On Tuesday, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino told the Louisville Courier-Journal that he had stripped junior star Montrezl Harrell of the Cardinals’ team captaincy. While Pitino claims that the decision was “no big deal,” it is yet another disappointment from one of the ACC’s two preseason AP All-Americans. Statistically speaking, Harrell has not regressed from his sophomore season, but he hasn’t really improved all that much either. His scoring is up about a point per game (14.0 to 14.9 PPG) and he is grabbing nearly an extra rebound per game (8.4 to 9.2 RPG), but while the junior shot the ball more efficiently last year, his level of impact looks and feels about the same. Still, Harrell turned down NBA Draft riches to return to Louisville, and expectations were that he would develop into elite impact territory. Perhaps the most concerning aspect of Harrell’s season has been his play against good competition; in Louisville’s three losses to Kentucky, North Carolina and Duke, Harrell scored nine, nine and 10 points, respectively — shooting 12-of-29 from the field in those games. With so much of the Cardinals’ offense dependent on him for success, it’s no surprise that Louisville lost each of those contests.

Montrezl Harrell hasn’t been the superstar Louisville hoped for this season. (Jamie Rhodes / USA TODAY Sports)

Harrell isn’t the only preseason All-American from the ACC who has been underwhelming this season. North Carolina guard Marcus Paige entered the year as the highest vote-getter in preseason All-America polls, returning to Chapel Hill following a stellar sophomore campaign in which he had often carried the Tar Heels offensively. Expectations were certainly very high for his junior campaign. Paige limped out to a slow start, shooting only 35 percent in North Carolina’s first four games, including an unlikely loss to Butler. And like Harrell, Paige’s statistics in the Tar Heels’ four losses tell the story: 15.0 points per game on 33 percent shooting. To his credit, Paige has been dealing with plantar fasciitis, and he may be turning the corner in conference play given his “clutch gene” play against Louisville and a 23-point, nine-assist outing at N.C. State. Still, Paige needs to find better consistency and efficiency to support his candidacy for any postseason award.

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This week, Business Insider released a list of college basketball teams that bring in the most revenue per player, with the ACC’s own Louisville topping the list, averaging over $1.53 million per player on its 13-man roster. Joining the Cardinals were Syracuse in the second spot ($1.12M), Duke in the fourth spot ($1.02M), North Carolina in the eighth spot ($788,000), and Pittsburgh in the 18th spot ($534,000). The list features the 20 highest “fair market values per player,” and the ACC accounts for half of the top eight. It’s important to note a few things about the methodology here, though. First, these figures were determined by taking 49 percent of the school’s annual college basketball revenue (the same number used in the NBA’s latest collective bargaining agreement) and dividing it by the 13 scholarship players on each roster. Second, teams generate revenue through a variety of different sources, things such as merchandise sales, television deals, sponsorships, and NCAA Tournament appearances — not just ticket sales. Lastly, it’s also important to note that the fair market value figures do not actually apply to each individual player; Montrezl Harrell is responsible for more of Louisville’s revenue than his walk-on teammates, but the analysis treats each player as the same in the aggregate.

Rick Pitino, surrounded by approximately $3 million of revenue, according to Business Insider. (Getty)

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the five ACC schools listed are those that represent the conference’s highest revenue-producing entities. Louisville has established itself as one of the most successful programs in America, making it to three Elite Eights, two Final Fours, and winning a National Championship in the last five years, all while striking an extremely favorable deal with the school’s lease of the KFC Yum! Center. Duke and North Carolina are the two names most synonymous with ACC basketball, selling merchandise around the world thanks to their marketable former stars and allegiance to the Nike/Jordan brands. And Syracuse, thanks to its massive Carrier Dome venue, can house up to nearly 35,000 fans for its biggest home games, which provides plenty of additional revenue when the team is hot. These are basketball programs that have had great historical success, legendary coaches and alumni, and massive fan support. That’s a formula for generating consistently high basketball revenue. What’s also striking is that the top two teams on this list are two of the latest additions to the conference rising from the ashes of the old Big East. Syracuse joined the ACC last year, and Louisville will soon play its first conference game in its new home. The addition of these teams may have ruffled some feathers among the traditional ACC crowd, but this list alone may help some of the remaining detractors understand why the conference was eager to add the new blood.

