There were no big upsets in the ACC this weekend, but there were some big-time performances that are worth mentioning. The rest of college basketball offered some thrilling upsets and close finishes, but the Atlantic Coast Conference offered some sublime moments of its own in individual achievement and failure.

TJ Warren Blew Up Against Clemson Sunday

1. T.J. Warren Is A Scoring Machine. Sure, Warren went 0-for-6 against Maryland, contributing exactly zero points in the close loss, but make no mistake, that game wasn’t typical. In the game against Clemson, the North Carolina State forward scored 21 points. Yes, he wasn’t technically the game’s high scorer thanks to Devin Booker’s 27-point gem, but Warren’s performance was more impressive. Warren’s 21 points came in a mere 25 minutes that featured the freshman shooting 9-of-11 from the field, hitting a three, and grabbing six rebounds to help his team. Warren’s offensive production borders on the freakish. Coming off the bench, Warren is averaging an offensive efficiency rating of 129.2, which is the 20th best mark in all of Division I basketball. Of course, because of Scott Wood’s sweet shooting, Warren isn’t even the deadliest offensive weapon on his own team, but he is certainly a force to be reckoned with.
2. Assertive Reggie Bullock Is Terrifying. The only player in the conference with an offensive efficiency greater than Wood and Warren is North Carolina’s Reggie Bullock. Bullock has posted an offensive efficiency of 131.5, driven by incredible three-point shooting (47.7% on 88 attempts this season), low turnovers and strong offensive rebounding for his position. Bullock, also arguably the team’s best defensive player, unleashed his offensive fury on Saturday against Maryland, amassing 21 points in the first half alone and leading North Carolina to an early lead against the Terrapins. Bullock has struggled to assert this season, often vanishing from the team’s offense and deferring to others to the point of fault. On Saturday, Bullock demonstrated how his newfound aggresiveness could help the team: His shooting opened up space for James Michael McAdoo to operate and he drew extra defensive attention that made it easier for Dexter Strickland and Marcus Paige to handle the ball and make plays. This North Carolina team is still deeply flawed, but when Reggie Bullock takes the lead, the team is significantly better. Read the rest of this entry »

In Duke’s win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Mason Plumlee put up 16 points, 13 rebounds and three blocks while playing all 40 minutes. That’s excellent production and exactly the kind of statistics you would expect to see out of your star big man. What you might not expect to see is that Plumlee also tallied three steals and a couple assists. In fact, the 6’10” Plumlee managed to tie starting point guard Quinn Cook in steals and placed second behind him in assists. That’s an impressive demonstration of Plumlee’s versatility, but it’s also a huge boon for his team.

Mason Plumlee Is One of the Leading NPOY Candidates

Generally, folks underrate the importance of steals, but with a moment of consideration it’s easy to see why they are so important. Like the obviously important offensive rebound, a steal gives you an opportunity for a shot you wouldn’t normally have, and like an opponent’s unforced turnover, it ends your opponent’s possession without a shot. Steals are very valuable to a team, and if your guards are wracking up steals at close to the average rate, getting above average production in a category like steals from your forwards and centers can lead to a team gaining a big advantage. When the biggest guy on your team can earn your squad extra possessions? It’s nothing but a good thing. So who in the ACC contributes in these unusual categories?

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Not to take anyway from a Maryland team that fought hard for the last second win over North Carolina State, but the buzzer beater that induced a court rush is nothing for either side to get worked up about. Before the game, Maryland was a 1.5 point favorite in the gambling world so, if anything, the Terrapins kind of underperformed. If you can’t trust Vegas, can you at least trust Ken Pomeroy? College basketball’s favorite computer gave Maryland a slight edge, giving them a 54.1% win probability right before the tip. Sure, NC State is probably a better team than Maryland, and sure the Wolfpack had a big win against Duke (though this team’s propensity for a hangover game is well-documented), but Maryland was supposed to win this game (albeit narrowly).

Home court advantage matters and in college basketball it’s a huge deal. If Maryland had to go play NC State in Raleigh this season, the Wolfpack would be a clear favorite to win that game. In other words: nobody panic. This game gave us very little in the way of new information.  NC State is still a good team, and, this season, losing to Maryland at home isn’t a bad loss.  This game shouldn’t change the way the public thinks about Maryland, either, but it probably will.

