Bad news out of Chapel Hill: North Carolina starting shooting guard, back-up point guard, and designated defensive stopper Dexter Strickland tore his ACL in last night’s game against Virginia Tech. Things looked pretty bad when Strickland landed funny and fell to the ground, grabbing his knee and yelling in pain. Confirmation came late today that he had torn the ligament and will be out for the season.

Dexter Strickland Is Out For The Year With A Torn ACL

Fortunately for Roy Williams, the Tar Heels are stocked with skilled shooting guards and Reggie Bullock and P.J. Hairston are more than capable of effectively filling Strickland’s shoes. The trickier questions are how badly the Tar Heels will miss Strickland on defense and who will spell Marshall as back-up lead guard? In terms of defense, the Tar Heels might actually be pleasantly surprised: Bullock, as well as being offensively capable, has been a skilled and stalwart defender. The defensive box scores compiled by Adrian Atkinson at Tobacco Road Blues demonstrate that Bullock has been really great on that end. This development, coupled with what appears to be genuinely improved defense by Marshall bodes well for North Carolina’s perimeter protection.

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The Hurricanes won their first ACC game despite allowing the Clemson Tigers to shoot 47.4% from the field, losing the offensive rebounding and the turnover battle. How do you win against a team that took more shots and nearly shot 50%? Well, you just have to shoot better than 50% yourself. In a dazzling offensive performance, Miami shot 51.9% from the field, made 9-of-20 three-pointers and converted 13-of-14 free throws. Miami may have gotten fewer possessions than Clemson, but they certainly made the most of the shots they got. Miami’s primary four guard rotation of Malcolm Grant, Durand Scott, Trey McKinney-Jones, and Shane Larkin all managed at least three assists and two steals. These aren’t huge numbers, but when you have four guys on the perimeter who are such capable play-makers and ball-hawks, it’s going to really help your team win. Another thing that will help your team win against Clemson? Holding Andre Young to 0-of-6 from beyond the arc.

Too Much To Prove

• North Carolina at Virginia Tech at 9:00 PM on ESPN

What Does Roy Have In Store For Us Tonight?

Virginia Tech has yet to win a conference game despite playing both lowly Boston College and Wake Forest. North Carolina is coming off a nationally televised beatdown which is the worst loss of Roy Williams’ career. One thing is certain about this game: Both teams should be playing as hard as they can. While it’s easy to expect a dominant Tar Heel bounceback, the Hokies have a couple of things going for them that makes this a tough match-up for North Carolina. UNC’s slumping three-point attack will be tested against a Hokies’ defense that’s even better than Florida State at defending the perimeter. Virginia Tech’s opponents have managed a meager 26.2% from long range. A lot of this has to do with the personnel that Seth Greenberg can put on the wing. With a number of quick, long forwards like Dorian Finney-Smith and Jarrell Eddie as well as two 6’5″ guards in Dorenzo Hudson and Robert Brown, the Hokies are one of the few teams that can match up with Harrison Barnes, Reggie Bullock, and P.J. Hairston without much trouble. Even worse for the Tar Heels, Erick Green is the exact kind of player (quick guard with a long-distance touch and play-making abilities) that is easily capable of hanging thirty on North Carolina. That said, Virginia Tech hasn’t proven anything this year: In every big game the Hokies have played, they’ve lost. You could say that they’re due a big win or you can say the lack that intangible mental toughness. Either way you see it, the Hokies will have a hard time dealing with the post presence of Tyler Zeller and John Henson. Virginia Tech’s biggest guys aren’t all that big, not all that skilled, and frequently suffer from foul trouble. It’s a tough matchup for any team, but if Carolina can get the ball inside on offense and prevent an Erick Green-based perimeter onslaught on defense, UNC takes the first step out of the shadow of Saturday’s brutal loss.

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Florida State‘s 14 point win over Maryland is impressive because of how little it fits the template of how Florida State has played this past season. The Seminoles allowed the Terrapins to shoot 50% from the field while “only” managing 47.5% for themselves, yet still come away with the decisive win.

Bernard James Led the Seminoles To Its Third Straight Win Last Night (US Presswire)

Leonard Hamilton‘s team won this game by doing two things that they have struggled to do in the early going: prevent offensive rebounds and win the turnover battle.  Maryland managed only seven offensive rebounds despite excelling in this category for most of the season. The Terrapins also turned the possession over a total of 15 times, which isn’t exactly unexpected for a team that has struggled with ball control all season. The small surprise is Florida State’s surprisingly low nine turnovers. Granted, Maryland’s light ball pressure defense deserves a lot of the credit for that, but the win is still impressive for the statement it sends: Florida State won by overcoming its weaknesses. If the Seminoles ever manage to control their weaknesses while flexing their strengths to their fullest potential, the ACC is in trouble.

