Kerry Blackshear led all scorers with 21 in @HokiesMBB first win of 2019. pic.twitter.com/XOSt88JaxP— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) January 2, 2019
Hey there Hokies round ball fanatics. As we entered the beginning of the ACC schedule on a high note I thought it a good time to take a look around the conference. So far this season the ACC is a combined 146-43. It seems like a respectable number, especially considering no team in the conference has a losing record at this point. There are seven teams ranked in the AP Poll. There are some feel good stories in how Pitt has rebounded and how well Boston College is doing. The number is a bit deceiving though as the conference also has some warts already this season. Several teams won holiday tournaments, including the Hokies winning the Charleston Classic.
New Trophies for the ACC
De'Andre Hunter had 20 points and nine rebounds to help No. 4 Virginia beat No. 25 Wisconsin 53-46 on Friday in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship game. https://t.co/ctl7ga9GBr pic.twitter.com/R8UFyT4wZf— WDBJ7Sports (@WDBJ7Sports) November 24, 2018
UVA – Bad Boys Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis – Beat #25 Wisconsin in the final
Virginia Tech wins Charleston Classic in impressive fashion https://t.co/spdyKKzSkR via @CollegiateTimes— Devin Shepard (@drashawnshepard) November 23, 2018
VT – Charleston Classic – Beat #23 Purdue in the final
NC State – Wolfpack Classic (Home cooking scheduling) faced the Mercer Bears in the title game
Fort Myers Tip-Off Champs! 🏆Boston College takes out Loyola Chicago for the title. pic.twitter.com/FJdrqJChfp— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) November 22, 2018
Boston College – Inaugural Fort Myers Tip Off – Beat Loyola-Chicago in the final
Pitt holds off St. Louis 75-73 in Barclays Center Classic https://t.co/aoVbefNjNC pic.twitter.com/JiKhENC3ct— FOX2now (@FOX2now) November 22, 2018
Pitt – Barclays Center Classic – Beat Saint Louis in the final
Notre Dame – Gotham Classic – Beat Duquesne in the final
Just short
Florida State lost to Villanova in the Advocare Invitational title game
Duke lost to #3 Gonzaga in the final of the Maui Invitational
Clemson lost to Creighton in the final of the Cayman Islands Classic
Miami lost to Seton Hall in the final of the Wooden Legacy
ACC/Big10 Challenge ended in a tie, with the Hokies laying the biggest egg in that competition, even if it was 5 vs 8 or 9
Critical Wins for the ACC
Duke opens the season with a 118-84 thrashing of Kentucky. Later on they added a solid win over #8 Auburn.
Florida State takes down #19 LSU and #19 Purdue, when Purdue was still playing like a ranked team.
Virginia Tech starts the sadness for #23 Purdue in the Charleston Classic Championship.
Virginia puts down #24 Wisconsin and #25 Maryland in back to back games.
UNC comes out on top over #17 UCLA and #4 Gonzaga
Louisville upset Michigan State in the ACC/Big10
Syracuse pulled the upset over #16 Ohio State
NC State takes down #7 Auburn
TERRIBLE LOSSES
Boston College loses to IUPUI early on and Hartford to close out the OOC schedule – As good as the story has been for Boston College, who find themselves at 9-3 so far this season, losing to IUPUI is never acceptable. They mailed this game in after giving up a 10 point lead in the first half. This is only the second win over an ACC team since 2001 for IUPUI, who beat Georgia Tech back then. The Eagles decided they weren't done with puzzling losses by letting Hartford beat them for the second time in three years, 79-78 in overtime.
Pitt loses to Niagra – One of the other feel good stories for the ACC is how Pitt has rebounded this season to start 8-3 after finishing last year 8-24 and 0-18 in ACC play. All that said, Pitt lost on a last second shot to Niagra, who was playing without their top player. Pitt only closed the gap late in the game but Niagra controlled this contest most of the second half, getting up by as many as 12. The most disheartening this for Pitt in this game is that they managed to force 24 turnovers and still couldn't find a win.
Notre Dame loses to Radford – Radford is a much improved team compared to where they were a couple of years ago. That said, Notre Dame should not find themselves on the wrong side of the score sheet against the Highlanders ever. The Irish just could not contain the outside shot and Radford took full advantage of it.
Syracuse loses to ODU – Syracuse went into the second half against ODU with an 11 point lead. It went steadily downhill from there. The Orange had no answer for B.J. Stith, who scored 18 points in the second half to lead Old Dominion over Syracuse 68-62. Stith was 10-11 from the free throw line in the second half to help the Monarchs win this game.