Maryland Was Expected To Beat NC State

The criteria for the NCAA Selection Committee  have encouraged certain tendencies when thinking about teams and their résumés. We know that “quality wins” matter and beating a good NC State team counts towards earning an at-large bid to the Big Dance. While the home court nature of the win is supposed to be accounted for, typically, the committee seems to underrate or outright disregard the role that home court advantage plays in determining a winner. How do we know that NC State qualifies as a good team? Well, rankings in the weekly polls and RPI, of course!  The Wolfpack’s rank in the poll and strong RPI ranking mean that we can rely on the powers that be to overrate the importance of the win. For a Maryland team angling to play in the NCAA tournament, this win carries some nice implications.

The Terrapins fought hard for the win, and the excitement of the team and its fans is completely understandable, but there is a sizable gap in the actual magnitude of this win and the perceived magnitude of this win. Luckily for the Terps, this discrepancy favors Maryland.

We are now three games into conference play and after a tremendous weekend that saw some of the best teams squaring off, the number one team go down, and a session of overtime, the hierarchy of the conference is coming into focus. Or maybe it is getting more muddled. In any case, even if it is still not clear which teams (besides Duke) are actually good, we did learn some other things this weekend:

1. Duke Isn’t Invincible. No one seriously thought this, but the occasional loose talk of the Blue Devils going undefeated turned out to be, unsurprisingly, a bit premature. Obviously, a road loss to North Carolina State with Duke’s most efficient scorer, Ryan Kelly, sitting on the bench is not bad. Still, it is hard to win games when your opponent shoots over 50% from the field, 50% from three, and makes 20 free throws. Duke’s defense has been solid this year on the whole, this was Duke’s first true road game, and the Wolfpack is one of the better offensive teams in the whole country, yet none of these excuses changes the fact that NC State handled the Blue Devils’ on the inside and Duke had no answer for Richard Howell.
   

   Duke Clearly Is Not The Same Team Without Ryan Kelly

2. Miami Doesn’t Miss Reggie Johnson Yet. It seemed like the Hurricanes would miss the formidable big man after a two-game losing streak that not so coincidentally began when Johnson was injured. Since those two games, however, Miami has played very well, with veteran Julian Gamble filling Johnson’s shoes convincingly. The Hurricanes share a spot with the Wolfpack on top of the ACC standings, currently undefeated in conference play. Gamble’s production has looked great on the offensive end, and Miami’s defense has looked impressive. Still, the tempo-free percentages tell a story: Gamble just doesn’t match the rebounding prowess of Johnson. It hasn’t cost the Hurricanes yet, but it’s something to keep an eye on going forward. Read the rest of this entry »

What do you make of the ACC when Virginia can beat North Carolina on Sunday and then lose to Wake Forest by three on the following Wednesday? The Demon Deacons won this game by jumping ahead early and staying ahead. This didn’t come down to a fluke run or some gimmick strategy. Looking at only the box score from this game, you might even wonder how WFU was able to win at all. The Demon Deacons shot a paltry 40.9% from the field and 26.7% from three. Virginia took 11 more field goal attempts than the Deacs (which works out to a staggering 25% more attempts), mostly thanks to destroying Wake on the glass by collecting a whopping 16 offensive rebounds. Remarkably, the Demon Deacons did not score a field goal for the final 10 minutes of the game — yet, miraculously, they walked away with the win. What happened?

Travis McKie and His Teammates Have a Very High FT Rate

Stealthily, Wake Forest has become one of the best teams in the country at getting to the foul line. In this game, Wake went 15-of-21 from the free throw line (a pedestrian 71.4%). Twenty-one free throws isn’t an outrageously high number until you remember that Jeff Bzdelik’s team only attempted 44 field goals (again, thanks to Virginia’s rebounding as well as its glacial pace). Over the course of the season, Wake Forest has attempted about 50% as many free throws as they have field goals, a mark that, before  last night’s game, was the third best in the country. While the team hasn’t been great at making those free throws, you don’t have to make as many if you get to the line so often. While stars Travis McKie and C.J. Harris have shown a knack for getting to the line in the past, Wake Forest’s transition to living at the line as a team is a change from past seasons under Bzdelik and a lot of credit is due to the team’s newcomers. Of the six freshmen who play rotation minutes, five have free throw rates (FTA/FGA) over 55%. This team has six players who draw at least 4.5 fouls per forty minutes, so with the exception of freshman point guard Codi Miller-McIntyre and spot-up shooter Chase Fischer, every rotation player on the team is very good at drawing fouls and getting to the foul line.