The Disappointment Bowl

• Clemson at Miami at 7:00 PM on ESPN3.com

No matter how this game turns out, the combined ACC wins of Clemson and Miami will double after the final buzzer sounds, a sad statement on two teams that I thought would be ready to go dancing in March. Clemson’s single win comes from a surprising drubbing of Florida State, which was then bizarrely followed by a loss to Boston College, though the subsequent loss to Duke is a little more understandable. Miami comes into this game without a single conference win, but considering that their schedule started with Virginia and North Carolina on the road, the lack of a win is much less surprising. In any case, neither team has managed to come together quite like it should, but with Miami slowly but steadily coming together, I like them to get the win in their home opener. Reggie Johnson is still playing his way back to where he was last season and Malcolm Grant has been in as bad a shooting slump as he’s ever been in his career, but newcomers Kenny Kadji and Shane Larkin add an extra dimension to a team that is bursting with potential.

Now, in the cool light of Tuesday we open up with a conference where Boston College and North Carolina have the same ACC record and we can answer the big question of the weekend with a firm nod: Yes, this is real life. The question that remains is simple: Which teams are for real? Florida State made a ridiculously impressive statement against North Carolina on Saturday, but the Seminoles had been maddeningly inconsistent up to this point. Meanwhile, Maryland has looked like a brand new team after Pe’Shon Howard and Alex Len joined with the team, though ironically, it’s been the play of neither that has been the most impressive.

Terrell Stoglin Takes 36.8% of Maryland's Shots. That's A Lot.

The Gut Check

• Maryland at Florida State at 9:00 PM on ESPNU

Florida State may have pounded North Carolina, but they looked abysmal against a really rough-looking Clemson team. Florida State should be able to hammer Maryland without much difficulty at home, but the Terps have been full of surprises and this match-up has a number of pivot points that could make things really interesting. While the Seminoles have a sterling defense, they are (and have been for the past few years) curiously weak on the defensive glass. This is a problem because Maryland’s James Padgett‘s reign of terror on the offensive glass shows no sign of slowing. Padgett easily remains the best offensive rebounder in the country and his efficiency in the post, particularly on second-chance points, can be a deadly weapon. For Leonard Hamilton‘s squad, the strategy will be the same-as-it-ever-was: Pressure the perimeter to force turnovers and try to bait the team’s worst offensive players into taking too many shots. Sadly for the Terrapins, the shot-happy-but-accuracy-challenged tandem of Nick Faust and Pe’Shon Howard seems pretty susceptible to falling right into this trap. More good news for the Seminoles? Maryland doesn’t force many turnovers, which has been Florida State’s weakness all year long. Will it come down to  a shootout between Terrell Stoglin and a newly confident Deividas Dulkys? Stoglin shoots more than anyone in the ACC, but if anyone is prepared to match fire with fire, the Dulkys that we saw on Saturday was far from gun shy.

It was very surprising to see so much criticism directed at Roy Williams for having the North Carolina bench depart to the locker room before the buzzer at the end of Saturday’s Florida State game. There are a lot of things to criticize about North Carolina’s performance, but this simply isn’t one of them. Despite Leonard Hamilton making it abundantly clear that North Carolina went to the locker room early at his urging, Internet commenters have been quick to throw around “bad sport” and “sore loser” labels. This is silly. Williams gracefully accepted Hamilton’s suggestion and the bulk of the North Carolina staff and players were able to exit the area without incident. Somehow, this has been interpreted as a disservice to the remaining North Carolina players who were left to face the rushed-court alone. Of course, this is patently ridiculous. In situations where a rush is imminent, off-duty police officers and event security staff generally have the responsibility of making sure that the visiting team is safely escorted to the locker room without incident. Generally, there aren’t enough of these staffers to adequately escort the entire team’s staff. By limiting the number of folks who needed escort to the five remaining North Carolina players, the security staff had a much more manageable, though still difficult task (the players left on the court still got bumped and pushed by over-exuberant and misguided Seminole fans). The move seemed sensible, safe, and agreed upon by both teams. It allowed for a safer rush. What’s wrong with this?

Leonard Hamilton Thought He Made Himself Clear

At the “neutral” site loss to UNLV, the court was rushed by excited Runnin’ Rebels fans, an undeniably exciting moment that was somewhat marred by a few boisterous fans knocking over members of UNC’s training staff. If you were Williams and you saw a way to avoid a repeat of a similar incident offered by your opponent’s coach, wouldn’t you take it? It was an odd thing to see, but all things considered it feels like the right and mature move by the leaders of both teams. The worst part about this little incident is how it takes the spotlight away from the impressiveness of Florida State’s thorough domination of the Tar Heels. It just seems odd to me that there’s so much to-do over how North Carolina left Tallahassee and not enough talk about how the team never even bothered to show up in the first place.

