Typically, a rash of transfers is a major indictment of a college basketball program. It can signify instability, a coach who has lost control of his locker room and/or the faith of the young men he coaches, or a program that no longer offers the just desserts most college athletes seek. At the University of Virginia, where head coach Tony Bennett is now in his fourth season at the helm, the opposite appears to be the case. Though Bennett has lost six scholarship players to transfer since 2011, none of the departed left on acrimonious terms. This offseason, Paul Jesperson (who started 33 games last year at guard) and Taylor Barnette left the program for greener pastures, but it wasn’t because of a problem within the confines of the Cavaliers’ program. It was because Bennett finally has the depth and talent he’s been building toward since he arrived in Charlottesville, and there just wasn’t enough playing time to go around. Bennett has indicated his understanding of the depth “quandary“:  “Guys being the ninth, 10th or 11th guy and being patient and waiting are harder to come by. It’s not just here. It’s everywhere. It’s more of the immediate gratification of society nowadays. You hate that. […] You want guys to dream of playing professionally, but sometimes that’s not the way it’s going be.”

Last year’s Cavaliers turned in a solid if unspectacular year, winning 23 games and going 11-7 in the ACC. Unfortunately, the team’s lack of a solid non-conference schedule and a poorly-timed late-season swoon in league play cost them a shot at an NCAA Tournament bid. Virginia lost its last three ACC games, the last of which was an unceremonious blowout at the hands of NC State in the ACC Tournament’s first round, and with an RPI bordering on the bubble, they were relegated to participating in the NIT. This year’s team, with the return of proven starters like Joe Harris and Akil Mitchell and an influx of newcomers with promise at the biggest position of need for this team (point guard), has the expectations of exceeding last year’s successes. This is a team bent on gaining entry to, and making noise in, the Big Dance.

Read the rest of this entry »

In head coach Mark Turgeon’s time with the Maryland Terrapins (he’s now in his third season there), he’s never been blessed with a true point guard. He inherited the shoot-first Terrell Stoglin, and then made do with Pe’Shon Howard at the point last year, another player more interested in trying to create his own offense than running the ball club. Once Howard departed via transfer for USC this offseason, Turgeon was all set to turn over the reins to promising sophomore Seth Allen.

Allen’s injury casts doubt on Maryland’s PG position early (credit: CBSSports)

Allen earned valuable playing time backing up Howard at the point while also playing on the wing at times last season, and ended up as the team’s fourth-highest scorer and assist man. However, just like his predecessors, Allen also seemed more comfortable playing off the ball. This offseason was geared towards helping him improve on his ability to initiate the offense, with word from Terrapins camp saying he’d improved drastically in that area. With the season now looming, it appeared that Turgeon would turn to the reliable Allen at season’s outset while preparing to bring freshman Roddy Peters along slowly, eventually installing him as the orchestrator of his offense.

That approach was dealt a severe blow on Wednesday, when it was announced that Allen had broken the fifth metatarsal in his left foot and will be sidelined for eight to 10 weeks. Turgeon emphasized that Allen had enjoyed a great preseason, saying, “He was playing at a very high level throughout the summer and fall and was poised to have an excellent start to the season.” Now, with the sophomore sidelined until at least the first of the new year, Peters will have to step into an important role very early.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s difficult to argue that a coach with the eventual Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year on his roster was dealt a difficult hand, but that’s exactly what James Johnson was given in his first season at Virginia Tech last year. Johnson’s team, following the dismissal of long-tenured coach Seth Greenberg, operated most of the season with only eight scholarship players (and at times as few as six), making it difficult for the Hokies to employ his favored full-court pressure and trapping defenses. It also made for a very taxing season on his players overall, with very little depth to turn to and no consistent offense outside of the POY award-winning Erick Green. Green has departed for the greener pastures of the NBA, which leaves the Hokies in a transitional year as Johnson attempts to mold the team in his image in his second term.

