It’s a well-known fact that transfers have been on the rise in college basketball. According to annual tracking lists compiled by ESPN‘s Jeff Goodman, there were fewer than 300 NCAA Division-I transfers in 2011 (roughly one per school), but that number has climbed to around 700 (roughly two per school) in each of the last two years. Considering that teams in the power conferences are already losing seniors and underclassmen who turn pro, rosters are turning over at an alarmingly high rate. When it comes to newcomers, freshmen, rather than transfers, have traditionally received most of the attention. So to get more familiar with the transfers debuting in the ACC this season, we have provided a list broken into four groupings of the non-freshmen newcomers to the league (traditional transfers; graduate transfers; JuCo transfers; sitting out this year). Players within each category are ordered according to the anticipated impact that they will have this season.

The first group represents what we know as the traditional transfers — those who are moving from one four-year school to another and, as a result, forced to sit out a season. The most interesting name on this list is Virginia Tech’s Seth Allen, who will have the advantage of having already spent two years in the ACC while at former league member Maryland. Allen’s aggressive style should fit in well with what Buzz Williams is building in Blacksburg. The top five on this list figure to be significant players right away, and some as starters. Terry Henderson will be counted on for wing scoring for N.C. State, and Kamari Murphy should be an athletic defender that compliments Miami’s veteran group.

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This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage.

Burning Question: Is Syracuse an NCAA Tournament Team?

It may seem like an odd question to ask of a Jim Boeheim team, but remember, this is only half a Boeheim team (he will be suspended for the first half of ACC play). This year’s Orange squad will have talent, as three consensus four-star recruits join a solid group of returnees (Rakeem Christmas and Chris McCullough are the only contributors who won’t be back). But let’s not forget another key fact, which is that last year’s team was not going to be an NCAA Tournament team (self-imposed ban notwithstanding). This year’s team will likely be better, but losing big man Christmas will place a lot of pressure on Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney to score more frequently if the frontcourt doesn’t pick up the slack.

Dajuan Coleman is the key to Syracuse’s season. (Photo: Kevin Rivoli/Syracuse Post-Standard)

The other challenge the Orange will face is the relative strength of the ACC. The league is a great bet to be improved this season (a scary thought), and Syracuse may have drawn the toughest road schedule of any team in the conference. The Orange travel to play every team expected to be in the top half of the league, save Notre Dame. Throw in a non-conference schedule with only two real chances for quality wins (at Georgetown; home versus Wisconsin), and this team could have a tough time earning enough quality road wins for the Selection Committee’s liking. Boeheim teams always win 20 games (last year was only the third time one of his teams didn’t win at least 20 games since the 1977 season); if they can simply achieve that total and those wins include at least nine conference victories, Syracuse has a great shot to return to the NCAA Tournament. Read the rest of this entry »

There were many topics of interest floating around 2015 ACC Operation Basketball in Charlotte on Wednesday, most of which were addressed by ACC Commissioner John Swofford during his annual “State of the League” summit with the media. The format for this event works well, with the head coaches all made available (except Rick Pitino) after the commissioner’s press conference. Later that afternoon, several coaches were asked to react to some of the topics mentioned by Swofford.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford addressing the media at ACC Operation Basketball. (Chuck Burton, AP)

Here are five key takeaways from Wednesday’s ACC Operation Basketball:

1) New Rules/Officials Mandate

The expected impact of college basketball’s new rules this year was a major topic of discussion. During his opening statement, Swofford was very supportive of the changes and even suggested that other tweaks to the game should be on the table as well. The coaches were also predominantly supportive of the new rules but were particularly interested in how strictly the officials will enforce the mandate to clean up physical play. The NCAA’s new national coordinator of men’s basketball officiating, J.D. Collins, was also in Charlotte to meet and confer with the coaches (perhaps to warn them that games will really be called differently this season?). Some coaches admittedly seemed a bit skeptical, remembering what happened two years ago when officials were similarly charged with cleaning up excessive contact — a huge increase in fouls resulted in lots and lots of complaining. By midseason, referees appeared to have reverted back to the way games had been officiated for years. Collins claims that won’t be the case this time around, but it remains to be seen if collegiate officials will collectively stick to their guns when coaches, media and fans whine about watching boring games featuring parades to the foul line. It may turn out to be that the watchability of games this season is sacrificed until players and coaches begrudgingly adapt to the changes in the best interests of moving the game forward. Read the rest of this entry »

This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage. 

