In an interview on sports radio this week, Gary Williams got a little indignant about the charge that he wasn’t a great recruiter, claiming that when he was the coach at Maryland, his teams had more future NBA players than any Atlantic Coast Conference school aside from Duke and North Carolina. While I think that Williams catches more flak than he deserves for not recruiting well, I also think that his claim probably isn’t true. Every source that I have been able to find has Georgia Tech as a strong third place in the ACC when it comes to NBA players during his tenure (essentially, the 1990s and 2000s). Even if by some miscount, it’s pretty clear that Georgia Tech has had better pros than Maryland during that time. The Terrapins had Joe Smith, Steve Francis, Steve Blake, and Walt Williams, while GT has had Chris Bosh, Stephon Marbury, Kenny Anderson, and Thaddeus Young. At best, Maryland was the fourth best school in the ACC in producing NBA talent during Williams’ tenure, and that’s only if you agree that quality trumps quantity and ignore Wake Forest‘s Tim Duncan, Josh Howard and Chris Paul.

Gary Williams Made Up For His Mediocre Recruiting With Excellent Coaching

Still, I don’t bring this up to condemn Williams for overstating his record, but to bring up a point about recruiting and coaching.  Dan Hanner did an interesting little study that he wrote up for this year’s College Basketball Prospectus where he set out to evaluate how important it is to get great recruits. He looked at recruits from 1999-2011 and put them into different categories based on their recruiting class rank and where they went to college and then looked to see how many minutes they played and what their average offensive efficiency rating was.  At Maryland, unranked recruits played 51.2% of the minutes while recruits ranked 100-10 played the remainder of the minutes. The unranked recruits produced an average offensive efficiency rating of 104.2 while their ranked peers produced at 106.4 mark. Now compare this to Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets had unranked recruits use 28.1% of the minutes while recruits ranked from 100-10 used 67.1% (the remaining 4.8% went to top ten recruits). Here is where things get interesting: the unranked players produce at an offensive efficiency rating of 99.1 while the ranked recruits (outside of the top ten) posted a rate of 103.3. While Georgia Tech had top recruits playing more minutes than Maryland, the unranked recruits of Maryland ended up playing better on average than Georgia Tech’s ranked recruits. For Williams, recruiting just didn’t matter as much because he had a knack for making unranked players better than their ranked counterparts at Georgia Tech. That’s the key takeaway here — that the power of a talented coach can overcome recruiting rankings.

So, yes, I think Williams misspoke when he said that Maryland was the third best producer of NBA talent in the ACC during his tenure. I also happen to think that Georgia Tech’s ability to out-recruit Maryland ultimately didn’t matter too much — the Terps are the ones with the 2002 national championship banner hanging in the rafters, not the Yellow Jackets.

ACC Game On will periodically review recent games involving ACC teams and take a look forward to key upcoming matchups.

It’s going to be a long season for Boston College. I thought that maybe the dismal performance against Holy Cross could be explained away by the absence of Patrick Heckmann, but I was wrong. Massachusetts has the makings of a very talented team, but make no mistake: Boston College is bad. There is no reason to be surprised, but there is also no reason to expect Boston College will not improve. The Eagles with a few exceptions are a team of freshmen. The difference between a freshman in November and a freshman in March can be huge, especially in terms of shooting. Just ask Harrison Barnes. This team shouldn’t go winless this year even though it might feel like it today.

North Carolina State, on the other hand looked excellent in a spectacular comeback against Texas. Richard Howell was neutralized by foul trouble but C.J. Leslie and a healthy Scott Wood came off the bench to deliver a much-needed scoring punch from the Wolfpack. Being able to win on a neutral court with your best big sitting on the bench seems like a pretty good omen  for a team with a challenging schedule over the next month.

Even Without Ryan Harrow, C.J. Leslie And Lorenzo Brown Have Started To Deliver On The Promise They Showed As Freshmen

Duke coasted to the finish after being challenged early on by a persistent Tennessee team that was ultimately simply over-matched. One thing to note early this season is the tight Blue Devils rotation. While Miles Plumlee came off the bench for some effective minutes and Tyler Thornton has been offering his customary amount of foul-happy pressure defense, the starters are seeing the bulk of the minutes so far. This line-up is far from solidified, but the reliance on the starters is something to keep an eye on.

Virginia beat Drake rather unimpressively and Jontel Evans was the least impressive of them all. He played 33 minutes and managed to log a stat line of one point, one assist, one steal, three turnovers, and three fouls. If he doesn’t improve, Virginia might need to shake up its starting line up.

