For what it’s worth, I think Virginia Tech should have made the NCAA Tournament last season. I have a hard time believing that this team was worse than Villanova, Marquette, or Missouri, to name a few of the other power conference teams that got the bubble nod while Virginia Tech was overlooked once again. I understand the case for those teams, but believe me when I say that last year’s Hokies were a tough, resilient team stocked with great players. Malcolm Delaney was a great basketball talent and his fellow seniors, Jeff Allen and Terrell Bell were all excellent starters for Seth Greenberg.  Despite all the injuries that this team suffered, his core held strong and led Virginia Tech to repeatedly strong conference showings. These guys are now gone and a new era of basketball in Blacksburg begins.

Seth Greenberg Will Have To Rebuild The Hokies Now That The Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen Era Has Ended

A few holdovers remain, though, and that continuity will be important for what promises to be a relatively inexperienced team. Starters Erick Green, along with seniors Dorenzo Hudson and Victor Davila will have to be strong leaders on a team that is in transition. Despite the graduation of the legendary senior class, the transfer of the surprising Hokies’ leader in offensive efficiency, Manny Atkins, and the loss of Alan Chaney because of concerns about the promising big man’s heart condition, there is a real case to be made that Virginia Tech is gaining more than it’s losing. With contributors like Hudson and J. T. Thompson returning from injury, VT is regaining a guy who averaged 15.2 points per game and once scored 41 against a hapless Seton Hall team as their sixth man. As big as that will be for the Hokies in 2011-12, the real story for this team is its freshman class.

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The first AP poll repeats the refrain of the offseason: North Carolina is the best team in the country. Amassing 62 out 65 first-place votes, the Tar Heels ran away from the rest of the field. This is no surprise and pretty much matches what the coaches thought last week. Like in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll, Kentucky came in second with Ohio State and Connecticut not far behind. One first place vote went to the Buckeyes and two more to the Huskies, with the Wildcats getting no votes at the top spot. While that’s a slight difference from the coaches poll where Kentucky got the only non-UNC vote, it pretty much lines up with the conventional wisdom: Going into the season, there are four clear top tier teams, with the debate being over who goes in slots two through four. While guessing which writers submitted the minority reports favoring Connecticut and Ohio State is an entertaining game, the AP is happy to spoil that fun by posting the voters and their ballots online.

As for the rest of the ACC, Duke comes in at sixth, the same as in the coaches poll. Contributing to this mounting sense of déjà vu, Florida State once again finishes just outside the top twenty-five at the the twenty-sixth spot. Virginia, despite receiving a vote or two in the coaches poll, doesn’t get any love from the AP’s panel. Interestingly enough, the only other team to receive votes outside of last year’s top three finishers is Miami, a team that is returning a lot of highly skilled players and deserves a little more love than it’s been getting. In any case, the preseason is winding down and this poll will soon be forgotten as actual basketball games take the place of educated guesswork. I don’t know if that’s any consolation to an overlooked team like UVA, but it’s something.

Jim Larranaga is facing a harsh reality check. At George Mason, the coach was adored. The school’s students, band, and fans are a lively bunch who really love basketball, and a great deal of credit for that goes to Larranaga for building up the school’s program. At the University of Miami, however, things are different. Well, in Miami, things are different.

Can Larranaga Get Apathetic Miami Fans to Support His Program?

As Larranaga has pointed out several times in the preseason, Miami was the focal point of one of the most publicized basketball seasons in recent history: The debut of LeBron James and Chris Bosh with Dwyane Wade’s Miami Heat. With the NBA players currently locked out and the professional season in jeopardy of partial or even full cancellation, assuming that Miami’s passion (?) for basketball would transfer to the Hurricanes seems like a fairly reasonable idea. In the right light, it seems reasonable when Larranaga says things like:

I heard that Miami loves star power, that if stars come and sit courtside then fans will think it’s a worthwhile event and show up, so we’re reaching out to those guys, and we’ll be inviting LeBron and Dwyane Wade to our games.

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College basketball teams play each other before the season starts. It’s not really a secret. Over the years it’s become increasingly public knowledge that teams will often travel to other schools to test their mettle in private, away from the prying eyes of the curious public and hungry media. It makes sense, and I think it’s kind of a great thing. Wouldn’t you want your team to play a game in private before you took to a big public stage? I know I would. Jeff Goodman has rounded up a list of these private scrimmages and there are more than a few ACC teams taking part.

Georgetown And North Carolina Played An Amazing Game in 2007 And An Even Better One In 1982. Who Wouldn't Want to See Them Play in 2011?

Friday, October 28
East Carolina at North Carolina State.

