may not realize is that Dave Sez includes a full-featured message board (named the Sports Shack in honor of my favorite amphibian) and that any one of you can create threads or comment in an existing one. All you need to do is register here and you can do it all.

If you are reading an article and are perusing the comments, you can switch to the message board by clicking on the "forum view" link at the bottom. There, you'll find the exact same list of comments, just in message board format.

One of the main goals I had when I created this site was to have a community of like-minded ACC fans who could have intelligent discussion. Team-specific boards can get boring. Dave Sez can never replace the boards at the Duke Basketball Report, Inside Carolina, The Sabre or Pack Pride, but it can be a great alternative when you're tired of reading about why we should or should not fire the coach.

So, give it a try. Register and start a thread. All it takes is a handful of regulars (and I think we have those) to get a great board going.

p.s. if you're wondering why it's called The Sports Shack

ACC Review - 2/15/2007

It was an interesting week, that's for sure. With Virginia Tech's impressive win in Chapel Hill, Duke's explosion (and BC's implosion) in Chestnut Hill last night and Clemson and FSU damaging their NCAA chances, there was a lot going on. Each year, when we get to this point, the most interesting storylines to me are the teams who are right on or near the bubble and how they play in the last couple of weeks. This year, the ACC has nine teams with a good shot of making the tourney, and really only Carolina and Duke (don't believe the hype - the Blue Devils are already in) have completely sealed their bids. But the ACC's not getting nine in, regardless of what Joe Lunardi projects (actually, he's already changed. He had nine in the other day, but now FSU has fallen out).

Obviously, it's important for every team to play well, but really, your NCAA seed isn't that critical. Unless you can land a top two seed, you're going to have to beat a decent team even in the first round. No, the real intrigue and the real pressure is on the teams just trying to make it in. There's a ton at stake - prestige, money, recruiting, the coach's job. It'll be a lot of fun to see how UVA, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Maryland and even Virginia Tech and BC finish up. Someone's going to blow their chance. Who's it going to be?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's look back at the week that was...

Saturday, Feb. 10
UNC 104, Wake 67

Man, was this game ugly. And I'm not just talking about that sportcoat that Michael Jordan was wearing (I mean seriously, did you see that thing? What happened. Did he lose a bet?) Remember way back, oh two years ago, when Wake Forest was one of the best teams in the country? What is it with former Xavier coaches and program collapses?

Miami 80, N.C. State 65

If the UNC-Wake game was ugly, then this one was fugly. A hot NC State team had no business being waxed like this by a mediocre and short-handed Miami team. But State just looked like they didn't care. Maybe it was because nobody cared. I've never seen an ACC arena so empty. It was disgusting. They claim that 3,000 people were there, but it looked more like 800. I'm not sure there were any students. I was trying to figure out where the student section was and after a few minutes, I finally saw a group of about 15 kids all wearing orange shirts. I guess that was it. Terrible.

As for the game, I think this one stat summed it up best: Miami, missing nearly the entire frontline, pulled down 21 offensive rebounds. Offensive rebounds! That's just stunning. I hope El Sid had his boys running stairs for a couple of hours after that one.

Va. Tech 84, UVa 57

You could see this one coming, couldn't you? Tech really needed the win while the Cavaliers were riding the high of their seven-game winning streak. Let's be honest, UVA isn't really gunning for first in the ACC. They didn't need this game and it showed. It shouldn't have been quite so lopsided as it was, but the writing was on the Cassell walls before tip.

Sunday, Feb. 11
Ga. Tech 65, UConn 52

UConn is not a great team this year, but this was still an important win for Georgia Tech and the ACC. The win pushed the league to 6-9 against the Big East. Duke still has St. Johns, so it will probably be 7-9 when the NCAA Tourney starts. There's still a chance!

By the way, I was amazed at just how bad UConn's offense was. I can't recall when I've seen a team quite so inept. They were horrible. The weird thing is that they are clearly talented, but nobody can shoot.

BC 68, FSU 67

That had to hurt for the Seminoles. They had the game in hand. Had it. Then Dudley hit that crazy three while being fouled (although I'm not sure refs should call fouls like that when the shooter jumps into an airborne defender.) and later Tyrelle Blair (!) hit a game winner. Talk about improbable. But then, that's Florida State basketball. It's like they are allergic to success. They win a few games and break out in a rash. If they hadn't beaten Florida earlier this year, the Seminoles would be definitely out of the tourney at this point.

And how about BC? They were supposed to start losing games as their schedule got hard even before Sean Williams was dismissed. Well, they haven't. Al Skinner and the players are doing a fantastic job this year.