Virginia Tech didn’t lose much outside of Green (their only other significant departure was the transfer of guard Robert Brown to UAB), but as stated above, the team certainly stood to gain quite a bit from an influx of new faces. While Johnson’s recruiting class this season is dominated by lightly-regarded players (at least by most scouting services), they will all be thrown into the cauldron early as the Hokies experiment with lineups and combinations. Combo guard Ben Emelogu, recently named captain of the team despite being a freshman, is characterized by Johnson as someone who can slash and jump-start the offense. Guard Adam Smith, a transfer from UNC-Wilmington, sat out the requisite season last year, but posted solid numbers in his freshman campaign in the Colonial Athletic Association (13.7 points per game, the top freshman scorer in the conference). Smith also has the benefit of familiarity with ACC competition, having notched 32 points against Wake Forest and 23 against Maryland in non-conference action two seasons ago. Freshman Devin Wilson also should see some minutes at the point as the Hokies try to rebuild their guard ranks.

Read the rest of this entry »

When Roy Williams stated on Tuesday that he is “convinced” that he will play both of his point guards (incumbent starter Marcus Paige and freshman Nate Britt) on the floor at the same time in the season opener against Oakland on November 8, North Carolina fans undoubtedly had immediate and mixed emotions. Last season’s UNC squad stumbled out of the gates by attempting to run a conventional five-man starting lineup, clearly not possessing enough refined talent in the post to stick with that brand of personnel. So at mid-season when Williams finally opted for a four-guard lineup that fans had been calling for, inserting P.J. Hairston into the lineup as an undersized four and moving James Michael McAdoo to the center position, the team won six straight after a close road loss to Duke and finished third in the conference, going so far as to advance to the ACC Tournament championship game.

Nate Britt will be paired at times this season with Marcus Paige in the UNC Backcourt.

All of that was great, Tar Heels fans would readily admit, but this is not a program that hangs its hat on regular season or even ACC Tournament success. This is a blue-blood basketball factory, and one that is supposed to reap its greatest rewards in the Big Dance. It was there that UNC ran into a Kansas team with size and experience in the frontcourt that their smaller lineup could not match, and the Jayhawks ended North Carolina’s season in the NCAA Tournament’s second round. For many, the season was not a success despite the encouraging uptick in play when the four-guard lineup was instituted.

This season is not last season, however, at least in terms of personnel and the way Williams expects to employ it. The Tar Heels’ 2013 recruiting class included forwards Kennedy Meeks and Isaiah Hicks, talented freshmen big men who are expected to contribute immediately. UNC also expects substantially more consistent sophomore campaigns from returnees Joel James and Brice Johnson. James’ offseason has been spent making his game more refined to go along with his prodigious size in the middle, while Johnson conversely has been trying to beef up in order to be able to more successfully bang with opponents down low. Each showed flashes last year, and assistant coach Steve Robinson has long been lauded for his ability to maximize the potential from big men as they move from their freshmen to sophomore campaigns (see: John Henson). With the return of McAdoo for his junior season as well as the presence of steady if unspectacular reserves Desmond Hubert and Jackson Simmons, the Tar Heels can suddenly point to the frontcourt as their greatest area of depth.

Read the rest of this entry »

On October 17, Virginia Tech head coach James Johnson did something he’d never done in 22 years as either a head or assistant coach: He named a freshman his team captain. And this wasn’t one of those once-in-a-generation, program-altering freshman talents that was tapped to be the leader of a Hokies team in transition. This isn’t Carmelo Anthony at Syracuse, Kevin Durant at Texas, or even Andrew Wiggins at Kansas. “Hokies fans, we present to you 6’5” combo guard Ben Emelogu, a player who went largely unnoticed by the major programs at the national level!” While Johnson says he’s a player who can “flat out put the ball in the hole,” his senior year average of 13.5 points per game in high school in Grand Prairie, Texas, doesn’t lend much credence to that assessment. There are three key points to be highlighted with this decision: Johnson’s seemingly long leash as head coach; the extreme youth movement going on in Blacksburg; and the lack of leadership now that last year’s star Erick Green has departed.