Let’s be clear about something right from the start: Yes, Deividas Dulkys probably had the best game of his life, but even if he had performed at 40% of the level he managed Saturday, Florida State would have still won this game against North Carolina. The eight made three-pointers? Yes, that’s fluky and it contributed to the massive margin, but the Seminoles would have won the game even with an average shooting night by Dulkys. For the sake of a conversation that goes beyond me marveling at the transcendent performance by the Lithuanian guard, let’s put aside his monster game and imagine that Florida State just won by say 14 points. That’s still an impressive win and it’s worth pointing out that this is the kind of win we have been expecting from Florida State all season even if not by this margin and not against this opponent.

Deividas Dulkys Was Otherworldly In FSU'S Victory (AP Photo / S. Cannon)

The Seminoles’ hallmark is defense, and the defense has mostly been there all season. The signature of the defense is fairly simple, a locked-down perimeter, a tough interior, and scads and scads of forced turnovers. North Carolina shot 4-of-21 from the three-point line, a figure that’s significant because it demonstrates two things about the Florida State offense:  how good they are at defending the three and how skilled they are at baiting opponents into trying to take it. Remember, North Carolina, coming into Saturday, shot a lower proportion of threes than all but a handful of teams in Division I. Baiting Kendall Marshall into trying at least five perimeter shots should be on any teams to-do list when it comes to beating the Tar Heels. In general, the defense played Marshall very cleverly, defending physical and close when he had the ball, forcing seven turnovers while giving Marshall a lot more space off-ball, leading to relatively inefficient catch-and-shoot opportunities. It was a perfectly scouted and well-executed defensive plan that’s honestly not too different from the sterling defensive performances the team has been putting on all season.

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On the eve of North Carolina‘s ESPN GameDay match-up in Tallahassee against one of the most stubborn defensive teams in the country, Roy Williams delivered some long expected news. Leslie McDonald, despite a relatively rapid recovery, would be redshirting, saving his eligibility for a full season. While McDonald’s injury during a summer game was considered a serious blow to UNC’s perimeter attack, the emergence of Reggie Bullock and P.J. Hairston, as well as Harrison Barnes‘ deadly three-point accuracy so far this season, have largely mitigated that concern.

Williams Has A Deep Bench That He Can Turn To

Despite being the team’s designated three-point sniper last season, it’s entirely possible that McDonald would have struggled for consistent minutes this year. Since Bullock and Hairston have emerged as premier offensive weapons off the bench for Tar Heels and Kendall Marshall and Dexter Strickland have waged strong campaigns for their indispensability, there simply aren’t many available minutes for another non-ball-handler in the backcourt. Indeed, their is already a bit of a logjam in the rotation, with some fans clamoring for a starting spot or at least more time for the skilled-at-both-ends Bullock.  But where do the minutes come from? Strickland and Barnes both play less than 26 MPG as it is, and honestly, it’s hard to justify taking minutes away from either. But what about minutes from Marshall?

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The middle of the ACC is so muddled that honestly I don’t know what to make of last night’s results. Of course, after all my talk, Alex Len was barely a factor in the Terrapins victory over Wake Forest, while forwards James Padgett and Ashton Pankey grabbed six offensive rebounds apiece, enough to make up for a lousy shooting night all around for Maryland. It’s a nice performance for the under-heralded freshman Pankey, but for Padgett, we really should have seen this coming. Somehow this willowy, 6’8″ junior continues to lead Division I in offensive rebounding percentage. I don’t know how he does it, but the Terrapins owe at least one win to him.

The Terps and Len Snuck Past Wake Forest Last Night in College Park (AP)

Meanwhile in Raleigh, the ever-promising Wolfpack took a slide backwards in a loss to Georgia Tech. While North Carolina State showed moxie on offense and won the possession battle, Mark Gottfried‘s team lost the war by allowing a truly mediocre shooting team to score at will. Now, will the Yellow Jackets go 9-for-15 from three-point land in any other game this season? Probably not. Whether you want to chalk this win up to hot shooting or not, it’s becoming increasingly clearer that NC State needs to start taking defense seriously or more embarrassing losses are soon to follow.

