1. Syracuse Post-Standard: Huge news broke yesterday evening. Syracuse has decided to self-impose a postseason ban in basketball this year “as a further means of acknowledging past mistakes.” Even though the team isn’t all that great this season, this is a big step. It means the Orange can’t play in the ACC Tournament, much less the Big Dance. The worst part is that this year’s players (who didn’t commit any of the infractions) are the ones who will pay the price. I’ll leave you with a couple of things: First, this doesn’t mean that the Orange are off the hook with the NCAA (although postseason bans usually go a long way — see Miami’s football scandal for an example); and second, this is the new ACC Tournament bracket — the only change is that the #10 seed now gets a bye.
2. Raleigh News & Observer: Luke DeCock thinks Virginia is still the team to beat in the ACC after the Cavaliers thrashed North Carolina (which admittedly couldn’t match up much worse) in Chapel Hill on Monday night. John Gasaway and I both agree. If you had questions, Duke’s letdown win at home against Georgia Tech should help with the argument. It doesn’t mean Duke isn’t really good or really dangerous (the same goes for Notre Dame, North Carolina and Louisville). It just means that Virginia operates in a higher gear consistently.
3. Chicago Tribune: Speaking of the Fighting Irish, Notre Dame has done very well in its close games this year. Sure, the Irish lost one to Pittsburgh, but on the whole Mike Brey’s team keeps its cool when games get tight. Their opponents do not, which means that the Irish’s porous defense gets enough stops to pull out the win. With a stone-cold killer like Jerian Grant capable of getting his own shot and plenty of shooters surrounding him, the Irish are really tough to beat down the stretch.
4. NC State Technician: NC State is digging deeper and deeper. Tuesday night’s game at Wake Forest represented a microcosm of their season (although their normal routine is a good first half followed by a bad second half). The Wolfpack came out incredibly flat in Winston-Salem and trailed by 21 points at the half. By the time they had mounted a comeback to make the margin reasonable, it was too late. The Demon Deacons held off the final run thanks to a little luck and a lot of cushion. NC State has now lost four of its last five games and has a whole week off to think about it. That gives Mark Gottfried plenty of time to make some adjustments, but his players also will have a lot of time to stew on their struggles. Oh, and Virginia is coming to town. The Wolfpack’s options are becoming limited — either steal a couple of wins down the stretch and stop losing to mediocre competition, or make a serious run in the ACC Tournament.
5. Washington Post: So how does Maryland‘s move to the Big Ten look? Mark Turgeon has finally gotten around to succeeding like I predicted when Maryland first hired him (albeit in a much weaker Big Ten than in years past), but it’s nice to hear Adrian Branch and Kristi Toliver say they regret the move and miss the ACC. I’ll be the first to admit I miss having Maryland around. Duke needs a foil outside of the Triangle, and the Terps often lived up to the role. All that said, I’ll take the additions of Syracuse and Pittsburgh over moving to be geographically isolated in a conference.

1. Raleigh News & Observer: Here’s an oral history of North Carolina‘s epic 102-100 double-overtime victory over Duke back in 1995 (also known as the Jeff Capel half-court shot game). It’s long, but well worth it, and a great primer for the game later this month.
2. Duke Basketball Report: Al Featherston does a great job in summing up the ACC so far this year. If you’re looking to catch up on where teams stand (he spends a little longer on Duke, but looks at all of the teams with a good shot at the NCAA Tournament), this is the piece to read at the turn.
3. Washington Post: Virginia is really good, but you already knew that. It’s probably helping that senior Darion Atkins decided to toughen up junior Mike Tobey: “I’ve definitely banged him around, threw him around and hit him a few times. Got in his grill and cursed him out once or twice just to make him stronger because that helps him a lot. Once he gets that physicality, he’s going to be a beast.” After the surprising collapse against Duke over the weekend, Virginia again looked like the second best team in the country in a dominant road win against North Carolina last night.
4. Greenville News: Don’t look now, but Clemson is above .500 in ACC play at 5-4, and that’s nothing short of amazing. Brad Brownell hasn’t managed to field a group with exceptional talent, but he’s remarkable at finding ways to make his teams competitive. It helps that the league has a lot of mediocrity below the elite tier, but winning four out of five to move into the top half of the league standings is unreal.
5. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: This story has everything. Drama. Greatness. And lots of pizza. A Georgia Tech student hit a half-court shot for a year’s worth of pizza. Unfortunately for Caleb Espy, a year’s worth of Domino’s actually only means a pizza a week. For his efforts he was given 30 coupons for a free one-topping pizza because Georgia Tech didn’t have enough coupons on hand. “Kind of a bummer, but I’ll take it.” The real bummer is that a Virginia student recently got four attempts at a half-court shot and won $18,000.