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ACC Game On will periodically review recent games involving ACC teams and take a look forward to key upcoming matchups.

This weekend, the top of the conference rolled while the bottom of the conference struggled and we got a clearer picture of the abilities and limitations of a number of the teams in the ACC. Thursday morning, every team in the conference was undefeated, but by Sunday night, half of the conference had already dropped games. For the most part, this divide clarifies the current haves and have-nots. North Carolina, Duke, Florida State, and Miami all held steady, handily winning their games. Joining the undefeated teams are Virginia Tech, who has an extended hiatus until taking on Syracuse, and somewhat surprisingly, Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons have so far had an admittedly easy schedule, but making it through an easy schedule without an upset is something that has challenged Wake’s ACC brethren.

On Friday, Boston College lost to Holy Cross in what wasn’t even really an upset, but is certainly disappointing nonetheless for Eagles fans. Playing without Patrick Heckmann (tweaked ankle), the leading scorer against New Hampshire, BC’s offense faltered while the defense remained as porous as ever. Holy Cross shot over 50% from the field and from beyond the arc. As it stands, Boston College looks like it will have serious trouble stopping any team from scoring.

Florida State Looked Great This Weekend, While Boston College Looked Terrible

Maryland played twice this weekend, winning the game they should have won, against Colorado, but losing to an Iona team that had already come pretty close to upsetting Purdue. For the Terrapins, turnovers look to be a real problem going forward. Against Iona, Maryland committed twenty-six miscues compared to Iona’s ten. Combine the poor offensive execution with allowing the Gael’s to shoot 55.2% from the field and it’s a recipe for disaster.

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ACC Game On will periodically review recent games involving ACC teams and take a look forward to key upcoming matchups.

The streak is over. The Atlantic Coast Conference’s short reign as the only undefeated conference in college basketball came to an end last night as both Georgia Tech and Maryland fell in the opening round of their respective tournaments. Against Saint Joseph’s and Alabama, neither team could figure out ways to score, particularly from long range. Georgia Tech and Maryland went a combined 3-24 from behind the arc.

While Georgia Tech was able to successfully go inside to manufacture some offense, the Yellow Jackets’ inability to stymie Saint Joseph’s perimeter attack (the Hawks shot over 50% on three-pointers) compounded with GT’s own terrible three-point shooting added up to a  thirteen-point loss. Where Georgia Tech was able to at least have some success on offense, Alabama completely shut down Maryland. In addition to going 2-12 on threes, the team shot 26.5% from the field. On a Maryland team whose strength is supposed to be guard play, Alabama held the Terrapins’ starting trio of Sean Moseley, Terrell Stoglin, and Nick Faust to 2-23 combined shooting. That’s right, Maryland’s starting guard rotation shot 8.6% from the field. While it would be nice to give all credit to the sensational Alabama defense that didn’t allow a single Maryland player to score in the double figures, the truth is that it wasn’t all Alabama. Maryland played poorly and looked lost on offense. If Maryland is going to win more than a handful of games this year, the backcourt is simply going to have to play better.

Shaka Smart's VCU Rams Will Take On The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in Charleston

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While technically speaking the pre-conference tournaments started long before yesterday, counting the opening rounds of the NIT and a few others with qualifiers, but Thursday was the day that the tournaments began in earnest. I thought it would be a useful exercise to go through the list of all 12 ACC teams and evaluate their individual chances of winning their respective tournaments.

Boston College – 76 Classic

The Boston College team picked to finish last in the ACC would have a tough time in just about any competitive tournament field. An opening game against St. Louis will be challenging enough, as SLU is one of the better teams in a very strong Atlantic 10 this year. If they pass St. Louis, they will probably have to play Villanova, a tough out for an ultra-young BC team. The rest of the field includes New Mexico and Santa Clara, both capable of pushing Boston College to the breaking point. There’s not a good chance that the Eagles win this tournament, but they could at least win the opener.

Clemson – Diamond Head Classic

Xavier is the easy favorite for this tournament, but fortunately for Clemson, they are positioned on the other side of the bracket along with the (by-December) battle-hardened Long Beach State. The Beach is gunning for upsets and Xavier will have to take care to win its opening matchup against Casper Ware and company. Clemson’s path to the finals is significantly easier. The Tigers’ side of the bracket features rebuilding Kansas State, inexperienced UTEP, and a Southern Illinois team that isn’t what it once was. Clemson should make the finals, but taking down XU will be a challenge.