Wake Forest (take your pick) loses to St Joes by twenty 89-69, which isn't necessarily terrible in that St Joes is a decent opponent. Wake Forest then managed to squeeze in a loss to Houston Baptist 93-91. Then capped off the OOC schedule with a second ACC loss to Gardner Webb 73-69. Not one of these games did the Demon Deacons have any semblance of defense, allowing both opponents to shoot over 45% from the perimeter.
Georgia Tech loses to Gardner Webb – Yes, the same team the Hokies beat 87-59, and are a respectable 8-5 on the season so far, but none of that account for the Yellow Jackets getting chewed up by the Bulldogs in a 79-69 loss. GT allowed GW to shoot better than 50% from the field and 40% from the perimeter.
Miami starting 5-0 and then losing their next four - The Hurricanes were rolling right along in their Out of Conference schedule, winning all five to start with. Then they lost the championship game of the Wooden Legacy tournament by two while having several chances to get the win in the last thirty seconds of the game. After that it was a tailspin for the Hurricanes, with losses to Rutgers in the ACC-Big10 Challenge, followed by getting kicked around by the Ivy League with losses to Yale and Penn.
ACC Standings and indented after the team write up are Injuries or other Players not playing
Considering the Hokies and Notre Dame have played the only ACC game so far, here is where things stand:
#1 Duke (11-1) Blah, blah, blah Zion, other freshman, so dominant, etc. etc. If you haven't gotten the scoop on Duke than you were lucky enough to miss every broadcast about sports in the last four months. Williamson is a stud but has some definite freshman flaws, especially if he gets stymied in the paint. Kind of surprising, he has only led Duke in scoring in five games so far, with Barrett leading in the remaining eight games. The biggest way to get Duke out of their game though has nothing to do with Williamson or Barrett. You need to get Freshman Point Guard Tre Jones uncomfortable where he averages 5.6 assists per game right now.
#4 UVA (12-0) LOLUVA is waiting for January 15th to see how they perform against the Hokies. The Wahoos haven't really faced many challenges but do have wins over #25 Wisconsin and #24 Maryland on the season. I still don't know what to make of this UVA team though because as much as their defense is as usual, stout, but the scarier aspect is that this is a team that has learned how to score as well. They even closed out the year by putting up 100 points on Marshall. Yeah 100 points and the majority of their games they have scored 70 or more.
Kihei Clark – Guard, Wrist Injury and is out indefinitely
#9 Florida State (12-1) Seminoles getting some mid season push, winning 7 straight after their loss to Villanova in the Advocare Invitational. Top wins over Florida, #19 LSU, #19 Purdue, and UConn.
MJ Walker, Sophomore Guard – hurt his ankle against UConn in a win. Walker is considered a Day to Day injury, only missing one game so far, averaging 9.3 PPG, 3 RPG, 1.8 APG, 1.3 APG
#10 Virginia Tech (12-1, 1-0)
#15 North Carolina (9-3) The Tar Heels are a combination of Seniors and Freshman, with two each in the starting lineup. Cameron Johnson, who seems like he has been there so long he should be a statue, is leading the Tar Heels in scoring alongside Senior Forward ¬Luke Maye. Freshman guards Coby White and Nassir Little round out the foursome averaging double digits on the season. The losses are to #19 Kentucky, #7 Michigan and Texas and top wins over Stanford, #17 UCLA and #4 Gonzaga.
Coby White – Freshman Point Guard – Ankle Injury – Day to Day but likely to continue playing through the injury. He sat out the UNC Wilmington game on Dec 5th but played against Gonzaga on Dec 15th. Likely will play against #19 Kentucky on the 22nd. He is averaging 15.2 PPG, 2 RPG, 3.9 APG, and almost 1 SPG. He is shooting 42% behind the arc.
#18 NC State (12-1) The Wolfpack, led by Senior Guard Torin Dorn took down #7 Auburn right before Christmas and their only loss was to #22 Wisconsin. They definitely have a high powered offense, getting to 100 points three times and over 80 in ten of their thirteen games so far. They gain separation from their opponents by hitting 45 more three pointers.
Ian Steere – Forward, Transferring
= Braxton Beverly, Sophomore Point guard suffered a fractured hand in late October that required surgery. He only missed one game and it doesn't seem to have slowed him down much but his numbers are not what they were last season either as he has struggled to shoot the ball.