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Usually, replacing the winningest coach in a program’s history is a thankless task. Yet somehow, Steve Donahue came out of the 2010-11 season smelling like roses. Taking over for longtime head coach and flex offense enthusiast Al Skinner, Donahue led Boston College to a 21-13 season and 9-7 conference record, a significant improvement over the 2009-10 season. Donahue was lucky to inherit a veteran team, stocked full of seniors and a first round NBA draft caliber talent in Reggie Jackson. Still, while that season was an improvement over the previous one, it too ended in disappointment: a second-round ACC Tournament exit against Clemson and a March spent watching other teams play basketball.

Boston College Will Miss Reggie Jackson This Season

As for the summer turnover, well, it was near-complete. The downside of a team of mostly seniors is that seniors have this habit of graduating. The starting lineup was completely wiped out and the bench was decimated. Calling this year a rebuilding year is an understatement. Donahue is bringing in nine freshmen and two transfers to totally re-fashion a team that barely has anything in common with last year’s team. As for the newcomers? Well, the recruiting services didn’t think too highly of them. Despite bringing in so many players, Rivals rates BC’s 2011 crop as only the 9th best in the ACC. However, Donahue thinks that this is deceiving, considering the recruiting services focus more on raw athletic talent. Donahue got his kind of guys: Guys who can shoot, pass, and dribble even if they aren’t as naturally physically gifted as some of their peers. Years recruiting at Cornell means that Donahue has the potential to be a more wily recruiter than you might expect: Luring a player to a program without the ability to offer athletic scholarships has a tendency to hone recruiting skills. Similarly, the scholarship restriction in the Ivies drove Donahue further abroad, giving him a chance to extensively network and now he has a chance to snag players that might not even be on the radar of other ACC schools. Much has been made out of the heavy California contingent in BC’s freshmen class, but Donahue’s explanation as why he recruits so heavily from the Golden State is cogent and well-thought out. Using Euroleague style ball as his model, it seems clear that the coach is assembling a team that will thrive on open perimeter shots generated by fast and frequent ball movement.

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This morning, Brice Johnson, a wiry 6’9″ power forward from South Carolina, confirmed that he is indeed headed for North Carolina.  Johnson is a four-star, top fifty recruit in the class of 2012, and, perhaps more critically, represents the final available scholarship that UNC had to offer. Johnson to UNC has big repercussions for North Carolina State and potentially Georgetown. T.J. Warren, a top 25 recruit and one of the best uncommitted small forwards in the class of 2012 seemed like he was well on the way to being Chapel Hill-bound after a very good visit to Carolina’s version of Midnight Madness. Shortly after the Johnson news broke, however, Warren sent a text to CBS Sports, telling them that he will make his decision next week and that he will be choosing between Georgetown and NCSU.

Did P.J. Hairston and Reggie Bullock Cause UNC To Pass on T.J. Warren?

While it might seem puzzling at first for UNC to pass on what at first glance seems to be the superior talent, taking Johnson over Warren is probably a savvy move that will fit the 2011-12 roster better. While the starting small forward Harrison Barnes has a very good chance to enter the NBA draft next season, the Tar Heels would remain overstocked at the wings with Reggie Bullock and P.J. Hairston both logical candidates to inherit the position when Barnes leaves. At the power forward position, UNC might be more in more trouble: Tyler Zeller is due to graduate and John Henson and James McAdoo are projected NBA lottery picks in 2012. If both were to leave for the pros next summer, North Carolina would find itself with a significant talent void down low. Warren may ultimately prove to be better than Johnson, but for the forseeable future, Johnson fits Roy Williams’ needs more effectively and was probably a better use for North Carolina’s final scholarship spot on the roster.

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To be honest, on average, the graduation rates for men’s college basketball players have  increased everywhere. To be completely honest, the graduation rates for student-athletes as a whole have improved. Still, let’s take a minute and appreciate how this trend holds up in the Atlantic Coast Conference: All in all, basketball players are graduating at better rates that they once did in the ACC, and at a rate that’s better than the national average for men’s college basketball players. So, that’s something.