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Louisville freshman Shaqquan Aaron has received his verdict from the NCAA on his impermissible benefits case: A nine-game suspension, seven of which have already been served, meaning that he will be eligible to play starting on December 20 against UNC-Wilmington. The Cardinal freshman’s case stemmed from an NCAA inquiry about a tuition payment made during Aaron’s freshman year of high school, but the case dragged on because of disagreements between the NCAA and Aaron’s family. The suspension is punishment for extra benefits pertaining to housing; in addition to this, Aaron’s family will have to repay a fee, and Aaron will serve community service. ESPN ranked Aaron as the 33rd best freshman in the country, the highest ranked newcomer on Rick Pitino’s squad this season. He has been described as an excellent shooting small forward in scouting reports, with agility and athleticism to boot. One pundit compared him to North Carolina’s Justin Jackson, who cracked the Tar Heels’ starting rotation at the beginning of the season and is producing (116.0 ORtg). One facet of Aaron’s game that has been highly touted is his ability to create opportunities off the dribble, which should provide relief to a Louisville offense that, while putting up a strong but not elite adjusted offensive efficiency of 108.9, has struggled to put together consistent offensive success (see wins against Cleveland and Ohio State).

Rick Pitino has no shortage of talent on his team; while it may take time, Shaqquan Aaron will only make the Cardinals better. (Getty)

This situation draws some parallels to the one that plagued North Carolina’s Leslie McDonald last year. McDonald sat out the Tar Heels’ first nine games due to an eligibility issue stemming from the use of his likeness on a mouthpiece website. The NCAA declared that McDonald had received “numerous impermissible extra benefits,” including use of luxury cars, sleeping on a friend’s couch during the North Carolina Pro-Am, and payment of parking tickets. The investigation cleared McDonald in time for a key December 18 game against Texas, when he made his season debut. His absence from the lineup yielded mixed results for North Carolina, including wins over Michigan State, Louisville, and Kentucky, but perplexing losses to Belmont at home and UAB on the road. The Cardinals have fared much better without Aaron on the floor, posting an 8-0 record to start the season.

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The annual Wooden Award Watch list became public on Monday and eight ACC players could be found on it: In alphabetical order: Malcolm Brogdon (Virginia), Jerian Grant (Notre Dame), Olivier Hanlan (Boston College), Montrezl Harrell (Louisville), Tyus Jones (Duke), Jahlil Okafor (Duke), Marcus Paige (North Carolina), and Terry Rozier (Louisville). This is on par with last year’s performance by the ACC, which also included eight players on the preseason list, including names such as Jabari Parker (Duke), Rodney Hood (Duke), Rasheed Sulaimon (Duke), C.J. Fair (Syracuse), Joe Harris (Virginia), and James Michael McAdoo (North Carolina).  One of last year’s selections from the ACC, Dez Wells (Maryland), remains on the list this time around, but he represents the Big Ten now, following Maryland’s official departure from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

All-America candidate Montrezl Harrell leads Louisville into its new League. (Getty Images)

Doing the math, this is presumably a list of 50 of the best players in the country, and it’s slightly troubling that the ACC doesn’t account for at least a fifth of this list, especially given its oversized presence in the preseason Top 10. This is especially concerning given the fact that Kansas and Kentucky together account for eight players on the list, the same number as the entire conference. Still, given who is on the list, can we be assured that these eight players represent the conference well? ACC fans will at the very least be pleased with the quality of this group, which could arguably match up with and beat any other conference group assembled.

• Malcolm Brogdon (2013-14: 12.7 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 2.7 APG): Brogdon became a key piece of Virginia’s ACC championship team, providing a solid stroke from the three-point line and taking some pressure off of star Joe Harris on the perimeter. This year, Brogdon will be looked upon to continue that kind of offensive play with Harris gone, and possibly even step it up a notch. He’s not the most athletically gifted player, but his natural offensive game will grab the attention of anyone watching Virginia play.

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The Atlantic Coast Conference looks poised to have a dominant season among basketball’s top conferences, boasting four of the nation’s preseason top 10 teams in Duke, North Carolina, Virginia and Louisville. After a short one-year stint in the American Athletic Conference, Louisville is the latest former Big East team to join the ACC, while the Blue Devils, Tar Heels and Cavaliers are ACC mainstays — each hopes to carry the conference banner to the finish line in March. Virginia wants to defend its conference title and prove last season wasn’t a fluke; Louisville hopes to send a message in its ACC debut; and the Tobacco Road teams are hoping to make it back to their rightful place in the Sweet Sixteen and beyond. Simply put, the ACC is going to be a war at the top of the standings, and each team has a major driver pushing it this year.

Virginia’s ascendance will only help the ACC’s argument that it’s the premier basketball conference (USA Today Sports)

This season marks the third time since 2002 that a conference has had four teams in the preseason top 10. Ironically, both of these instances came courtesy of the Big East. In 2011, the conference placed Connecticut and current ACC members Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Louisville within the top 10; and in 2008, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and another current ACC member, Notre Dame, topped the list. In each of those years, the ACC’s only two representatives were — who else? — Duke and North Carolina. This definitely speaks to the prestige of the basketball programs that the ACC has added in recent years, and it’s not implausible to think the ACC could place even more than four squads in the top 10 in coming seasons.