Maryland 72, Duke 60

Everyone knew this was going to happen, right? Duke was not playing with any confidence and Maryland needed the win. Needed it. And boy do they and their fans love to play Duke. No ACC program has had Mike Krzyzewski's number in recent years like the Terps. There's no good explanation for it, since Maryland has sucked against everyone else, but when they see that Duke blue, they turn into world-beaters. The only thing about this game that did surprise me was that Duke just never seemed to be into it. Maryland jumped on Duke from the tip and while Duke trimmed the lead down a few times, it never once felt like they were really going to win.

Tuesday, Feb. 13
UVa 90, Longwood 49

That win probably hurt UVA's RPI.

VT 81, UNC 80 (OT)

Wow. How impressive was Virginia Tech in this game? Carolina led the whole way, but the Hokies never went away. Carolina would hit a few shots, get the crowd fired up and look to the world like they were going to blow it open and then Tech would hit a couple of shots and be right back in it. Then, when it came to crunch time, experience took over. Carolina made several key mistakes late (like Ty Lawson waiting way too long to start his attack on the final possession of regulation) and blew it.

Who would have guessed that Virginia Tech would own two wins over Carolina and a win in Cameron in the same season? If you had asked me when the Hokies would have earned that many wins over the top two ACC programs, I would have guessed that it would take a decade. And I never would have dreamed that they'd do it all in one year.

Looking at that team, it's easy to imagine that they could make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. They have very good, experienced guards (a MUST), in Jamon Gordon and Zabian Dowdell, a big man who can defend, rebound and score (at times) in Coleman Collins, an athletic do-everything wing in Deron Washington (who keeps getting better and better) and a dangerous scorer off the bench in A.D. Vassallo. Sure, Tech could bomb out early, but I don't think any top seed would want to see them.

Ga. Tech 63, FSU 57

Two weeks ago, Georgia Tech had lost four in a row and five of seven and had played themselves out of the tourney. With this win - a HUGE road win, the Jackets have won four in a row. Paul Hewitt has his freshmen playing well again and this team is dangerous. Paul Hewitt can coach.

On the other hand, FSU has now lost three in a row, two at home, all to ACC bubble teams. Their next two games are on the road at Virginia and Maryland, two teams who would love to step on the Noles on their way to securing a bid. It could be an epic collapse by FSU. If they can manage to win one of those games, they finish up with two winnable games against NC State and Miami. But, it could be too late by then.

Wednesday, Feb. 14
Maryland 85, N.C. State 70

What happened to the scrappy, never-say-die Wolfpack? Have they just worn out after a long season with too few breaks for the starters? Maybe. My other theory is that part of the blame can go to Engin Atsur. Sure, he's an excellent player who was key in their victories over Virginia Tech and UNC, but Atsur plays at such a slow, deliberate pace that I think the whole team slows down. It's very easy to get caught up in that tempo and suddenly you're missing out on rebounds and loose balls and your opponents are backdooring you for layups. Maybe I'm off base, but I think the Pack, lack of depth be damned, play better when they are pushing the pace a bit.

Wake 67, Clemson 65

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don't hand that worst-collapse title to the Seminoles just yet! Clemson has quite a claim on that title, and this loss to the pathetic Deacons just adds another entry to their ledger. If you want to get on the high side of the bubble, just just can't blow games like this. To make things worse, the Kings of Collapse had another late-game sputter. It was bad enough to let Virginia score the final 12 points to make up an 11-point deficit, but in this one, the Tigers missed their final nine shots and didn't hit a field goal in the final 6 minutes. You know, you do that once, it's a bad loss. You do it twice (and to the last-place team in the league) and it's a problem. Oliver Purnell is doing something wrong.

Duke 78, BC 70

Mike Patrick and (to a lesser degree) Dick Vitale went on and on last night about how Boston College wasn't hustling and how disgraceful that was and how anyone could hustle, blah, blah, blah. But that wasn't really true. Yes, there were a lot of Duke fast breaks, but in almost all of those cases, a Blue Devil snagged an errant pass to the wing and took off. There was simply no Eagle who could have done anything about it. Could some other guys have run back to make an appearance that they were trying? Sure, I suppose. Another option when you're beaten like that is to go the YMCA route - don't go back on D so that you're already on offense after the other team scores. A quick outlet pass and now you have a layup too!