Clemson (10-3) – This is likely the most experienced team the Hokies will face all season, with four seniors in the starting rotation and all four averaging better than 9.2 PPG. The only non-senior is Sophomore Forward Aamir Simms from Palmyra, VA. Clemson so far has losses to Creighton, Nebraska and #22 Mississippi State. Top wins are over South Carolina, Radford, and Georgia. Expect Clemson to be a late season bubble team so not a team you will want in your path late in the season.
Malik William – Sophomore Forward – Concussion – He has yet to suit up for the Tigers this season but only played 4.4 MPG last year contributing 1.5 PPG so doubtful this is a major impact.
Marcquise Reed – Graduate Senior Guard – Knee sprain in a win over St Peters two weeks ago and is considered Day to Day, is a huge loss for Clemson in any game he doesn't play. He has missed two games so far and is the Tigers leading scorer at 19.4 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 3.4 APG, and 1.6 SPG
Trey Jemison – Freshman Center – Knee Injury - No determined return, has only played in three games so far this season with neglible statistical impact. Still, not having a 7 foot, 254 lbs player to put out there has to hurt you somewhere.
Pittsburgh (10-3) Pittsburgh already has more wins than it did last season after going 0-16 in the ACC. They could do that same thing again with this team but I see Jeff Capel and his team stealing several wins down the stretch. This is a much more talented youth movement at Pitt than what is going on for Notre Dame. Pitt has three freshman in their starting five, all averaging in double figures, including leading scorer Xavier Johnson, from Bishop O'Connell in northern Virginia.
Peace Ilegomah – Sophomore Center, 6'9, 240 lbs Transferring due to lack of playing time. Was only getting 4.3 MPG.
Notre Dame (10-4, 0-1) As Hokies fans got to see yesterday, a youth movement is afoot at Notre Dame. Between injuries, transfers and illness, the Irish are counting on as many as four freshmen to play significant time as they get into ACC play.
Elijah Burns – Center, Transferred to Siena where he has been cleared to practice but is awaiting clearance to play right away. He was Co-Captain before announcing his decision to leave.
Rex Pflueger – Senior Forward, tore his ACL against Purdue on the 15th and is out for the season. Averaging 8.2 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 3.7 APG and was shooting 40% from the perimeter.
Robby Carmody – Freshman Guard, Shoulder injury after four games and is out for the season.
Boston College (9-3) – Probably the best feel good story of the ACC so far, BC has a couple bad losses but also has wins over Loyola Chicago, Minnesota, and Depaul. Still difficult to tell how they are going to do in the ACC. Picture the Hokies two years ago, and that gives you an idea of where the Eagles are at. As Ky Bowman goes, so go the Eagles.
Lousiville (9-4) – Chris Mack is already off to a solid start with the Cardinals but seems to be missing that killer instinct so far on the roster. Louisville's losses are all to good basketball programs, including #5 Tenn, Marquette, Indiana and #16 Kentucky. Scary for opponents in the ACC is the depth of the Louisville bench, where they can easily count on as many as 10 players to contribute in most games.
Syracuse (9-4) – The Orange came into the season in the rankings and expected to be a major step forward for Boeheim and company compared to the last few years. That hasn't been the case but they are stingy on defense in their storied 2-3 Zone. Their losses are to UConn, #13 Oregon, #14 Buffalo and Old Dominion. Really, only the Old Dominion loss is a head scratcher with how Buffalo is playing this season. The major Achilles heel for this team is their inability hit shots from the perimeter, where they are shooting 29.9% on the season.
Miami (8-4) Miami still hasn't recovered from Hernandez having to sit throughout the OOC schedule and still has no guidance on when or if he will be available to play. They also were hurt by the Pay for Play Court case in other areas as several key recruits for this season backed out and a couple other players transferred out of the school after the news broke about Miami being involved even though not much evidence has been found to make Miami guilty of much in this case.
Deng Gak – Freshman Forward – 6'10, 211 Lbs. Knee injury that required surgery and is out for the season with a six to eight month timeline to recover. Gak had been averaging 2.5 PPG, 1.1 BPG, 4.1 RPG and just over half an assist in 14.6 minutes per game. He had however seen his playing time steadily increasing so likely would have played a larger role later in the season.
Dewan Hernandez – Center – Eligibility issue based on FBI Corruption scandal listed him as receiving payments but no evidence so far has shown that he has, Averaged 11.4 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 1 BPG last season for the Hurricanes so a major blow for the Hurricanes to be missing this starter.
Georgia Tech (7-6) The primary problem for the Ramblin Wreck is their inability to play offense. They are fairly stout defensively, giving up the second fewest PPG in the ACC at 61.8.