Duke – Maui Invitational

Duke Has Never Lost In Maui (12-0)

The Maui Invitational is loaded, but I’d say that Duke has a good shot at a heavyweight bout with Kansas, and a fair shot at winning considering the troubles the Jayhawks had against Kentucky. Duke will have to beat either a talented Michigan or Memphis team after beating Tennessee (which the Blue Devils should). Michigan and Memphis are both teams with a lot of potential that hasn’t necessarily translated to wins yet and both are trying to make the leap this year. Beating Duke is a great way to make such a statement. On the other side of the bracket, Kansas just has to beat Georgetown to have a clear shot at the final considering the troubles that have plagued Ben Howland’s UCLA team. Beating Kansas, even in a down year is a tall order, but in a head-to-head match-up, I think Duke is certainly good enough to win.

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ACC Game On will periodically review recent games involving ACC teams and take a look forward at key upcoming matchups.

The Atlantic Coast Conference remains unbeaten, although it took a timely jumper by North Carolina State’s Deshawn Painter to maintain the currently perfect winning record of all conference teams. The Wolfpack’s game against Princeton was the highlight of a mostly lackluster slate of games last night. Mark Gottfried‘s team, already playing without C.J. Leslie, lost Scott Wood to an ankle injury two minutes into it. That, combined with insanely hot shooting by Princeton in the first half made a manageable game suddenly very challenging. Despite being down by three at the half, N.C. State rallied behind the sterling play of Lorenzo Brown to pull out the win in the final seconds. Brown led the team in points, assists and steals, contributing sixteen, eight, and five respectively, as well as snagging five rebounds.

Lorenzo Brown Came Up Big For N.C. State

Clemson and Florida State easily took down their opponents, using highly effective offenses to complement already lethally effective defenses. Both teams shot over 50% from the field, with Florida State managing an impressive 57.1%. For Clemson, the all-round play of Tanner Smith has continued to help the Tigers in myriad ways. Smith led his team in assists and rebounding while also scoring eleven points.

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Kellen Carpenter is an ACC microsite staffer and an RTC columnist. Behind the Numbers will publish weekly throughout the season.

Preseason rankings are a funny thing and once real basketball begins, these guesses about the season grow increasingly meaningless. People forget who was ranked where in the preseason by January, if they haven’t already forgotten by December. This, for what it’s worth, is probably a good thing.  Preseason polls can turn out to be pretty embarrassing, highlighting how little journalists and coaches actually know about how the basketball season is going to turn out. Remember Kansas State and Michigan State last season? They weren’t exactly huge factors in the postseason despite being almost unanimously ranked in the top five at the beginning.

Ron Morris Was Certainly On To Something

Gary Parrish’s “Poll Attacks” column is devoted to critiquing what he feels aren’t well-considered ballots. It’s an interesting idea and is usually very fascinating, but since Parrish can’t see the future, the columns have a tendency to not age all that well. What seems like understandable ridicule in November can seem less well-founded when the championship game is being played in April.  Here is a particularly infamous  passage from last year’s pre-season column:

Same dude voted Connecticut 18th.

This would’ve made sense three years ago, but it makes no sense now given that the Huskies have a coach who can’t seem to stay healthy, and a roster that looks nothing like your typical UConn roster. That’s why Big East coaches picked UConn 10th in the league, and why somebody needs to shoot me Ron Morris’ email address. With little effort, I can get him added to the official Big East email list, at which point he’ll start receiving announcements, and then this sort of stuff can probably be avoided. I don’t mean to be pushy.

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ACC Game On will periodically review recent games involving ACC teams and take a look forward at key upcoming matchups.

Mike Krzyzewski has surpassed Bob Knight’s record of all-time wins. He did so on the appropriately grand stage of Madison Square Garden, defeating Michigan State. It’s a great accomplishment for the man and for Duke University. What’s not so great? The job that Mason Plumlee, Miles Plumlee, and Ryan Kelly did to prove Mitch McGary wrong.  Combined the three were responsible for seven recorded field goal attempts. This total ties Seth Curry and Austin Rivers, who individually each took more shots. This total is also less than half of the total shots taken by Andre Dawkins, who made six three-pointers in the game. The team won, so there’s no sense in raising a fuss, but box scores like that make it hard to disagree with the diagnosis that “all their big men do is set screens and rebound and that they don’t get a lot of touches.”

