While nothing earthshattering has been going on there have been some developments in the last couple weeks that affect the ACC and all of college basketball.
Lets start with the announcement today that the NCAA will no longer use RPI as its method of ranking teams statistically, rather going to a newly debuted system called NET, or NCAA Evaluation Tool, to sort out the rankings.
Per the ESPN Article:
NET will take into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, offensive and defensive efficiency and the quality of wins and losses.
"What has been developed is a contemporary method of looking at teams analytically, using results-based and predictive metrics that will assist the Men's Basketball Committee as it reviews games throughout the season," Dan Gavitt, senior vice president of basketball for the NCAA, said in a news release. "While no perfect rankings exist, using the results of past tournaments will help ensure that the rankings are built on an objective source of truth."
On to a couple ACC specific NCAA decisions regarding waivers to play right away, Miami and NC State both got good news this week as the NCAA approved guard Anthony Mack to play right away after transferring from Wyoming, where he didn't play due to injury so will have four years at Miami. For the Wolfpack, its transfer point guard Blake Harris, from Missouri after he played nine games last season. He should have three years of eligibility remaining.
On a sour note for the Wolfpack, incoming freshman Forward Manny Bates will redshirt this season due to a dislocated left shoulder. Bates was the 98th ranked prospect in his class and expected to play significant minutes this season for the Wolfpack. Harris and Bates are two of nine new players incoming for the Wolfpack for this season.
Onto the actual floor, Duke in its Tour of Canada looked to be firing on all cylinders with Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett leading the way to a three game sweep. Both Williamson and Barrett have averaged over 30 points a contest so far up north. One costly part of this trip is that sophomore guard Alex O'Connell fractured his orbital bone in their game against Ryerson, which brings to three the number of Duke players out with injuries, including Tre Jones and Cameron Reddish. O'Connell mainly was a backup last season so not a huge impact to the Blue Devils.
Wake Forest has been forced to place assistant coach Jamill Jones on administrative leave while he deals with the assault charges in New York, where he punched a drunk tourist who was hitting the car his family was in, who ultimately died after falling backward and striking his head on the curb.
Louisville continues to have the haze of Pitino hang over them. Pitino has been in the news twice recently, once for being part owner of a poorly named horse "Party Dancer" which won a major race. Secondly, Pitino's suit against Adidas was dismissed by a federal judge and referred to an arbitrator, which was called for in the contract between the two parties. A third aspect of that fallout, Brian Bowen, the players whose family reportedly received the $100K at the root of that debacle, has signed a pro contract in Australia after not being drafted.
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