But is it the whole story? No, but since the NCAA loves nothing if not thorough documentation, we can get at least get a clearer view of the story. The NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) is a modified version of a rolling measure called the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR). The Federal Graduation Rate for a given year is the percentage of an incoming freshmen class that graduates at that institution within six years of entry, averaged with the three classes that preceded it. The FGR does not count any player who transferred to another university and graduated or otherwise left the university. The NCAA’s measure, GSR, tries to account for the fact that lots of athletes transfer to other universities, and, at least in a few sports, enter the professional leagues. So, in short, the GSR is in some ways, an inflated version of the Federal Graduation Rate, where an athlete can get counted as “graduated” as long as they leave the university in good academic standing. It almost makes sense, but since it’s the NCAA’s preferred metric, we’ll roll with it.  (ed. note: see our previous article this morning for Matt’s take on the value of graduation rates to the NCAA)

Now, because of the six year window that both rates use to count graduation, the numbers that were released this year deal with the players who entered a given university between 2001-02 and 2004-05.  So, while these numbers can give a good indicator in the general direction a program is heading, the data isn’t particularly timely.  Still, looking at the past and looking at how the data is trending can give a useful glimpse into the present.

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Tonight in Lexington, Kentucky, Duke’s Christian Laettner will lead a coalition of players that have terrorized Kentucky in the past against the Big Blue All-Stars, a group of UK alumni that includes Rajon Rondo, John Wall, and several other Wildcat standouts. Laettner is, of course, the natural choice to coach a team against Kentucky (something about a perfect game and a foot stomp?). Beyond Laettner, though, there are a nice pair of additional ACC players involved in this game on the villain side: Tyler Hansbrough and Nolan Smith.

Laettner Is The Arch-Villain in Lexington, but Tyler Hansbrough and Nolan Smith Make A Nice Pair of Henchmen

Hansbrough in particular is a nice pick-up for this team. Despite a lack of postseason showdowns, Hansbrough’s North Carolina team beat Kentucky in each of his four years in Chapel Hill. More importantly, though, is that he is Tyler Hansbrough, one of the most polarizing players in recent college basketball history. While North Carolina’s fans may adore him, Hansbrough’s awkward, sometimes-clumsy, and freakishly intense play irritated all sorts of college basketball fans on a national level. If I had to bet, I would expect that he will the recipient of some the night’s most fervent jeering. Nolan Smith is a more interesting case, mostly because he never played against Kentucky. However, as a Louisville native, the son of former Louisville star Derek Smith, and perhaps most importantly, a star player for the Duke Blue Devils, I expect that Kentucky fans will have no trouble summoning a healthy disdain for the reigning ACC Player of the Year.

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Virginia had a run of bad luck last season. In the early part of the season, there were flashes of promise. An upset against a Minnesota team that had shellacked North Carolina in Puerto Rico and the incredible play of Mike Scott offered hope for the Cavaliers. But then, Scott, who was averaging a double-double with a ridiculous 15.9 PPG and 10.2 RPG, got hurt. The magic that led to an upset against Minnesota never returned as UVA simply failed to make much noise in ACC play. The team finished the season with a paltry 16-14 record and a meager seven wins in the conference. A season that started with promise ended in a first round conference tournament overtime loss to Miami.

Bennett Has an Interesting Team Returning to Charlottesville This Season

This season, much like last season, Virginia looks like it has a lot of potential. Mustapha Farrakhan (graduation) is the only major contributor that Tony Bennett lost over the summer.  Scott was granted a medical hardship waiver and will return for a fifth year with the Cavaliers. A talented freshman class includes four-star shooting guard Malcolm Brogdon as well as solid forwards in Paul Jesperson and Darion Atkins. After taking a redshirt, the 6’9″, 240-pound James Johnson will add even greater depth to a frontcourt that was depleted after Scott’s injury. That’s five significant pieces added to a nucleus that only lost Farrakhan.

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Ed. Note:  It has come to our attention that the list of coaches we relied upon originally was incorrect.  Williams does not have a vote in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll this year.  We regret the error and have deleted that section as appropriate.  

The ESPN/USA Today coaches poll released it’s preseason rankings last week, unveiling a list that contains no surprises at the top: North Carolina received thirty of the thirty-one first place votes. The final remaining first place vote, and apparently most of the second place votes, went to Kentucky. With the amount of talent that’s been assembled in Lexington, a first place vote for Kentucky is a reasonable position, and I don’t think anyone would begrudge the voter for putting the Wildcats at the top spot. Of course, when it comes to coaches essentially grading their fellow coaches’ work, things can get kind of weird. Normally, the identity of a lone dissenting voter in an otherwise unanimous poll isn’t of much interest. This time though, it’s kind of funny.

Who Voted Roy Williams' Team #2 in the ESPN/USA Today Poll?

While the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll doesn’t release and publish the ballots of each voter, the identities of the voting coaches are public. So when looking at the list of voters, it can be fun to try to guess where a dissenting voice comes from. There’s something funny about a team that would be the unanimous number one coaches pick if not for one coach going rogue this preseason — who could it be?

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