Mr. 903

The rest of the ACC was rather dull last evening as Virginia Tech, Miami, and Virginia all walked away with relatively easy wins. Unsurprisingly, All-ACC candidates Mike Scott, Durand Scott and Malcolm Grant put up good but not incredible numbers to lead their teams to easy wins.

Things were a little more interesting in Blacksburg, however, as Dorenzo Hudson went off for 31 points on only thirteen shots. He got to the line twelve times, and didn’t miss from the charity stripe. It was a bravura performance against an overmatched Florida International team. Meanwhile, Dorian Finley-Smith continues his campaign as the ACC’s most intriguing freshman, leading his team in rebounding, assists, and steals while scoring fifteen points. If Seth Greenberg can adapt his team to the style and talents of this point-power-forward, the Hokies have a real chance to shake things up in the ACC.

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Last week, we talked about a survey of one hundred Division I coaches, where each was asked a variety of questions about their peers, specifically about their aptitude for recruiting. While it was an interesting glimpse into the world of reputations, the most intriguing tidbit had to do with NC State’s new head coach, Mark Gottfried. In many quarters, Gottfried was being hailed for already lining up one of the best recruiting classes in the nation, a remarkable feat for a new coach. With Rodney Purvis, T.J. Warren, and Tyler Lewis all lined up for the coming year, all seemed well in Raleigh.

Then of course, came the results of the survey in question, where Gottfried was named the third-most overrated recruiter in college basketball. This was interesting news, and I began to wonder what the coaches knew about Gottfried that the general public didn’t. It turns out that Gottfried might not actually be the issue, but rather the class that he has assembled. Buried in CBS Sports signing day coverage was an article where Goodman and Jeff Borzello answer a number of questions about next year’s incoming class. In a few separate instances, the two raised doubts and landed a few backhanded blows when talking about the Wolfpack’s recruits.

Is Rodney Purvis Overrated?

Borzello named Purvis the most overrated player in the class, despite later lauding him as the “best first recruit.” Goodman named NC State as having the best incoming backcourt, but threw in the tidbit that it was mainly because he felt no particular group of players stood out. He also added that he felt that all three of the Wolfpack’s incoming class were potentially overrated. These comments seem to indicate that perhaps the reason the coaches felt Gottfried was overrated as a recruiter was simply because the players he landed weren’t actually as good as had been reported.

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ACC Game On will periodically review recent games involving ACC teams and take a look forward at key upcoming matchups.

Despite Boston College going out of it’s way to pull a Molly Hatchet (“Flirtin’ With Disaster“), none of the four ACC teams suffered an upset on Monday night. Blow outs were the rule of the day for Florida State, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech who pulled away from their mid-major competitors without much difficulty. In Chestnut Hill, Steve Donahue managed to start four freshmen and a transfer student, an odd choice (though logical considering his roster), but one that he might have been regretting as the game against New Hampshire rolled on. An uncomfortably close game, the Eagles eked out a close three-point win. While no single player looked particularly impressive for BC, the team was marked by that distinctive Donahue-style: BC shot only 37.5% overall, but managed to shoot 44.4% from beyond the arc. Yep, that’s the new look Boston College.

BC Defeated UNH In Its Typical Manner (Boston Globe/M. Lee)

The three blowouts around the ACC were not particularly interesting aside from a few individual performances. In Tallahassee, Florida State easily handled a Central Florida team that, despite reinstating three key contributors who had been held out out of their opener, suffocated under the Seminoles’ oppressive defense. Bernard James, who struggled in the season opener with an ankle injury, got the early breakout we expected, scoring eighteen points on 8-9 shooting, while also lodging eleven rebounds and three blocks. In Blacksburg, Dorian Finney-Smith failed to replicate his stat-sheet-stuffing heroics of the season opener, attempting only two shots and missing them both (though he still managed to grab seven rebounds). The lead scorer for the Hokies was freshman Robert Brown, who quietly lodged his second double figure scoring game coming off the bench. With Georgia Tech, Daniel Miller, a 6’11” center, somehow managed to lead the Yellow Jackets in assists, dishing out six dimes while scoring fourteen points and grabbing fifteen rebounds. All of these marks were career highs for the sophomore whose freshman campaign was largely undistinguished. If Miller breaks out for Georgia Tech, it could make a big difference for a team that is trying to climb out of the conference cellar.

For The Record

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