In offices all across the nation this week, people are playing the Secret Santa game. So let’s pretend that our company is made up of the ACC’s 15 men’s basketball teams, and we drew every head coach’s name out of the hat. As tempting as it may be to hand out traditional gifts like cheese logs and fruitcakes (yuck!), we instead will look at the specific needs for each squad right now and try and make each team better with our gifts. Part I, which published on Christmas Eve, can be found here.
Here are our gifts of choice for each of the ACC’s seven remaining schools (in alphabetical order):
- Duke (Mike Krzyzewski) – We can’t do anything about Amile Jefferson’s injury except hope that the senior can recovery in time to re-acclimate himself into the Blue Devil lineup before the stretch run. So instead, we will give Coach K something very useful in the short term. We will turn on the light bulb for freshman big man Chase Jeter. We know that not all McDonald’s High School All-Americans are made alike, and some need more time to adjust to the college game. But it was very telling to see Jeter only get on the floor for six minutes in Duke’s recent loss to Utah – a game where help was certainly needed due to illness and foul trouble.
- Louisville (Rick Pitino) – To date, the Cardinals have played a terribly weak non-conference schedule, which ranks 60th out of 65 power-five conference schools according to KenPom. So it’s really hard to analyze the needs of Pitino’s squad right now. With no real on-the-court need for this team that has been exposed so far, we will give them the gift of focus going forward. Louisville has basically been able to concentrate on basketball since the regular season games began, after a tumultuous preseason due to the stripper scandal. But eventually, the scrutiny of possible NCAA sanctions will begin again, and the players will have to handle that distraction.
- Miami (Jim Larranaga) – The veteran Hurricanes have had an excellent start to the year, sans that puzzling home loss to Northeastern. Along the way, Miami has excelled at shooting in all areas – they are one of only three teams in the nation ranked in the top-30 in two-point percentage, three-point percentage and free throw percentage. Last year, Larranaga’s team was very streaky with regards to shooting in ACC play, finishing seventh in both two-point and three-point shooting percent. So this year, we will give Miami continued consistently excellent shooting which could keep them in the hunt for the ACC regular season title.
- North Carolina (Roy Williams) – It’s a shame that Williams has only had a healthy rotation for a few games this year. First, Marcus Paige missed the first six games of the year, and now Kennedy Meeks is out with a knee injury. With everybody playing, this team is certainly a contender to make a deep March run. But there is one key element missing so far that will need to be addressed for the Tar Heels to have a truly special season. What they need is defensive toughness, especially on the road. North Carolina has dropped both road games they have played thus far, and the defense let them down in each case. That was particularly true in the loss at Texas, a game that both Paige and Meeks played in, when the Longhorns managed 1.29 points per possession.
- Notre Dame (Mike Brey) – Last year the formula worked – the Irish were able to outscore opponents with an offense that only ranked behind Wisconsin’s historically good offensive machine. On the other end of the floor, Notre Dame was not very aggressive and instead saved that energy for that brilliant motion-based offense. But without departed leaders Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton, this year’s edition of the Irish defense has gone from fair to poor. In particular, what Brey could really use is somebody (anybody) to apply pressure to opposing ball handlers. Currently, Notre Dame opponents only turn the ball over on 15.2 percent of their possessions, a figure that ranks 324th in the nation.
- Pittsburgh (Jamie Dixon) – So far this season, Pittsburgh’s defense (KenPom #78) appears to be much improved over the unit that ranked 202nd in 2014-15. But when you consider that opponents are only converting 60.1 percent of their free throws and 28.8 percent from beyond the three-point line (two things that the defense has very limited control over), we are not yet convinced that the Panthers’ defense is that good. Once ACC play begins, those numbers will surely begin to regress to the mean unless Dixon is extremely lucky. So we will put a rabbit’s foot and a four leaf clover in his stocking.
- Virginia (Tony Bennett) – As the highest rated ACC team right now (KenPom #2), Virginia is a little hard to shop for. So even after much thought, the best we can come up with is to guarantee a healthy appendix for both of Bennett’s star fifth year seniors, Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill. Junior London Perrantes, whose game winning three sealed Tuesday’s late comeback win over California in overtime, already missed two games this month due to an appendectomy. Last March, just as he was set to return from a broken hand, star Justin Anderson missed another week of action after also having his appendix removed. They say that bad things come in threes, so when/if appendicitis strikes the Cavaliers again, we will protect Bennett’s other stars.