Burning Question: How quickly can Leonard Hamilton assimilate his talented recruiting class?

Leonard Hamilton has had a reputation as a crack recruiter for a while (the buzz reached its peak when it looked like Florida State might land Andrew Wiggins), but as a result of the school’s relative lack of investment in basketball, he’s only landed three McDonald’s All-Americans during his 13 years in Tallahassee. Von Wafer certainly didn’t push Hamilton’s team to the next level, but Michael Snaer and Chris Singleton were big parts of some of Florida State’s best teams of the last decade (2009-11).

Xavier Rathan-Mayes will be one of the best offensive players in the ACC. (Photo: Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

What he hasn’t had in raw talent, Hamilton has made up in player development. His best teams have relied on a stout defense that is usually anchored by upperclassmen. The Singleton and Snaer squads combined rim protection with elite on-ball defenders (both were among the best defenders in the country), but in recent years that formula has fallen short. That’s not to say the Seminoles have been awful, but they simply haven’t been able to reach the outstanding defensive efficiency of those teams. This year’s bunch may again have some question marks on the defensive end, but it also has a chance to be different in that it may be the first elite offensive team Leonard Hamilton has coached in a long while.
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The ACC’s annual Media Day, otherwise known as “ACC Operation Basketball,” took place in Charlotte on Wednesday. There was plenty of the normal coachspeak and playerspeak in effect, as every player at every school has apparently been “working hard,” and every newcomer is “very talented” and “learning fast.” Aside from all of that, there were several parts of yesterday’s press conferences that were very entertaining, so here is a list of some of the more interesting quotes and quips of the day.

No Pitino, No Problem. ACC Media Day Must Go On! (WDRB.com)

Finding Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

We start with a few examples of putting a positive spin on a difficult situation… because what else can you do?

• When discussing how his broken foot will affect Wake Forest, Codi Miller-McIntyre said it would help his team because of the experience that the younger guards will gain in his absence. He also said that his goal is to be back for the Demon Deacons’ trip to Maui in late November.
• While talking about all of those close ACC losses suffered by Georgia Tech last season, Brian Gregory said, “We were able to compete. The next step is to be able to finish those games.”
• And even though he has one of least experienced rosters in the country, Boston College head coach Jim Christian pointed out that his team has great experience at the two most crucial positions of center and point guard in fifth-year seniors Dennis Clifford and Eli Carter.

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This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage.

Can Pittsburgh’s defense improve enough to get Jamie Dixon back to the NCAA Tournament?

The tempo-based statistics revolution has shed new light on the brilliance of many programs across the country, but perhaps none more so than Pittsburgh during the 12-year Jamie Dixon era. The Panthers have won a lot of games under Dixon but never scored a ton of points — characteristics that were traditionally viewed as an indication of a poor offensive team that plays excellent defense. That was the consensus perception about Dixon’s program for years, and even now, the majority of casual basketball fans might still believe that Pitt’s real strength has been its defense. Put simply, however, that is not the case, and we have the statistics to prove it.

Jamie Dixon’s team needs to be much better defensively in 2015-16. (Photo: US Presswire)

This misconception about Pittsburgh is of course related to how slowly the Panthers have played during Dixon’s tenure. Over the last 12 seasons, only one Pitt team finished among the top 200 nationally in adjusted tempo. During the same span, eight Panthers’ squads have finished among the bottom 50 in pace, including each of the last six seasons. With such a well-established track record of low-possession basketball, it’s not surprising that point totals are going to be misleading when evaluating the Panthers’ effectiveness on both ends. Read the rest of this entry »

This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage.

Will Clemson’s offense improve enough to make the Tigers an ACC winner?