Once again the ACC enjoyed a highly entertaining weekend full of buzzer-beaters and furious comebacks. Much like last year when Syracuse beat Duke in an ESPN Gameday event on the night before the Super Bowl, the ACC grabbed the national spotlight again with a pair of high-level Saturday games. They both lived up to their billing, as Louisville capped off a big comeback to beat North Carolina in overtime before Duke closed its game with a stunning offensive flurry to hand Virginia its first loss of the season. In a few other Saturday nail-biters, Notre Dame lost a surprising final-possession game at Pittsburgh; N.C. State’s Trevor Lacey nailed a three-pointer at the buzzer to knock off Georgia Tech; and Wake Forest held off Virginia Tech for its second conference win. Also on Saturday, Clemson won its third in a row by beating Boston College handily in Littlejohn Coliseum. In the only Sunday ACC action, Miami missed a shot at the buzzer to fall to rival Florida State in a game where the Hurricanes blew a big first half lead. Here are some of the other highlights from over the weekend in the ACC.

Montrezl Harrell grabs one of his game-high 15 rebounds in Louisville’s big comeback win.
(AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

• Most Outstanding Player: In a weekend full of superb performances we will give the nod to Louisville’s Montrezl Harrell, the driving force behind the Cards’ comeback from an 18-point second half deficit to North Carolina. Harrell finished the game with 22 points and 15 rebounds, including eight offensive boards after the half, but it was more than his stellar numbers that merit praise for the junior forward. He played 44 ferocious minutes and his energy on both ends of the floor was responsible for turning the game around. He was so utterly dominant inside that both of North Carolina’s power forwards — Brice Johnson and Isaiah Hicks — fouled out of the game trying to keep up with him. Behind Harrell’s man-sized effort, Louisville was able to overcomes its cold shooting and beat the Tar Heels at their own game, utilizing a 28-to-24 edge in points from the paint.

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1. Hampton Roads Daily Press: Welcome casual college basketball fans! Unfortunately you missed a hell of a weekend in the ACC. Seriously, this weekend was bonkers. Miami went out and totaled its NCAA Tournament resume with back-to-back bad losses, Duke scored on fourteen of its last fifteen possessions in one of the most impressive comebacks of year to knock off Virginia at home. And to all of the people saying this is proof “playing slow” lets opponents hang around, I say check the scoreboard (for all of the Cavaliers’ other games). Virginia is still a national title contender. They ran into a team that got hot and hit some crazy shots. Offensively, Duke matches up pretty well with Tony Bennett’s squad (good perimeter shooters and an All-American big who can pass well out of double teams). Now suddenly Duke goes from danger zone to being back in a pretty good place (at least in terms of getting a double-bye in the ACC Tournament), and Virginia has to worry about playing North Carolina. If the Tar Heels beat Virginia, maybe I’ll start worrying about the pack-line. But that Duke loss was just a team playing out of its mind.
2. Durham Herald-Sun: Still no news about Rasheed Sulaimon‘s dismissal, which is good news. Duke is being pretty tight-lipped and the Matt Jones said the team would be “behind Rasheed 100%.” Coach K said it was a very difficult decision but wouldn’t say anything else. What remains to be seen will be how Sulaimon’s dismissal will affect the team’s chemistry. That win against Virginia was because Duke got hot at the right time. They played very well at the start and the end of the game. You can’t overstate the value of the win from a confidence standpoint because it allows the team to move on from Sulaimon’s departure. But I want to see how they react to the next loss.
3. Louisville Courier-Journal: Speaking of big comebacks this weekend, Louisville came back from 18 down to steal a game against North Carolina. Montrezl Harrell looked like the man, going for 22 and 15 (and did this) while playing a big role in shutting the Tar Heels out of second-chance points in the second half. But the craziest stat was that Rick Pitino was 0-6 against the Tar Heels over his career (0-3 at Kentucky and 0-3 at Louisville).
4. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: This was the most surprising result of the weekend for me. Pittsburgh isn’t good. This weekend had basketball gods written all over it. Louisville avenged its earlier loss to North Carolina with a huge comeback. Duke made up for blowing a double-digit second half lead at Notre Dame with the upset at Virginia (and double-digit second half comeback). And to finish everything, Steve Vasturia (the one who hit the dagger to do in Duke) missed a good look and allowed the Panthers to walk away big winners. I disagree that Pittsburgh is a NCAA Tournament team, but there’s still plenty of season left. What is certainly true is every team’s conference schedule is brutal this year.
5. Syracuse Post-Standard: Trevor Cooney is chasing an impossible ACC record. He’s averaging more than 40 minutes a game in conference play. Somehow he’s still behind Georgia Tech’s Dennis Scott who averaged a ridiculous 40.3 minutes a game in 1990. Cooney has only sat for four minutes all of conference play. With his slim roster, don’t expect Jim Boeheim to sit Cooney now.