Ben Emelogu Will Start the Season as Virginia Tech’s Captain

Johnson is in his second year at Virginia Tech after replacing Seth Greenberg.  His Hokies, despite having the ACC Player of the Year in Green on the roster last year, won a mere four league games and finished 13-19 overall on the season. Johnson’s contract, signed prior to last season, is for five years. The Virginia Tech administration is known to like Johnson, and he is definitely well-liked by his team, all of whom went to bat for him to assume the mantle of head coach when Greenberg was dismissed. Thus, naming a freshman as captain should not prove divisive to his locker room, at least on the surface.  It also shouldn’t shake the confidence the athletic department has in him, since it’s widely known that the administration understands the rebuilding effort Johnson faces and trusts his reputation as a solid recruiter to make the team relevant in the coming seasons.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2013-14 Atlantic Coast Conference men’s basketball season is a mere three weeks away, but the buzz about the conference’s potential began in early July when Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame officially became members. The staggering history among the conference’s basketball programs was thus enhanced, and talk about the dynastic possibilities of the ACC in the present and years to come has been touched on by just about every coach in the league. The coaching legend that is Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski famously exclaimed on May 24 that the inception of the three teams previously aligned with the Big East into the fold would mean, “We’re going to be a 10-bid conference. We’re going to be the best conference in the history of the game. It’s exciting to be part of that.”

The Greatest Collection of College Basketball Coaching Talent Ever? (credit: ESPN/T. Bell)

Now that’s a bold proclamation, even from someone with the sterling resume of Krzyzewski. After delving into a variety of metrics, though, it becomes clear that this league is something special this year (and will be that much more formidable in 2014-15 when reigning national champion Louisville joins the fold), even relative to what is considered some of the greatest college basketball conferences ever assembled. But if metrics exist to suggest the current ACC belongs among the elite of the elite, then that means there are metrics that can be used to track its progress as the season moves along to see how it stacks up with the other all-time greats.

One such measuring stick is the number of teams included in the NCAA Tournament, a perennial sign not only of a conference’s strength from within, but also how it handles non-conference foes during the regular season. The record for most teams selected for an NCAA Tournament happened as recently as 2011, when the Big East (interesting, right?) placed 11 of its 16 squads in the Big Dance. However, only three of those teams made it as far as the Elite Eight (although one was the eventual national champion, Connecticut). Looking at this year’s ACC, it’s difficult to project anywhere close to 11 NCAA participants, but being battle-tested in conference play proved to be a boon to the Big East two years ago. Could the same happen with the ACC this year? Some of the presumed middle-of-the-pack teams, such as an NC State team forced to replace a bevy of talent, for example, must rise to become a force for the league to boast the fantastic depth it claims it will have.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the Atlantic Coast Conference men’s college basketball season rapidly approaching, coaches are all striving to find ways to bond and unite their teams. This season, the NCAA was kind enough to grant college teams an extra few weeks of practice time, allowing for preseason workout regimens to begin in late September and allowing for players and coaches to become better acquainted with one another earlier than in years past. With the ACC now expanding its ranks to include Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh, all coaches are looking to use that time to gain a leg up.

Duke Players at NYC’s Historic Rucker Park Courts (credit: GoDuke.com)

That competitive edge is not always gained strictly through practice and weightlifting sessions. Often, it’s the extra time spent hanging out together that helps a team gel, whether through playing video games in the hotel or extra face time with the coach. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, always one looking for ways to bring his team together as a unit, used the opportunity this preseason to take his Blue Devils on a Columbus Day weekend trip called “Duke Elevate” to New York City.  According to ESPN’s Andy Katz, among other things, the team visited the Apollo Theatre, the 9/11 Memorial, Broadway, West Point, and the Museum of Modern Art. While a cynic might say Coach K is trying to impress culture on young men who just want to refine their games on the hardwood in hopes of making it to the next level, a realist might argue that it’s these times away from the gym, yet still together as a team, that often forge the best collective units. The NCAA disallowed international travel in the month of October this year, but traveling to see some of our country’s most impressive sights in the Big Apple is a pretty good Plan B.

Read the rest of this entry »