Don't get me wrong, BC played poorly and Duke took it to them (I can't recall a game where one team had so many dunks and layups), but it wasn't because they didn't chase down the 3-on-1 breaks. To me, there were four critical aspects of the game, in this order:

1. John Oates' "defense". He was horrible. He frequently lost track of McRoberts, allowing him wide-open layups. When Josh had the ball, Oates couldn't stop him; all it took was two dribbles and McRoberts had an easy shot. When another Dukie drove the lane, Oates just stood by and admired the dunk. Seriously, Daryl Hall would have been a better choice last night.

2. DeMarcus Nelson's defense on Jared Dudley. Dudley couldn't find the ball in the first half. He was wearing Nelson like an extra jersey. Duke killed BC's offensive beast by cutting off the head. The Eagles did a better job in the second half finding ways to get Dudley the ball, but it was too late.

3. Too many horrible passes. I already mentioned this, but it deserves repeating. You aren't going to win too many games when you keep throwing the opposition the ball for SportsCenter-worthy dunks.

4. Bad attitude. BC seemed ready to blame the refs for this game from the opening tip and complained wildly about every call, no matter how good it might have been. The us-against-the-world attitude works sometimes, but last night it made them a bunch of whiny punks looking to blame everyone else for their struggles. Blaming the refs - while the game is still going on - is a loser mentality and BC got what they asked for.

All that said, BC has had an excellent season and I expect that they'll put forth a much better effort against Carolina. It may not make a difference against what will be a surly Tar Heel bunch, but BC is a good team. They just have to play like it again.

Piling On

Duke's been losing. Have you heard?

The news has gotten so pervasive that even those college hoops agnostics in the Northeast have caught on. And this guy seems to be enjoying it. That's a pretty inflammatory piece right there. He even gets in a few shots at NC State and Clemson. Call Duke any names you want, but saying they're insignificant? That hurts.

A few more articles like that and BC might just start being a real part of the ACC after all.

Mid-Season (sort of) Player Ratings

Each year, I like to check in somewhere around the middle of the ACC season and run an analysis on the players to see who's having the best season so far. As in the past, I've calculated the Prouty Rating of each player in the league who averages 10 or more minutes per game. I've also added my own slightly modified version that I'm calling the Irwin Rating (crappy name, I know). Basically this is just the Prouty with the win share dialed back a bit. Prouty has it as 25% of the total, while the Irwin Rating has it as just 10%.

No statistical analysis should be trusted without a bit of a sanity check. Any educated observer would say that a good rating system would have to rate Jared Dudley, Tyler Hansbrough, Sean Singletary and a few others as the best players in the league. By that measure, the Irwin Ratings look pretty good. Dudley comes out on top, followed by Hansbrough (Singletary is number 5).

The top 50:

After looking at this and based on what I've seen so far this year, my All-ACC teams (at this point):

1st
--------------
Jared Dudley (POY)
Tyler Hansbrough
Sean Singletary
Zabian Dowdell
Brandan Wright

2nd
---------------
Al Thornton
JR Reynolds
Ty Lawson
James Mays
Tyrese Rice

3rd
------------------
Javaris Crittenton
Ben McCauley
Josh McRoberts
DJ Strawberry
Kyle Visser

A few thoughts:

• I really expected Gavin Grant to rate higher. He does so many things for State. His turnovers really kill his overall efficiency though.


• When Caulton Tudor wrote last week that Lawson should be Freshman of the Year, I thought he was crazy, that Brandan Wright was shoo-in. The numbers back up my pick, but according to these Lawson is a much better choice than I thought. Lawson produces more offense per minute than any player in the league.


• UVA has Singletary and Reynolds in the top 10 and their next best player is Mamadi Diane down at 48. And you wonder why Singletary's assist numbers are so low.


• Reyshawn Terry's rating surprises me (which is why I ignored it and left him off the third team. I mean, he's a good player sometimes, but 11th without even scoring in double figures? That one's a bit odd.


• McRobert's ranking kind of supports my thinking on him. He does a lot of things, but nothing exceptionally well.


• This is really no surprise, but Miami's best player is Brian Asbury at 43. How many ACC fans have any idea who Asbury is? Hell, how many Miami "fans" know who he is? Judging by their attendance at the State game, not many.


• Kyle Visser should win some sort of award for putting up with the team around him and still producing.

The full raw stats.

The Pete Gaudet Story

One of the commonly listed items in Duke-haters checklists is that Duke and Coach Krzyzewski unethically saddled interim coach Pete Gaudet with K's losses in 1995. This story has always seemed like a non-issue to me, because Gaudet did coach that team for two losing months, but the controversy never seems to go away.