This week was an eye-opening one for ACC teams, with several marquee match-ups that shed greater light on the haves and have-nots of the conference race. Now moving into February, the teams with staying power are starting to emerge and those that are disappointing are showing their true colors as well. This is this week’s ACC Stock Watch.

Trending Up

• Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish keep beating good teams and are a stellar 8-1 in ACC play at the turn. They withstood a 10-point deficit from Duke on Wednesday night and never lost their composure. This is starting to look like a team that has major potential come NCAA Tournament time.
• North Carolina. The Tar Heels’ six-game winning streak has put them in the thick of the conference race through four weeks. Marcus Paige seems to have regained some of his missing star power, and some timely shots falling for Justin Jackson and Nate Britt make the team more dangerous from the perimeter. Don’t forget Joel Berry and Theo Pinson are expected to return before year’s end, too.
• Virginia Tech. Hokies’ fans had been waiting to see some early returns on Buzz Williams’ hiring, and this may have been the week they got a glimpse of what he’s building. Virginia Tech nearly knocked off undefeated Virginia last weekend before bowing out by just three points, then procured an overtime win over Pittsburgh on Wednesday for Williams’ first ACC win. Progress, people.

Adam Smith’s (far left) game-winning three in OT gave Virginia Tech its first ACC win under Buzz Williams and reason for hope in the future (USATodaySports)

• Nate Britt, North Carolina. After learning of the emotional state Britt was in prior to North Carolina’s ESPN Big Monday match-up with Syracuse, his performance became that much more admirable. Britt set a career high with 17 points, but perhaps more importantly for Roy Williams’ team was his 4-of-5 shooting from three. Could he finally be the long-range complement to Paige the Tar Heels desperately need?
• Jerian Grant, Notre Dame. No need to talk too much about how outstanding Grant’s season has been as the national media has that pretty well covered, but anyone who watched his performance live against Duke had to be amazed. He was the best player on the court in that game (yes, including Jahlil Okafor) en route to a stat line of 23 points, six rebounds, 12 assists, three steals and two blocks. Yes, he’s for real.
• Louisville’s Backcourt. The much-maligned Cardinals’ offense has shown signs of life, largely because of the clearly improved shooting of their guards. Terry Rozier and Chris Jones had an especially dominant week in wins over Pittsburgh and Boston College on the road; combined, they scored 94 points in the two contests on 65 percent shooting from the field and 67 percent from three.

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This is the second edition of a weekly look at the current ACC standings and corresponding team performances, focusing on the teams that are playing better or worse than their records might indicate. We will also delve into some advanced metrics to find a few interesting team or player stats and trends. Finally, we will forecast how the final standings may look, and what that means for ACC schools’ postseason aspirations.

Note: All numbers are current for games played through Wednesday, January 28.

Current Standings

Newsflash #1 – Virginia is pretty good at playing defense. I know you didn’t hear that here first, but I bet you didn’t know that the Cavaliers are so much better than the rest of the league. To date, the gap between Virginia and the second-best ACC defense,  Syracuse, is 0.14 PPP, a figure that is wider than the difference (0.13 PPP) between the Orange and the worst defense in the league (Pittsburgh). This is the fourth consecutive season that Tony Bennett’s squad has a defense rated among the nation’s top 25; over that period of 64 games, Virginia has only allowed 19 ACC opponents to score more than a point per possession. Interestingly, the only team that Virginia has failed to hold below that mark is its next opponent. But even though Duke has managed to be somewhat effective against the Cavaliers’ pack-line defense, the Blue Devils have only won two of those four meetings. Given the recent dismissal of Rasheed Sulaimon, Duke may face an uphill battle in converting possessions against a rested Virginia team.

It has been a tough last week-plus for the league’s middle-of-the-pack teams. The biggest slide came from N.C. State, which has now dropped three games in a row including two straight at home. As we mentioned last week, Syracuse and Pittsburgh were not playing as well as their records indicated, especially considering the relative weakness of each team’s conference schedule. Predictably, those former Big East rivals both lost two games in the past week. North Carolina is the next team on the list that may be in for a slight correction. The Tar Heels gaudy PPP margin has been built against the second-weakest conference schedule so far. Up next is a tough three-day stretch for Roy Williams as his squad travels to Louisville Saturday and then hosts Virginia on Big Monday.