Near the end of the 2014-15 season, we reviewed the pros and cons of Brad Brownell’s six-season tenure at Clemson. We concluded then that his positives and negatives have pretty much been a wash. The Tigers are usually competitive on the floor – especially on the defensive end — and well-behaved off the court. But a lack of elite-level talent has kept Clemson from being able to join the ACC’s upper tier, and the Tigers’ slow, offensively-challenged style of play has not exactly ignited the fan base. Can the Clemson faithful expect any improvement from a team that only loses a couple of key performers from last year? And if so, will it be enough improvement to keep Brownell off of the coaching hot seat? To search for those answers, let’s begin by looking at Brownell’s coaching profile over 13 years at three different schools.

The above table reveals that Brownell has some consistent historical head coaching traits. First of all, he has been a winner everywhere he’s been, sporting only one overall losing record (13-18 in 2013) during his career. Additionally, he likes to employ a slow tempo, with every one of his 13 squads finishing among the bottom 100 nationally in pace. Another thing that sticks out on Brownell’s resume is how well his teams play defense no matter the personnel. Conversely, a Brownell-coached squad has finished among the nation’s top 120 offenses on only four occasions. In two of those instances, Brownell was in his first year at a school, indicating that he may have inherited some players who could score. And maybe it’s no coincidence that both of those units (2003 UNC-Wilmington & 2011 Clemson) earned NCAA Tournament bids, representing two of the only three trips Brownell has made to the Big Dance. The other takeaway from Brownell’s profile is that by his fourth year at each of his first two head coaching gigs, he was able to develop pretty good offenses after a couple of down years. That kind of turnaround, however, has not yet happened at Clemson.

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Sean May, the Most Outstanding Player on Roy Williams’ 2005 National Championship team, is returning to Chapel Hill in the role of assistant to the director of player development, the school announced Monday via press release. The former Second Team All-American, who played parts of four seasons in the NBA and several subsequent years overseas, has reportedly long had his eye on returning to the collegiate ranks to try his hand at coaching. After 10 years of professional hoops, there really couldn’t be a better situation for him to pursue his next endeavor, under the tutelage of the man who brought the best out of him as a player, on the same campus where he achieved his greatest success.

Sean May, a UNC legend, is coming back to his alma mater. (AP)

Recruited by Matt Doherty in the Class of 2002, May stunned most recruiting observers when he chose North Carolina over his native Indiana, a school where his father Scott May had starred for Bob Knight’s undefeated squad in 1976. The beefy center, part of a star-studded class that also included Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants, missed the better part of his freshman season in Chapel Hill after sustaining a serious foot injury that required surgery. A disappointing 17-15 season led to Doherty’s ouster, leaving the door open for then-Kansas head coach Williams to return to his alma mater. The class including May improved drastically under Williams, culminating in a dominant year as juniors, winning the school’s first National Championship since 1993 and restoring North Carolina’s reputation among the nation’s basketball elite. May was the centerpiece of that team, leading it in scoring and rebounding and capping his collegiate career off with a pristine performance in the title game, going for 26 points and 10 boards while missing only a single shot in a five-point victory over Illinois. Read the rest of this entry »

This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage.

Burning Question: Is Danny Manning ready to turn this team around a year early?

If you look carefully at Wake Forest, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned with this team. For the second straight season, the Demon Deacons lost several players in the offseason: Madison Jones was dismissed; Darius Leonard graduated; and Aaron Rountree transferred. And among the players still residing in Winston-Salem, the two most talented — Devin Thomas and Codi Miller-McIntyre — are also wildly inconsistent. But despite these concerns, there are also some prompts for optimism. The Deacs return their top five players in terms of minutes played, and three of those five were only freshman a year ago. Danny Manning, in only his fourth year on the bench, appears to have all the makings of a great head coach. Throw in a sneaky good recruiting class of three talented players (sixth-best in the ACC, according to the 247sports composite ranking), and this year’s team has the potential to take a big step forward.

Danny Manning needs to mold Devin Thomas into a more efficient player this season. (photo: Winston-Salem Journal)

Whether Wake does will largely depend on the health and productivity of the veterans. Miller-McIntyre broke his foot last week and will be out through the first couple of games at a minimum. Manning will need him healthy as soon as possible, although giving Mitchell Wilbekin and Bryant Crawford (a consensus four-star point guard) some early time running the show might not be a bad thing. On the other hand, Miller-McIntyre’s untimely injury makes Jones’ dismissal slightly more painful. Wilbekin is more of a short shooting guard than a true point guard, and who knows how quickly Crawford will adjust to the college game? Miller-McIntyre is a proven ACC commodity, and even Thomas, a player capable of creating his own offense from his work on the backboards, could struggle without his old point guard providing him touches. The reality is obvious: If Miller-McIntyre can’t get healthy enough to display what’s become an annual tradition of personal improvement, this Wake Forest team is likely to struggle to climb to the ACC’s middle tier.