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Ryan Kelly injured his right foot in Duke’s easy win last night over Clemson and didn’t play at all during the second half. Mike Krzyzewski noted that Kelly would not undergo x-rays or any other scan until today. So here are the bald facts: Ryan Kelly hurt his foot and we have no idea how badly it is injured.  He’s hurt this foot before. Right now, anything beyond this is just in the realm of speculation. Kelly could very well be perfectly fine at the moment of this publication. However, if the injury is serious and Kelly misses significant playing time, this could also be a serious blow — a season-changing one — to the top-ranked Blue Devils.

Kelly’s Possible Absence Really Hurts Duke’s Depth (credit: fayobserver.com)

During his tenure at Duke, Kelly’s ability to play stretch power forward has been a difficult match-up for just about any team in college basketball. This year, the 6’11” Kelly has made over half of the nearly 50 three-pointers that he has taken. He leads his team in offensive efficiency, rarely turns the ball over, and is an excellent passer for his size. He’s a good (though not great) rebounder, and his ability to get to the foul line on a regular basis and shoot a high percentage from there has given his already versatile offensive game another deadly dimension.  While early in his career Kelly was often criticized for poor defense, the vastly improved senior has helped lead the team to a top-three mark this season in defensive efficiency. The long story made very short is this: Kelly is really good.

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Dividing the players in the ACC by the educational institution they attend is a pretty logical way to set up teams. However, dividing teams by the thematic properties of the players’ names also seems like a strong and totally appropriate way to set up teams. Here are some examples of how that breakdown might work.

The All-Initial Team

CJ Leslie Leads the All-Initial Team

• P.J. Hairston
• C.J. Harris
• K.J. McDaniels
• C.J. Leslie
• T.J. Warren

Off the bench: C.J. Barksdale, KC Caudill, J.P. Tokoto, T.J. Sapp

Last year, the ACC was one C.J. short of an all-C.J. starting five, but the departure of C.J. Williams put an end to that dream. Instead, we get a team that is rich in forwards and “J’s.” As a an actual team, their lack of ball-handling would be somewhat problematic, but there is little doubt that this team would be able to score and rebound. Just about all the initialed players in the ACC are solid rotation players. If Harris and Hairston get hot from the arc, this team could really run up the score as long as they could get someone to bring the ball up. Also, someone should probably tell KC Caudill that he isn’t allowed to use any initials unless one of them is a “J.”

The All-Prismatic Team

• Lorenzo Brown
• Erick Green
• Robert Brown
• Rion Brown
• Okaro White

Granted, this team isn’t actually all that colorful unless you get really creative with your hues of brown, but the one advantage this team has over some of the others is how good this team would be. Sure, a little undersized down low, but this side of Seth Curry, this is an incredible backcourt. Add in the scoring punch of the two other Browns and the post experience of White and you have a very interesting team.

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After five games on Saturday and one game on Sunday, conference play has officially begun for all the schools in the ACC. So did we learn anything over the weekend? Absolutely. Here are three takeaways from the action.

1. North Carolina State is Vulnerable. Sure the Wolfpack scores with ease, but Boston College, a terrible offensive rebounding team, easily snagged some critical boards in the closing minutes of a surprisingly tight game. Just as problematic, North Carolina State has still not figured out how to defend without fouling: Boston College attempted a whopping 37 free throws in its five point (78-73) loss. The Wolfpack got the win in the end, but this game was hardly the confidence-boosting rout that the folks in Raleigh were hoping for. Against stiffer competition, NC State might find itself in trouble.
   