The Heavyweight Bout

• Virginia at Duke at 9:00 PM on ESPN

Some semblance of order prevailed Tuesday night as Florida State managed a close win against Virginia Tech and North Carolina lodged a quietly scary win against Miami. Bernard James, the old man of the ACC, posted an 18-point, 15-rebound game (nine offensive rebounds) and Ian Miller offered the sufficient guard scoring (15 points) that the Seminoles had lacked in the early going. Virginia Tech simply couldn’t score at a strong enough clip against the defensive-minded Seminoles, managing a field goal percentage of only 30.5%. This is how we expected Florida State would win games, and it’s fun to see a team pull off a victory like this while still turning the ball over 19 times in a relatively slow-paced game. Did I say fun? I meant weird, but oddly gratifying.

Old Man Bernard James Had A Monster Game In The Victory Over Virginia Tech

Meanwhile, North Carolina’s convincing victory against Miami was scarier than you might expect. The Tar Heels draw a lot of offensive firepower from their triumvirate of big, athletic, sharp-shooting wings. Last night, Harrison Barnes went 2-of-12, Reggie Bullock went 2-of-6, and P.J. Hairston went 1-of-6. It was a 17-point win for UNC and the Hurricanes shot 41.8%. The ability to accomplish a high margin win without shut-down defense, hot shooting, or scoring from three of your best offensive players is what makes North Carolina such a dangerous team. Totally crushing an opponent in every facet of the game will always be impressive, but soundly beating a team despite lots of things going wrong? Just as remarkable.

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Typically, getting to the line is the province of post-up players and guys who slash and drive to the rim. Getting to the free throw line is important (it is one of Dean Oliver’s Four Factors), particularly for players without a consistent three-point shot because it allows them to reach high levels of offensive efficiency. To get the most out of post players’ possessions, it is simply essential for low-post players to get to the line. It’s hard thing to get better at and that’s why Mason Plumlee’s improvement in this area is particularly impressive. Yes, he is still a terrible shot from the line (averaging south of 45% for the past two seasons), but getting to the line is still a great way to increase offensive efficiency, no matter how lousy a shooter. Last season, Plumlee took 93 free throws and made 41 of them. Comparing these figures with his shooting from the field we can calculate (or at least trust Ken Pomeroy to calculate) a Free Throw Rate of 49.2%. This season, he has already taken 83 free throws, made 35, and posted a Free Throw Rate of 74.5%, good for second best in the ACC. This is impressive improvement, but exactly the kind of thing you would hope for with your starting big who is expected to handle an increased share of the offensive load.

What’s much rarer (and much more dangerous) is the combination of a talented three-point shooter who also has the ability to draw contact and get points from the line. A player with that combination of skills is particularly dangerous. This year, Duke is getting that from Ryan Kelly, which is, all things considered totally surprising. Last year, Kelly made 33 of 41 field goals and posted Free Throw Rate of 22.1%. This is a fairly low figure for your typical big, but last season, Kelly largely functioned as a spot-up shooter, taking open shots when available. For a guy with that kind of playing style, 22.1% is fairly standard. Sure, he could drive a little more, but you wouldn’t expect this number to rise too much. This is where Kelly has surprised everyone.

Ryan Kelly Has Gotten Better At Drawing Fouls, As Well As Avoiding Them On Defense

This season, Kelly has already made more than twice the number of free throws he made over the course of the entire past season. For 2011-2012 season, Kelly has made 67 of 81 free throws and has posted a Free Throw Rate of 77.1%, the best mark in the entire Atlantic Coast Conference. The versatile forward is drawing contact and cashing in at over triple the rate of last season. It’s an incredible improvement, and one of the biggest leaps I have ever seen a player make from one season to the next. Less impressively, but nearly as important, Kelly has stopped sending opponents to the line as much as he had in the past, While Kelly got called for 4.2 fouls per 40 minutes last season, this year he has trimmed the number down to 2.8. Whether it was Mike Krzyzewski’s coaching or something that just clicked in Kelly’s head, this new-found free throw-earning, foul-drawing aptitude is an incredible individual achievement as well as a significant boon for the Blue Devils.

With Plumlee’s and Kelly’s conference-best abilities at getting to the line, Duke has an added new and potent dimension to its offensive attack. Of course, the remarkable thing about this season is that it is not just the two forwards who are better at getting to the line. Austin Rivers seems to have an in-born talent for getting to the free throw line and Seth Curry and the rest of Duke’s guards have shown an increased eagerness to attack defenders and draw contact. The end result is that Duke’s Free Throw Attempts / Field Goal Attempts has shot through the roof. Last year, the Blue Devils were thoroughly mediocre in this category, posting a rate of 37.4%. This season, that number is up to 51.5%, good for third best in the entire country. For a team, this is a truly remarkable feat and one area where this incarnation of Duke is clearly head and shoulders better than the squads of recent seasons.