Well, with Duke now losing like it's 1995, the Gaudet Issue has resurfaced like a sulphuric bubble popping out of a tar pit. Coach K was asked about it in his press conference yesterday and said that he thinks he should be saddled with the losses. Gary Johnson, the NCAA's associate director of statistics says that the decision is totally up to Duke and they were well within their rights to assign the record to Gaudet. Duke did not have to "petition" the NCAA for anything. The NCAA leaves those sorts of decisions up to schools (which is amazing considering how much the NCAA does regulate).

To really discuss the situation, you have to go back and look at that year. Joe Ovies does a good job with his post at 850 The Blog. Folks seems to forget that Duke was actually having a pretty solid year. They were 9-2, they were ranked and they had beaten a couple of ranked teams already. They clearly weren't as good as recent Blue Devils squads (not many teams are), but the only real hint of trouble occurred when they lost their ACC opener against Clemson. Anytime Duke loses to Clemson in Cameron it's jarring, but no one really thought it meant that Duke sucked. That loss came on January 4. Coach K never coached again that season - including practices - and the Blue Devils completely fell apart, winning only four more games (including one in the ACC Tournament).

So again, Duke was 9-3 while K was on the bench. After he left, they went 4-15. Pete Gaudet ran the team for over two months and turned a 9-3 team into a 13-18 team.

Others point to some other examples where coaches have missed games, but still kept the results on their record. In all of the cases I've heard mentioned (there are a few in here), the coach missed only a small handful of games. In those cases, it makes sense to me to keep it on the record of the head coach. A few games isn't enough to completely turn a team around, one way or the other. Two months is a different story. Coach K had no chance to address the problems of the team. He had no chance to see what the ACC teams were doing and adjust. He had no chance to go through the league a second time trying different things. Simply put, Coach K was not coaching his team. Why should he take the record? Do you really think that team goes 2-14 in the ACC with Krzyzewski on the bench?

So let's give this one a rest folks. You can find plenty of reasons to dislike about Duke and Mike Krzyzewski. Doctoring his record isn't a good one.

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Bubble Watch - 2/12/2007

I'm changing the name of my weekly column looking at the ACC power rankings because at this time of year, it's all about the NCAA Tournament. Which teams are on the bubble? What seeds are the top teams headed for?

As part of this, I dropped the columns that look at Ken Pomeroy's offensive and defensive ratings and added in the rating from the Dance Card site (read about it here) and my postseason prediction. I also colored in the rows based on that team's NCAA standing. Green means a team is definitely in (right now), yellow means they are a bubble team (which could mean that they are in according to some power ratings, but out in others) and red means they are looking for and early offseason.

Thoughts:

• Boston College had a nice week, winning two away games (yeah, one was Miami, but ask NC State about that) and the computers liked it.


• The traditional power ratings of Pomeroy and Sagarin like Georgia Tech a whole lot more than the RPI. The Dance Card rating is heavily influenced by the RPI, so it doesn't like the Jackets either. While it's nice that they picked up two critical wins this week, I think they need to keep it up.


• On the other side, the RPI and Dance Card like UVA a lot more than Pomeroy's power ratings do. Fortunately for the Cavs, Pomeroy's 49 ranking is a bit of outlier and unless they keep playing like they did on Saturday, they are going to be dancing.


• Duke's four-game losing streak hasn't hurt them in the ratings nearly as much as I would have thought. I wonder what will happen when the streak runs to five?


• NC State's back-to-back wins over Virginia Tech and UNC had some fans thinking they could make a late run for an NCAA berth, but Saturday's loss to Miami pretty much ended that hope. They just have too much ground to make up.

The Most Important ACC Game

[Dave: Dave Sez reader William Loeffler has emailed to me or posted in the Sports Shack some great thoughts on ACC history, so I asked if he'd be willing to write some ACC History pieces for Dave Sez. This is his first effort, and it's an outstanding look at the most important basketball game in ACC history. It's probably not the one you are thinking of.]

Was There ACC Basketball Before Dick Vitale?

My name is William Loeffler, and I am someone who grew up in the ACC region during its rise to glory during the 1970's, following it wherever I was living at the time. With the exception of one year in Pennsylvania, I have been fortunate enough to have always lived in ACC country, dividing my years between Atlanta, Georgia; Charlotte, NC; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; Falls Church, Virginia and now Frederick, Maryland. I attended UNC as an undergraduate and then did some graduate work at the other Carolina, USC. Like many of you, I am a huge fan not only of my local or state team or alma mater, but even further, of the ACC, and am interested in its schools, players, coaches and history in general.