Wake Forest (6-5) This was a season that the Demon Deacons were expected to step forward with five seniors returning. That said, its been a major bust with the senior class with only one playing more than a minor role. The Deacons have had to rely on Junior Guard Brandon Childress, who leads them in scoring with 16.6 PPG.
Jamie Lewis – Suspension, out indefinitely
Let me know if you have any questions about the conference and I will look to address them in the comments.
Comments
Thanks for the write-up. It is going to be interesting seeing how the Hokies match up as ACC play really gets going.
Danny Manning is going to get fired by the end of the year. They are awful. Josh Pastner deserves it but I'm not sure GT can afford another buyout. Everyone else in the ACC is decent to good, it will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
I dont disagree on Manning. I have been shocked his inability to recruit even talented bigs which was his forte at Kansas and then successfully coaching them up to NBA readiness. I know Wake is far from Kansas but Manning has been surprisingly underwhelming as a head coach.
Pastner is slimy so he would force every penny out of them and drag them through the muck doing it. They should have found a way to clear themselves of him when all that nonsense with that couple came out in the press.
The biggest thing that surprised me about Manning is that he seemed to have some momentum in year 2, and then they've seemingly imploded. Don't quite get it, especially when he has had some nice recruiting wins.
Pastner should have never been hired to begin with. I don't understand what they were going for there. He was a worse version of Brian Gregory
I would classify the Penn State loss as a bad loss for the ACC, not to mention tech. They're currently one game over .500 and are second to last in the BIG10 standings atm.
Its a P5 school and they have a winning record. It was the first true road game for this team. It wasnt a blowout. Sure its not ideal but its not losing to Gardner Webb twice or like when football, our second sport, lost to ODU.
Thanks for this great writeup. The points u make on Notre Dame and that they had only 7 players that day, gives me some pause on how that win announces VTs arrival into the ACC elite. I think we are a solid team (defense was fantastic), but the pauses where we let them back in would be big issues against Duke, UNC, and UVa. Im cautiously optimistic. Looking fwd to this season!
we only really play 7 players ourselves. So that's no excuse for Notre Dame. Fact is they're down this year, and we're up. Bigger tests will be other Top25 ACC teams for sure, but beating Notre Dame is a good thing.
#FreeNolley
Also, relevant
So not to get waaayyyy OT but I have read a lot about that girl and why she got flagged. She wasn't just flagged because she improved significantly over her previous score, she was flagged because her answers were remarkably similar to those taking the test around her, and she improved by an amount that less than 1% of test takers improve by.
well if the people around her were also getting the correct answers, wouldn't their sheets look the same?
I am being a smartass here, I can see how this would flag if her wrong answers were also the same, but the test is structured so that the harder questions may have wrong answers intended to be very close to the correct answers. If you took all of the answer sheets from across the country for people who scored the exact same, I wonder how similar the sheets would look.
I'm sure they have something that leads them to believe other that her selecting similar distractors as those around her. It's not as silly as the Nolley situation and it's not as simple as, she did better because she studied.
I have no dog in this fight (other than she had terrible taste in schools, I mean FSU is your dream school?!?!). I just find the story interesting once I learned that it wasn't just that she improved by an improbable amount.
Not to knock anyone's choice in profession, but going to school for dance or art is ludicrous to me. Its a talent that you have or you don't and it can be improved by many other means than paying state college tuition. Even more specific to this situation, how does an SAT or GPA tell anyone anything about a persons ability to dance? I know FSU has minimum admissions standards, but it only illustrates further the square peg round hole that is a college degree in the arts.
Great stuff. I had kept up with Hokie's basketball so far, but hadn't paid much attention to the rest of the ACC (or country). With football season now 99% over I'm ready to go full tilt into basketball season. This is exactly what I needed.
Another big statement of the relevancy of Buzzketball is the fact that the announcers spent 5 mins during the UNC game last night talking about how good VTMBB is this year.
During our game against Notre Dame, the one ESPN telecast guy was a Notre Dame alum and he came out and said he believes the Hokies will win the ACC this season multiple times, including in the post game interview with NAW. Pregame when they said he was a ND alum I was mentally prepared for a full onslaught of Notre Dame excuses or excess but he was surprisingly unbiased.
I was definitely surprised when he repeated that which I think was close to the end of the game.
NAW did a great job in that post ND game interview. I was impressed, he's a sharp kid.
I am not thrilled that we don't play Duke until Feb 26th or basically after all of their fab freshman have almost an entire season under their belt. I would have rather gotten them early to exploit their inexperience.
