2014 ACC Hoops Preview

This weekend starts the unofficial official start of the ACC men's basketball season.  Due to the addition of Syracuse, Pitt, and Notre Dame the schedule actually started on December 8th when Maryland - losers at home to Boston University - went on the road to defeat Boston College.  

But starting this weekend almost every ACC team stays within the conference between now and the ACC tournament on March 12th in Greensboro. In fact, there is only one non-conference game left in the entire league, Norfolk State at Miami on Saturday, February 1st (tickets are still available).

Not surprisingly when you consider the name of this blog, I'm picking Carolina to come in first during the regular season (but I don't have Hellenic coming in second, in case you were wondering).  Like most, I see Carolina competing with Duke and Syracuse for the top spot, with Pitt and Virginia giving the ACC five good teams that will make the NCAA tournament.  Notre Dame will be up and down and finish at 9 and 9 and sit firmly on the bubble.  The Irish have wins over Duke and Indiana and could finish with wins over Carolina, Virginia and Pitt.  But losses to North Dakota State and Indiana State, both IN South Bend, could keep them out of the tourney.

Maryland will need some luck but I see them at 9 and 9 - but with no good wins other than over Pitt and Notre Dame in College Park. The lack of good wins coupled with that home loss to BU probably keeps them out in their last year as an ACC team.
  
I have Clemson of all people also finishing at 9 and 9, with good wins over Virginia and Pitt at home. Their best non-conference wins are over Temple, Davidson, and South Carolina but they lost to UMass, and Arkansas and Auburn to go 1-2 versus a very mediocre SEC.  I doubt that is enough to get in.

At one point ACC officials were boasting that half of the new conference, 7 or 8 teams, would make the tournament.  I doubt that will happen.  What is certain is that once again ACC basketball will not be as strong as it was in it's prime, pre-football incarnation, and will once again be a top heavy conference.

Here is my predicted finish:

1. Carolina 15-3; losses at Notre Dame, Duke and an upset at Virginia. I seeing us taking down the 'Cuse in a week on their home floor.
2. Syracuse 14-4; like us, I have them losing tough road games at Pitt, UVA, Duke
3. Duke, 14-4; like SU, losing at Carolina, at Pitt, at Syracuse.  Duke's weak front court will hurt them in big games all year as it did versus Notre Dame on Saturday.
4. Virginia, 11-7; this pre-season top 25 team will hold serve at home, but an upset over Carolina, Duke or Syracuse is necessary to offset some bad non-conference losses.
5. Pitt, 11-7; they will grind down teams at home and struggle on the road with better opponents.
6. Notre Dame, 9-9
7. Maryland, 9-9
8. Clemson, 9-9
9. Georgia Tech, 8-10; play a pretty easy conference schedule
10. NCSU, 8-10; just not very good but better than teams 11-15.
11. FSU, 6-12; may have gotten these guys wrong, but they have a tough schedule and can't score.
12. Wake Forest, 6-12; probably a year away
13. Virginia Tech, 6-12; will be lucky to get to 6 wins actually
14. Miami, 6-12; ditto with VT, and can not score
15. Boston College, 3-15; could be historically, Georgia Tech pre-Cremins bad, 

Some random notes:

• As great as it is to have Syracuse in the league and weaken the horrible, can-not-make-shots Big East, I am still not a fan of this expansion - any expansion past FSU and Virginia Tech frankly. The schedule feels cramped, and there are quite a few teams that play Saturday and Tuesday games in a week. That tight turnaround is bad physically I imagine, but these are also supposed  to be students.  An 18 game schedule has got to mean players are going to miss more classes due to basketball.  
• I tried to use the official ACC app for my iPad to look at schedules, which reminded my how clunky and useless that app is. In addition to having an inadequate 'schedule' tab you can not sort results or schedules by team. Not good. The Raycom and ESPN apps are better in my opinion.
• UNC-Greensboro's Wes Miller, who won a national championship with Carolina in 2005, is 1-3 versus the ACC this year, losing at Carolina and Wake and to State at home but going on the road to defeat Virginia Tech.
• NCCU is 1-1 versus the conference, but 2-0 if you only count the first half.  They beat State in Raleigh in overtime and led Maryland at the half before losing to the Terps.
• It has not been a steady diet of UNC-Gs and NCCUs however. Teams have played ambitious non-conference games. That's nothing new for Carolina and Duke, but teams have played Kansas, UConn, VCU,  UMass, Tennessee, Indiana, etc.  The problem is, the ACC has not fared well in most of those games.  VCU is 3-1 versus the conference, and UMass is 2-1.
• When the ACC has losses to UNC-G and NCCU and a losing record to the Atlantic 10 - which granted is a very good league - you can tell that it once again is a top heavy conference with some terrible bottom feeders.