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Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski is never one to shy away from his opinions on the state of college basketball. In fact, just last year, Coach K voiced his concerns about college basketball’s current era of the “one-and-done,” the highly touted freshmen who dominate the sport for a year before advancing to the NBA Draft mere months after arriving on campus. Krzyzewski stated just last year that he was “worried that that is always becoming a thing,” referring to the idea of elite freshmen overshadowing established upperclassmen. He has also made it clear that he is in favor of a two-year draft rule, and has backed this notion as recently as the end of October. All of this makes it surprising that the Blue Devils head coach admitted on Thursday that he fully expects his latest freshman phenom, Jahlil Okafor, to be Duke’s latest one-and-done player.

It Appears That Jahlil Okafor Will Reside For About Nine Months in Durham

“We won’t have him long,” Krzyzewski said, implying that Okafor is more of a short-term rental than a centerpiece for years to come. This shouldn’t surprise anyone should the big man leave school — since 2007, only a single player who was named #1 on the ESPN 100 recruiting rankings stayed in school for more than one year (Harrison Barnes, North Carolina 2010-12). The freshman is going to be closely observed by NBA scouts from the second he touches the floor at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and, barring some kind of strange collapse, he is almost guaranteed a spot in next year’s NBA Draft Lottery.

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At a book signing for his recently released autobiography on Tuesday, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim spoke about his life and Syracuse basketball. Boeheim spoke candidly with Orange fans, offering insight on this year’s team, the state of Syracuse basketball, and other topics you would expect a coach to engage fans with. He also, however, delivered an intriguing outlook on how much longer he will be sitting on the Syracuse bench.

“We are definitely near the end. When the end is I don’t know. I hope some day I will wake up and think it’s time! I have not yet had that morning, but I have woken up when some days I start thinking about it and I’m home for two days, and I have two twins who are 14, and a 16 year old, and I don’t think it’s time. Even if I might want it to be time, it’s not time yet.”

Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski Teamed Up to Win Another Gold Medal This Summer
(Photo: Raleigh News & Observer / Getty Images)

Boeheim made it clear that he will not be retiring in the immediate future, but he strongly suggests that he can see that day coming quickly. Boeheim has been the head coach of the Syracuse basketball team for 38 years, missing March Madness only seven times in that span and winning one National Championship in four Final Four appearances. His illustrious career has certainly earned him legendary status at Syracuse, and, whenever he decides to hang it up, it will most definitely be the end of an era. In his time at Syracuse, the head coach has won 948 games with a .750 lifetime winning percentage. And yes, while he can alienate rival fans (or possibly the entire ACC by the time he’s through with it), he is an absolutely beloved character among Orange faithful, somewhat akin to Mike Krzyzewski at Duke or Dean Smith at North Carolina.

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The Associated Press announced their preseason All-America list today, and three of the five honorees come from the Atlantic Coast Conference. Freshman Jahlil Okafor (Duke) is the lone freshman on the list, joined by 2013-14 standouts Marcus Paige (North Carolina) and Montrezl Harrell (Louisville). Rounding out the group are Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky and Wichita State point guard Fred VanVleet. This result for the ACC is in stark contrast to last year’s preseason All-America list, where zero ACC players made the list (Russ Smith was there from Louisville, but the Cardinals were an AAC team at that time). In fact, the last ACC player to make the preseason list? North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes in 2011.

Jahlil Okafor Headlines Three ACC Players Selected to the Preseason AP All-America Team

The most eye-popping choice of this list is Duke’s Okafor. Okafor is the third freshman to receive this honor in the past five years, dating back to Barnes’ first selection in 2010, and Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins last year. Okafor is just one of the many highly touted freshmen that Mike Krzyzewski brings to Durham for the upcoming season, joined by Grayson Allen, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones. These three look to replace and reinvigorate a Duke lineup that will miss NBA draftees Jabari Parker and Rodney Hood. While Okafor has yet to make his Duke debut, it is clear that for the second straight season, Duke will present a freshman phenom surrounded by massive hype.

Okafor isn’t the only Tobacco Road superstar to earn the honor this preseason. North Carolina’s Paige in fact received the highest total of votes in the voting, following his sophomore year of second half heroics for the Tar Heels. The Tar Heels sputtered on offense without Paige in the lineup, and while the junior is unquestionably the team’s leader, he may be needed to carry the load quite as much this year. Paige’s Tar Heels have much more depth surrounding him this season, and freshman Justin Jackson is expected to relieve Paige of some of the offensive burden.

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