Dave has asked me to write some articles about the history of the ACC. For those of you who are as obsessed with ACC hoops as I am, I hope that maybe I can be a resource to show just why ACC basketball is the best and why it has been for at least 30 years. Any readers out there, we ask that you submit questions or potential articles that interest you, either to Dave, at daveirwin1@yahoo.com, or to me, at williamodouglas@aol.com. [Dave: or even better, post something in the Sports Shack and get a thread started]

Although many people would have loved to be at Carolina when I was there, from 1983-1987, during the period of Jordan, Perkins, Kenny Smith and Brad Daugherty, and two perfect 14-0 seasons in conference, I think that the ACC was far more exciting ten or fifteen years earlier, when Cameron was not much different from any of the other schools' gyms and the league only had 7 or 8 teams, with the Big Four teams in North Carolina often playing each other 3 or 4 times per year.

Because UCLA was so strong through 1975 and then Carolina and Coach K and Duke have been so strong since the early 1980's, I believe that a lot of younger ACC fans and students don't know a lot about the period between 1961 and 1981, except maybe a little about David Thompson and the Wolfpack.

Bill Foster's Duke teams in the mid to late 70's, and Frank McGuire's Gamecocks and Dean Smith's and Lefty's teams of the early 1970's were all sensational in their own ways, and many of their players have gone on to great success in the fields of law, politics, television, coaching and team administration. UVA's teams of the early 80's were certainly among the strongest teams never to win an NCAA title. All of these teams deserve to be remembered more than they currently are, I believe and maybe we can help provide some prospective and give some accolades that continue to be due them.

For this article, I will try to sketch out some of the events regarding the one major game that I believe took ACC and college basketball to the level where it is now, after languishing far behind college football and the NBA for years:

NC State versus UCLA, NCAA Semi-Finals, Greensboro, March 23rd, 1974.

In 1954, the ACC started play in basketball, forming from some of the mid-Atlantic remnants of the old Southern Conference. While it didn't take the league long to win its first national title in 1957, it would take 17 years before another ACC club would win it all.

The 1957 Tar Heels went 32-0, winning the championship and setting a record for most wins without a loss that still stands, having only been equaled by the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers. As good as the 'Heels were that year, it took an enormous amount of good fortune for them to win it all, starting with a 2-point victory in the ACC Semi-Finals over Wake Forest and their then winning a pair of triple overtime games in the Final Four, finally triumphing over Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas by a score of 54-53. Dean Smith, who was a former Kansas player and Air Force assistant coach, would meet Frank McGuire at that Final Four, while rooting for the Jayhawks, but that is another story.

Nevertheless, in spite of their amazing success, the 1957 Tar Heels were somewhat of a fluke, not in terms of their abilities, but in terms of the ACC's. UNC's success was based more upon Frank McGuire's NYC connections, which he later employed with equal success in Columbia, SC, than were they necessarily indicative of the ACC's overall basketball prowess at the time. Between 1957 and 1974, no ACC team seriously came close to winning the NCAA tournament.

The conference simply didn't have members that were quite good enough during the years between 1957 and 1963, but for the 12 years after that, there was one major reason: UCLA. Between 1964 and 1974, only one other team made it to the hallowed grounds: Texas Western, and they made a movie about them. Everyone else was beaten back by UCLA, the so-called “Wizards of Westwood.”

Only Duke and UNC even made it to the NCAA finals during this 17 year period and both lost handily. Duke made it to the finals in 1964 and got throttled by UCLA, 78-63, followed by UNC in 1968, which lost to UCLA by a then-NCAA record 78-55.

Dean Smith had his team slow down the action in the first half, knowing that his team could not compete with what many considered the greatest team of all time, and UNC managed to “only” trail by ten at the half. Dean was a little more democratic in his younger days as a coach, and after conferring during the intermission with his players, who wanted to play UCLA straight up, Smith relented, and his team went on to lose by the largest margin in NCAA Finals history, a record that was later broken in 1990 NCAA finals by another ACC team.

I would mark the start of the modern college basketball period with two key events: Lew Alcindor going to UCLA, and then David Thompson and the N.C. State Wolfpack ending the UCLA dynasty in a 80-77 double-overtime game for the ages in 1974. After this point, it was clear just how good NC State was, and how strong the ACC had become as a league. College basketball's crown was now wide open for winning again and both the ACC and the sport of college basketball took off at the same time as the NBA declined and moved into its mid-70's era of mediocre champions and basketball.

For context, State's monumental achievement occurred just weeks after UNC's 8-point comeback in 17 seconds against Duke in Chapel Hill, and which, because it involved Duke,