   Erick Green Has Been Forced To Do It All This Year

2. Erick Green Can Really Score, Even If Nobody Else on Virginia Tech Can. In all fairness, this wasn’t exactly a surprising lesson, but the lopsidedness of the game against Maryland — a 94-71 defeat — really highlighted the problem that the Hokies have. Green scored 28 points on an efficient 18 shots and still his team lost by 23. If you can’t get the score within 20 points on the tail of a star performance like that, your team is in serious trouble. Cadarian Raines showed a real knack on the boards and maybe it was just an off night for his teammates Robert Brown and Jarell Eddie, but until Virginia Tech demonstrates otherwise, this team only has one player, albeit a really great one.
3. North Carolina Isn’t Ready, But Virginia Is. There has been a growing suspicion that North Carolina was not a very good team, but a win against UNLV without Reggie Bullock in the lineup earned the Tar Heels the benefit of the doubt. In its loss against Virginia, however, Roy Williams’ team showcased how vulnerable and inept it can be, while Virginia made its opening argument for its case as an ACC contender. Outside of Bullock, who has been freakishly efficient and effective this season, North Carolina can’t score effectively against good defenses. And let’s be clear, Virginia has a very good defense. The Cavaliers did a remarkable job in exhibiting how a combination of tough defense, a slow tempo, and deadly perimeter shooting can pick apart a team that isn’t prepared for it.

Sports Illustrated‘s Seth Davis is a smart guy and gimmick columns are a time-honored tradition in sports writing, yet it is hard not come away a little befuddled at the strange results of a strained stock market metaphor in his latest Hoop Thoughts column. Since he makes some interesting short term predictions on eight different ACC teams, it is worth a closer look. Before we dive too deep in to picking nits, let us note an important caveat:

Remember, now, these ratings assess only where a stock is headed relative to where it is today. That yields a twisted logic. The better a team is, the higher it’s ranked, the more likely it is to yield a Sell. The opposite is true for teams that are unranked and unremarked upon.

How Much Higher Can Duke’s Stock Go? (Duke Hoop Blog)

This makes sense at face value: When there is little room for a team to get better, it’s hard to say that their stock is going to go up. At least, I thought that was the correct understanding of this caveat until I saw that Davis names Duke a “Buy.” Last time I checked, the Blue Devils were undefeated, captained by the front-runner for national player of the year, and top-ranked in both polls. I don’t doubt that Duke has it in them to play even better but it makes little sense in light of the caveat and the whole strained analogy to label them a “Buy.” Duke’s abstract stock and the buzz around this team can’t get higher. If we are going to adhere to the stated logic, then this team should probably be a “Sell.” Granted, Duke is a great team and they are performing incredibly well, but if we are going to go with this whole metaphor, we should at least commit to the bit and acknowledge that it would be impossible for future performances to do anything but match the performance so far. At this point, I think we can all acknowledge that we all think Duke is good and that this is silly, but for now, let’s go with it.

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It’s no surprise that Erick Green is in the top five in the the conference in terms of minutes per game. As the most important player on Virginia Tech’s squad, he leads the conference in just about every scoring related “volume” category that exists. He leads the league in points per game, usage rate, possessions used, field goals attempted, field goals made, free throws attempted, and free throws made. Of course he plays just about more minutes than anyone else too. Likewise it’s no surprise to see Duke’s Mason Plumlee in the top five in minutes per game; he’s the best player on the best team in the country and probably the front-runner for National Player of the Year. Shane Larkin, the ACC’s leader in average minutes, is Miami’s only consistent play-maker. It’s not surprising that any of these guys are getting serious minutes.

Joe Rahon

It’s the other two guys in the top five who are surprising: Boston College‘s Joe Rahon and Olivier Hanlan. Both of these players are freshmen who are off to a sensational start in their collegiate careers. Sure, the Eagles didn’t exactly have any truly established backcourt starters going into this season, but in these two youngsters, BC has seen the future. Next to Ryan Anderson, the two freshmen are the team’s leading scorers, both boasting double-figure scoring averages that easily justify their time on the court.  Hanlan is a gifted scorer with a knack for getting to the line and an above-average rebounder for his position (a real asset for an Eagles team that will likely often go small down the stretch). while Rahon is a fairly traditional point guard who can dish, handle the ball, and score effectively from beyond the arc or while slicing to the rim. At 4.2 APG, Rahon ranks just below Marcus Paige and above Mfon Udofia and Shane Larkin in terms of distribution. Of course, this number is somewhat leading considering that Rahon plays more minutes than Udofia or Paige, but even in terms of the tempo-free assist percentage metric, Rahon is a top-10 dime-man in the conference. That’s not a bad resume for a pair of freshmen.

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