Didn't help Kentucky very much.
Kentucky is usually in the same boat. All young one-and-dones. It is one of the reasons I would hate to draw UK as a 7 seed because their incredibly talented team has started to figure out how to play college ball together and they tend to punch above their seeding.
Pretty dubious on LOLUVA but that could be my bias :-) ... Just can't buy in to a team that legitimately has only three serious scoring threats (Guy, Jerome and Hunter). Margin is just too thin given their snails pace (last nationally in KenPom).
Going to be real interesting to see the game in C'Ville with our new D vs. their limited offensive options. The matchups are interesting (again my bias)
5 vs Jerome- slight advantage to us
Med vs Guy- even
NAW vs Hunter- even
Outlaw vs. Key- ad VT
Blackshear vs Salt/ Diakete- big ad VT
Bench
Horne vs Huff- even
Bede vs. Clark- ad VT
Ok but lets be real in how that game will play out, how do you feel about Horne vs Salt/Diakete?
Also important, better new hairdo Guy vs Med?
Asking the important questions and making the most realistic assumptions right here. I like it.
I am being real re: our defensive intensity vs. their O and position by position advantages.
Horne is a warrior so I feel pretty good about it. Keep thinking he'll struggle against bigger players but he's just has a knack- like the Brian Randle of post players. .
Doubt Salt plays more than 12 minutes... terrible matchup vs Blackshear. More likely Diakete and Huff on Blackshear.
I think if Horne continues to show his ability to get shots to fall that he can handle Diakite at a minimum. Salt might be able to body Horne up a bit. That said, both of these guys have a lot of the same bad foul tendencies that Blackshear does. Unfortunately I think Huff is the most effective offensively. He just has some defensive difficulties guarding the baseline that don't fit as well with his Coach's pack line defense so see's less playing time than the other two bigs. I would rather keep the non-scorers on the floor to be honest because this season I believe we have the defensive ability to match them and offensively have the ability to shoot them off the floor compared to as noted above, their limitation to three players that can score.
The only real unknown is Kihei Clark, who has been limited with an ankle injury but I believe is just waiting to break out given a chance. He already has the defensive prowess to convince Bennett to play him 25 minutes per contest when he is able. He knows though that right now Bennett wants the scoring to go through his top three guys, so he only shoots when two or more of them are on the bench. Kind of a cross between Bede and Devin Wilson. He shoots better than Wilson but not as well as Bede recently and plays defense about on par with both.
Bennett found Clark on the dumpheap, got him to decommit from UC Davis. He's going to be a pain in our ass for four years.
Defensively I believe we will see much more Bede on Guy and Clark sees the floor five to six more minutes per contest than Key so accounting for him or Key will still fall to Outlaw/Hill.
I wouldn't give Med an advantage over Guy.
UVA is scoring a lot more points this year than in the recent past. It might just be their OOC schedule, but having 3 legit scoring threats is more than many teams.
I think the most telling game was vs. VCU. VCU is top 15 in defensive efficiency but a hot mess offensively (in the high 200's) and shot poorly in that game, yet playing at JPJ their D alone allowed them to be within 5 points the entire game and actually led with 4 min left. Small sample for sure but point being that LOLUVA is really vulnerable to a good defensive team.
Is Horne turning into this team's Leday? Not tall enough to play his position; but plays it well anyway.
When LeDay was a sophomore, he was averaging 3.5 ppg at USF. I don't think Horne will be as good as LeDay either, but don't write him off yet.
Were their minutes comparable? I feel like the biggest thing is missing to become more like a LeDay mold, is that mean streak, the scowl, and a headband.
Seth LeDay is finally eligible and is playing well for ECU this season.
Kihei Clark had wrist surgery 12/10 and was back to playing 3 weeks later. He hasn't been as effective as he was before the injury, but he's playing. Important player because it gets Jerome off the point and allows them to play 3G's and Hunter. That's probably the lineup they want to play vs. VT as much as possible.
I'm good with him playing 30+ minutes. Games I've watched he's been a brick layer from the field (shooting 32% overall under 30 from 3). And at 5-9 155 I'm not totally buying the hype on his D. Maybe in time he's a good niche player but right now no way
So he'll drain 6 threes and drop a career high 24pts on us /s (sorta).
Miami tonight even with their limited roster gave NC State as much as they could handle until about ten minutes left, then it became the NC State show. Trailing 74-64, NC State went on a 13 point run to finish off the Hurricanes.