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Yesterday’s news that Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski had dismissed junior Rasheed Sulaimon from the team came as a shock on a multitude of levels. First, Krzyzewski had never dismissed a player from the program during his entire tenure in Durham. Second, the Blue Devils had just played the night before, a hard-fought loss to an excellent Notre Dame team in which Sulaimon played 12 minutes off the bench, with a trip to undefeated Virginia on the docket Saturday. Third, it capped a remarkable fall from grace for the once-promising Sulaimon that no one outside of the program saw coming.

Sulaimon’s (left) ouster qualified as shocking news and further depleted a now-thin Blue Devils roster (USAToday)

Reports have surfaced suggesting that the decision to dismiss Sulaimon was a culmination of a multitude of events and that last season’s benching when the Blue Devils battled Michigan in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge should serve as a starting point. Sulaimon was benched for simply not doing what was asked of him in that instance, but body language has always been an issue for the Houston native as well. He often pouted on the court when whistled for fouls and has at times been seen restraining himself from celebrating his teammates on the bench. Still, because Sulaimon had never been otherwise suspended or even publicly chastised by Krzyzewski, it’s reasonable to wonder what happened in the aftermath of Wednesday’s loss in South Bend to make life without Sulaimon a necessity.

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1. Raleigh News & Observer and Durham Herald-Sun: Duke very abruptly dismissed Rasheed Sulaimon from the team yesterday. There aren’t any details beyond that other than to say that it wasn’t related to academic or legal problems. But it appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. That’s underselling how huge this dismissal is because Duke isn’t deep and does not appear to be struggling with chemistry issues (at least not during games). Sulaimon was doing well as a defensive specialist who also ran the team when the other two point guards weren’t performing well. My guess is that Coach K gave Sulaimon an ultimatum at some point last season (probably after his one-game hiatus that wasn’t officially a suspension) and Sulaimon finally struck out. It’s amazing to think that Sulaimon is the first player Krzyzewski has ever dismissed from his team.
2. Washington Post: This article does a fair job of explaining why John Feinstein is the last man ranking Virginia ahead of Kentucky in the AP poll. Weirdly enough, I think both of those teams are much more similar than people let on. The main difference is that Kentucky doesn’t have to worry about teams outside of the top 50 by virtue of its depth and length, while a hot-shooting Virginia Tech team gave the Cavaliers quite a scare. Furthermore, Kentucky has the unique ability to crush a good opponent into oblivion. I expect both teams to lose to a good (at least average-height) team that gets hot from long range because they can be outscored. That said, I think Feinstein enjoys being a voting outlier and that’s why he’s still voting for Virginia even after its close call in Blacksburg.
3. College Basketball Talk: Jerian Grant is really, really good. He allows Notre Dame to run offense instead of plays because he’s a tremendous playmaker and competitor. Rob Dauster does a good job in showing how important he is to the Notre Dame attack. Grant is terrific, and he’s probably got the inside track on ACC Player of the Year unless the Irish take a February nosedive. I admit I need to watch more of Mike Brey’s team (which should be a pleasure), because based on the statistics, the Duke victory was somewhat anomalous in terms of his usage, a little low for a Player of the Year contender.
4. Louisville Courier-Journal: Don’t look now, but Louisville‘s defense in ACC play has actually been worse than its offense. That’s bonkers. A lot of the credit goes to the rise of guard Terry Rozier, who has been tremendous in conference bouts. He’s not turning it over nearly as much as he was and he’s scoring at a really impressive clip. Chris Jones has also risen to the occasion, turning into a legitimate offensive weapon rather than a liability.
5. Raleigh & Co.: Here’s a satirical case to get rid of NC State head coach Mark Gottfried. While I agree that the Wolfpack should hold onto him, this team has dug a hole for itself with its three-game losing streak (Clemson at home???). What remains to be seen is whether Gottfried can sustain a consistent, high level program or whether his teams are always talented but never meet expectations (often in a good way). If he gets this year’s group to the NCAA Tournament, I’ll be pretty solidly on the side of Gottfried sustaining a high level over time.

