Searching for separation: An ACC primer
Jim Sumner, ACC Columnist
After seven weeks of tournaments, challenges, aircraft carriers, exams and holiday breaks, the preliminaries are over and the ACC is poised to begin conference play this week.
Like Caesar's Gaul, the ACC can be divided into three parts. Imperious blue-bloods North Carolina and Duke rule the roost. Any conference loss they have to anyone other than each other will be an upset.
Clemson, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Boston College lie at the other end of the spectrum. It's hard to see any of these teams even sniffing the NIT.
The action is going to come in the middle, where Virginia, Miami, Florida State, Virginia Tech, North Carolina State and perhaps Maryland will try to break out the traffic jam and play their way into the Big Dance.
I'll be talking about North Carolina and Duke a lot as the season progresses, so I won't spend much time on them now.
North Carolina has done nothing to dispel their
stature as one of the nation's top teams. Yes, they
sometimes lose interest in defense and they are very dependent on
Kendall Marshall's continued good health. But the Tar Heels
have a front court to die for, the nation's best pass-first point
guard, improved three-point shooting and more depth and experience
than last year's Elite Eight team.
If freshman forward James Michael McAdoo builds on his early successes, he could be the nation’s best reserve by March.
Duke is more of a work-in progress. The Blue Devils laid an egg against Ohio State. But they also have more quality wins than anyone else in the ACC: Michigan State, Tennessee, Michigan, Kansas, Davidson, Washington--and as much depth and balance as any Coach K team in years.
The wildcard could be freshman point guard Quinn Cook, who spent the summer and much of the fall rehabbing an injured knee. Now fully recovered, Cook had 17 assists and zero turnovers in two games last week.
Of course, that was against Western Michigan and Pennsylvania. Can he perform at a comparable level against better competition?
That begs another question. How much better competition does the ACC have? Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and BC were expected to struggle this season and they have. A combination of early-NBA entry, injuries, transfers, suspensions and mediocre recruiting have left all three short of top-level ACC talent.
Wake Forest is definitely improved over last season--yes, that's a low bar--and boasts wins over Texas Tech and Nebraska. But a home loss to a rebuilding Wofford team shows how far this program has to go.
Georgia Tech is playing without a true home court this
season, as Alexander Coliseum is undergoing a thorough
renovation. Glen Rice, Jr. (right, courtesy Courtesy:
Paul Abell) can play for anyone. But new coach Brian
Gregory just doesn't have the overall talent to compete. If
he can recruit talent-rich Atlanta, he should. But
that’s down the road.
Speaking of down the road, we have Boston College? The Eagles began 2012 by losing at home to a 2-12 Rhode Island team. At least they're losing with youngsters, who have a chance to develop over time. But that time is likely to be next season.
It's surprising to see Clemson on the under-achievers list. Maybe Brad Brownell pulled a rabbit out of a hat last season or maybe Demontez Stitt and Jerai Grant were better than we thought. Seniors Andre Young and Tanner Smith are making the best of their last time around the block. But Clemson can't score enough to beat the big boys unless Brownell can figure out how to generate some production from enigmatic junior forward Milton Jennings.
Maryland is the hardest team to figure out. Mark Turgeon's squad struggled early, including an 89-63 loss to Iona. But point guard Pe'shon Howard is back from a foot injury and Ukrainian seven-footer Alex Len is finally eligible. Howard and Terrell Stoglin--the ACC's leading scorer--comprise a potent backcourt.
Len had 27 points and 15 rebounds in his first two games, wins over Albany and Samford. If Len is the real deal, Maryland will be playing somewhere in the post-season.
The middle group appears to be so closely bunched that ranking them would be a waste of time. I suspect we'll end the season with a lot of teams clustered within a game or two in the conference standing. The key for these teams to keep playing in March is to minimize losses to the bottom tier, while holding court at home.
Florida State began the season with high
expectations. The ferocity of their defense means they can
still reach them. But this is a team that scored 10 points in
the first half against Princeton. They rallied to take the
game into three overtimes, before falling. But you can't dig
halftime-holes like 27-10 and expect to dig out of them with any
regularity.
Big men Bernard James and Xavier Gibson can rebound and block shots with anybody. But Michael Snaer has to be a consistent scorer for the 'Noles. The former McDonald's All-American is a junior. It's time. Better point-guard play wouldn’t hurt.
Virginia ended 2011 on a 10-game winning streak. But the holidays were marred by the decisions of K.T. Harrell and James Johnson to transfer. Both were reserves but both were highly touted prepsters and both had futures in Charlottesville. That means Tony Bennett has lost four of the six players from his first Virginia class. Virginia responded to the news with a distinctly unimpressive victory over a winless Towson State team but played better in a road win at LSU Monday night.
Power forward Mike Scott looks like an All-ACC player and the Cavaliers are holding opponents to barely 50 points per game. Is depth going to be an issue?
Miami gets my vote for most overlooked ACC team. Durand Scott and Malcolm Grant comprise a talented, experienced backcourt, while 285-pound center Reggie Johnson has come back strong from knee surgery. If 6-11, 250-pound Florida transfer Kenny Kadji continues to give solid minutes, Miami could easily finish third in the ACC.
But they don’t have any impressive non-ACC wins. They likely have to go 10-6 in the ACC to aim higher than the NIT.
Virginia Tech always seems to end up on the wrong end of the bubble and this year's team has that kind of vibe. Erick Green has turned into one of the ACC's better point guards and the freshman class has delivered depth and athleticism. But fifth-year senior Dorenzo Hudson isn't playing at the level expected of him and Tech doesn't have much interior firepower.
Unlike recent years, the Hokies haven't lost to anyone they shouldn't have. But will a pair of wins over Oklahoma State impress anyone come March?
Mark Gottfried came up with a challenging schedule in his first
year at North Carolina State. The Wolfpack did
pull off wins over Princeton and Texas but lost statement-making
opportunities to Vanderbilt, Indiana and Syracuse.
Gottfried seems to have gotten C.J. Leslie's attention (left, courtesy Mark McIntyre), perhaps by calling him by his given name, Calvin.
State also has benefited from the league's most successful experiment. Sophomore wing Lorenzo Brown moved to the point when Ryan Harrow transferred to Kentucky. Brown is second in the league in assists, at almost seven per game. That includes 13 against Syracuse.
Senior guard C.J. Williams is playing the best ball of his career, Scott Wood can bomb from downtown with anyone and Richard Howell can rebound. But Wood doesn't do anything else especially well--at 6-6, he has one offensive rebound through 12 games--and depth is an issue.
Can Gottfried blend these disparate elements into an NCAA team? My guess is yes, but given State’s thin margin for error, it’s a tenuous yes.
The ACC had only four teams in the NCAAs last year, a disturbing trend for the proud but increasingly top-heavy league. Improving on that won't be easy. Only four ACC teams are currently in the RPI top-50 and Virginia Tech and NC State barely make the list. Duke is at 2, North Carolina 12. Nationally-ranked Virginia is only No. 65.
And there are only a handful of high-profile non-conference games left. So, it becomes a zero-sum game for two months, as a pool of closely-matched teams scramble to gain separation.
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Roy Williams and Leonard Hamilton photos courtesy of UNC Athletics and FSU Athletics, respectively