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1. Since only four ACC schools are hosting a preseason celebration that could be considered a Midnight Madness event, we need a fifth to truly make this an M5. So we begin with Louisville, a program that appears to have been conducting its own version of late-night ‘Madness’ in recent years, at least according to “Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen,” co-authored by Katina Powell and Pulitzer Prize winner Dick Cady. The resulting scandal has become the preseason’s biggest story in college basketball and it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Earlier this week, Powell was interviewed as part of an ESPN Outside The Lines episode, and she came across as a credible source in addition to what has been confirmed by other eyewitnesses, including former Louisville players and recruits. Rick Pitino claims to have no knowledge of any of these allegations and has called on former player and staff member, Andre McGee – the supposed organizer of the whole mess — to come forward and tell the truth. But many feel that the NCAA won’t be able to force McGee — currently on leave from his assistant coaching job with UMKC — to speak with them. While it’s true that current players and staff of NCAA member schools are obligated to speak with investigators, McGee, with little to gain by sharing, is likely to choose not to cooperate. He is of course not immune from talking with criminal investigators, so we may eventually found out what he knows via leaks and/or public records, but that doesn’t help the NCAA make any decisions about what do with Pitino and the Louisville program. All of which makes it hard to speculate on whether Pitino will ultimately survive as the Cardinals’ head coach.
2. North Carolina will try to put aside worries about its own ongoing NCAA investigation with its annual “Late Night With Roy” celebration tonight at the Smith Center. The evening’s festivities will be hosted by former Tar Heels’ star Kenny Smith of TNT, and includes dance routines, comedy skits, and a team scrimmage as well as a special tribute to longtime “Late Night” host, Stuart Scott. UNC, recently named as co-#1 with Kentucky in the USA Today preseason coaches’ poll, will also be entertaining some top high school prospects. Recently Roy Williams has been struggling to recruit at the same level as other top national programs such as Duke, Kentucky and Kansas, so North Carolina fans hope a positive impression will be made on the players in attendance.
3. Just down the road, Duke hosted its “Countdown to Craziness” last Saturday night in Cameron indoor Stadium. Among the highlights were the unveiling of the school’s fifth national championship banner and a team scrimmage that indicated that Duke’s defense is ahead of its offense at this stage of the preseason. As usual, the Blue Devils also used the event as a showcase for many high-level recruits from several different classes. In other Duke-related news, Mike Krzyzewski confirmed that next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will be his last as head coach of the USA’s mens’ national team. That news alone is not surprising, but it does reignite the conversation of who will take over the job and whether that coach will come from the NBA.
4. Last Friday night, Syracuse held its annual “Orange Madness” event in the Carrier Dome. Much like at North Carolina, Orange players, coaches and fans probably enjoyed getting away from some of the recent negativity surrounding their program and are looking forward to some closure to its situation. With all the recent publicity about the Louisville debacle and the continuing talk concerning North Carolina’s NCAA investigation, it’s easy to forget that Syracuse will be without Jim Boeheim for the first half of ACC play this season and will have to manage smaller rosters for a while. It says here, though, that Louisville patrons would still gladly swap places with Orange fans at the moment.
5. The first ACC school to host a Midnight Madness event this season was Pittsburgh, with an event called #ZooAfterHours that was held in the Petersen Events Center on October 9. It looks like Jamie Dixon pulled a page out of the John Calipari playbook by featuring rap star and Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa as the main attraction. Dixon commented afterward that the night worked out as well as expected or maybe even better. He also was quoted as saying that the Panthers were ready to get back to “toughness, hard work and playing defense”after a disappointing 2014-15 season, and that “we plan to push the ball at every opportunity as we have good guards.” While the first part of that quote is appropriate for what has made the Pitt program successful in the Dixon era, we’ll believe the second part when we see it — the Panthers have been among the nation’s slowest-paced teams for many years.