1. BballBreakdown.com: Josh Riddell does a great job reviewing the strengths and flaws of Duke‘s defense. Long story short (but read the article, it has lots of great GIFs to go with the analysis): Duke has the players to be a good defensive team but they’re still figuring things out. This team misses rotations (like the one that left Notre Dame’s Steve Vasturia wide open for the dagger three last night) and doesn’t mask its weaknesses very well, but the Blue Devils need to find their mojo. A lot of things went into Wednesday’s loss in South Bend: Jerian Grant playing unconscious; missed layups and free throws; bricking three straight long jumpers after taking a 10-point lead. Duke’s defense is OK when it gets set, but where its youth shows the most is how different it looks after a missed shot versus a made one.
2. Raleigh News & Observer: Speaking of developing, NC State’s young players are starting to show some of their promise. Joe Giglio focuses on Abdul-Malik Abu here in this article, but other young players are starting to come out of their shells too (such as the Martin twins). Unfortunately, NC State’s recent heartbreak loss to Notre Dame messed with the Wolfpack’s psyche as the team looked abysmal in a subsequent home loss last night against Clemson. Now Mark Gottfried needs to do something to turn things around, as the team’s best win is weakening (Duke) and its losses are piling up.
3. Winston-Salem Journal: I like Danny Manning a lot. This isn’t exactly a hot take, but I think he’s going to get Wake Forest relevant again very quickly (assuming he’s not poached). Manning is up front with who he is and he believes in his system. After last night’s close defeat to Florida State, three of the Demon Deacons’ last four games have come down to the wire (a double-overtime loss, a single-overtime loss, and a loss by two points). Manning clearly needs some better players on his roster, but he has a reputation as a very serious recruiter, so I don’t expect that upgrade to take long.
4. Pitt News: This is awesome. We’ve long heard about the manager games before big rivalries like Duke–North Carolina, but with more teams getting to game locations a day early manager games are starting to proliferate. The Pittsburgh managers think it has something to do with the ACC, which might be true, but a lot of current ACC teams are from the Big East. The games sound tremendous. There’s no shot clock and no officiating (no reviews!).
5. College Basketball Talk: We know who is going to take part in this year’s McDonald’s All-American game, but we don’t know who a lot of these prep stars will play for yet. This year only Duke and LSU (what?) have two players in the game, although expect that to change as we get closer to the summer. Unless something changes in the near-future (I’m certain it will), North Carolina will be without a Burger Boy for the first time in the game’s long and illustrious history.

1. Notre Dame Insider: Mike Brey calls it “downshifting” to describe when teams put in a smaller lineup to match up with Notre Dame (whose forwards are an odd combination of 6’10” and 6’5″), but that strategy will get put to a real test tonight with Duke‘s Jahlil Okafor and Amile Jefferson scoring with such great efficiency. I’m not sure what Mike Krzyzewski calls it when Duke allows opposing guards to get to the rim undeterred, but I’m very sure that I cannot print it here. That too will get put to test this evening at the Joyce Center, thanks to Jerian Grant and a supporting cast that can shoot the ball from distance at a 40 percent clip. All I know? It should be a fun game to watch.
2. Miami Herald: A guy who should be in the running for the ACC Most Improved Player award is Miami junior Tonye Jekiri (although it probably should go to Virginia’s Justin Anderson). Jekiri hasn’t played basketball for very long, but the seven-footer is starting to get the hang of things for the Hurricanes. He’s turned into an elite rebounder and a low usage scorer, which reminds me a little of Miles Plumlee during his senior year at Duke. Don’t be surprised if he eventually gets drafted — it’s still true that you can’t teach size.
3. Fayetteville Observer: You wouldn’t have been alone if you had predicted North Carolina would struggle to score on Monday night against Syracuse, but you would have been wrong. Bret Strelow (with the help of Marcus Paige) took a stab at figuring out why. Paige pointed out that most of the Tar Heels’ penetration in that game came through passing into the high post. It also helped that the normally poor-shooting Tar Heels (33% on the season from three) found its jump shot (9-of-16 against the Orange). Don’t think that North Carolina’s hot shooting was just an impressive performance because Syracuse is a little undermanned this year — that was the best shooting percentage against the Orange by any team since 2012.
4. Tomahawk Nation: I’m not the only one on the Xavier Rathan-Mayes bandwagon right now. Michael Rogner does a good job examining how the freshman has improved as the year has progressed. He’s gone from a decent, inefficient scorer to become one of the most dangerous offensive players in the ACC. There’s not much hope for this year’s Florida State team, but if he extends his range he could be the ACC’s next 20 PPG scorer.
5. Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician: When will Jim Boeheim get to 1,000 wins of his own? The safe bet is 2016-17, but Michael Burke makes the case that it’s not unreasonable for him to get there next year with a little luck on his side. With a disappointing team 14-7 team this season, there’s some reason to be cautious, but with more talent coming to town and a history of success, there’s ample reason to be optimistic about his chances as well.