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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The gentlemen over at Blogger So Dear (SBNation‘s Wake Forest blog) took note of the conference’s unblemished record yesterday morning: “The ACC is 22-0 this year so far…it must be asked…can we run the table?” Another four wins later and the last perfect conference (sorry Pittsburgh, your application is for 2014-15) is still standing.

Blogger So Dear is Definitely Worth the Follow for Wake Forest Sports

1. Sports Illustrated: I’m not sure how I missed this for yesterday’s Morning Five, but Seth Davis’ post on Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight’s relationship is a must-read. In some ways the men are as different as you could imagine, but take a look at some of Knight’s old Indiana games and you’ll see (and lipread) the same fire that’s characterized Coach K’s sideline persona. The article speaks for itself, and I can’t begin to do it justice so I’ll just leave the rest to Seth Davis.
2. TarHeelBlue.com: This is a cool series North Carolina‘s athletic department is doing where once a month it’s hosting a chat with a member of the basketball team. Whoever is up next is going to have pretty big shoes to fill (sorry for that), as Kendall Marshall led off the series with a chat covering everything from his love for kicks to his favorite place to eat on Franklin Street. Marshall has been getting well-deserved love for his social-networking on Twitter (he’s overtaken Missouri’s Kim English as the best follow in college basketball), so if you ever get tired of “#riseandgrind #nodaysoff goin to the gym” athlete tweets, check him out. I’d be very excited to hear Harrison Barnes answer fan questions, but the true must-read chat might come if Blue Steel (the walk-ons) are ever given a chance.
3. New York Daily News: Maryland will face off against Kentucky in the first college hoops battle at the new Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn next season. The new building will host the New Jersey Nets (who will probably be getting a new name), but John Calipari “approached the Nets months ago and asked to have his team play the first college game there.” This is interesting to me on a couple of levels: (1) Calipari coached the Nets a while ago and it would be kind to call his tenure anything but a failure; and (2) Nets’ co-owner Jay-Z is a big Kentucky fan. The game is scheduled for November 9, 2012.
4. PressBoxOnline.com: Maryland legend Ernie Graham is finally having his jersey retired 32 years after he left Maryland. Graham’s story is a sad one filled with drugs, but he’s using his story (much like former Boston College stand-out Chris Herren) to help keep others from falling into the same trap. Graham’s crowning achievement was scoring 44 against NC State in 1978. The record is even more amazing taking into account the lack of a three-point line and that he only played 25 minutes per game. Because of his troubled past the athletic department has been largely distant, but a combination of getting clean and Maryland hiring new athletic director Kevin Anderson will finally bring closure and recognition to a great college career.
5. Associated Press: NC State relapsed into its coasting tendencies from last year in a tight 60-58 win over Princeton last night. Princeton notoriously plays a brand of basketball based on slowing the game down, not committing turnovers, and moving the ball (trust me, NC State fans know). This kept the Wolfpack out of transition, which has been their bread and butter in their opening two games. However, the biggest news of the game was Mark Gottfried’s cold-blooded assassin, Scott Wood, suffering a bad ankle injury early. The good news is that X-rays came back negative. The bad news is that Wood could be out “for a while,” according to Gottfried.

Duke Blue Planet produced an awesome video in honor of Coach K’s record-setting victory Tuesday night (their tribute site also has some pretty outrageous stats, but this one courtesy of @TheDevilWolf is unbelievable: “Coach K has coached 169 players [148 at Duke]. Of those, 84 have played in a Final Four, and of those, 41 won national championships”).

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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And then there was one…undefeated conference! That’s right, the ACC is the last conference standing with no losses. Just yesterday the SEC continued its tradition of losing to a SoCon and Big South team (congrats to Elon and Coastal Carolina for the wins); Kent State took care of West Virginia and Miami knocked off Rutgers to down the Big East; Kansas and the Big 12 took one on the chin from Kentucky; last and definitely least, the Pac-12 was embarrassed as UCLA managed to lose by 20 at home to the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders; and Michigan State lost to Duke at Madison Square Garden to seal the Big Ten’s fate. For those of you keeping score at home, the ACC is now a combined 22-0 after a little over a week of action.

1. ESPN: Dana O’Neil and Jay Bilas do a great job capturing Mike Krzyzewski‘s career in wake of the Blue Devil victory over Michigan State to give him the all-time Division I wins record. O’Neil reflects on the more important things that the number 903 reminds us of. Most important are his family followed closely by his mentors and students from the game — basically, she takes this moment to reflect on Coach K’s career. Bilas’ reflection as a former player is much more personal. He describes his own recruitment, using it for a microcosm for Krzyzewski’s eventual rise to greatness. Bilas points to Coach K’s ability to bring out his player’s innate “toughness” in order to maximize his team’s potential (Author’s Note: Bilas has a slightly unconventional definition of “toughness” that’s worth checking out). Together these two pieces do a good job placing Duke’s legendary coach and his career in some kind of perspective.
2. Boston Herald (via Baltimore Sun): Mark Turgeon has swagger. He had it as a player, and he’s got it as a coach. How many guys would go up to Larry Brown and demand a spot on Kansas’ basketball team? This profile of Turgeon reminded me a lot of stories about Mike Krzyzewski’s playing days at Army (undersized point guard, leader, etc.). Turgeon’s sharp tongue and obsession with winning also parallel Coach K. But watching Turgeon on the court, his composure stands out above his spurts of emotion. I think he’ll end up as a great hire for Maryland in the long run.
3. Washington Times: Speaking of Turgeon, the big news from Monday night was Maryland star Terrell Stoglin beginning the Terps’ game from the bench. Although Stoglin said the matter was private, it sounds like the message was that Turgeon’s offensive star needs to shift his focus to both ends of the court. Stoglin ended up playing over 30 minutes and leading his team in scoring with 22 points. Maryland doesn’t have the firepower to blow the socks off its opponents this season, so the Terrapins will need to rely heavily on not making mistakes and playing effectively on the defensive end.
4. Gaston Gazette: NC State may not have CJ Leslie (or point guard Ryan Harrow, who transferred to Kentucky), but the Wolfpack look like they’ve turned things up to eleven relative to last season. Their opponents so far aren’t necessarily giant-killers, but in their first two games they’ve assisted on 47 of their 62 field goals including 15 of the first 16 against Morehead State. Additionally, their shallow front line has been incredibly effective. Slimmed down Richard Howell and Deshawn Painter have replaced Leslie’s production and some. Sophomore Lorenzo Brown has also stepped up to run the point after the team lost both of last year’s point guards.
5. Charlotte Observer: Speaking of NC State, former Wolfpack legend Rodney Monroe is back in the States after a 15-year professional career overseas to try and turn around Southlake Christian’s floundering basketball program. Monroe holds the NC State all-time scoring record with 2,551 points (a little more than college basketball great David Thompson). He’ll have his work cut out for him, as last year the Eagles only managed one win.

EXTRA: North Carolina’s newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, noticed that Playboy released its Top 25 for college basketball recently. Headlining the list is North Carolina, but Duke is ranked fourth. Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller and Austin Rivers all make the magazine’s All-America team. The ACC love stops there though.

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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Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski is going for his 903d win to hold the record for D-I men’s college basketball wins outright tonight against Michigan State. We covered the milestone and its implications in our preseason coverage, but the rest of the collective college basketball media will pay tribute to Duke’s legendary coach over the next few days. In preparation for Coach K’s big game at Madison Square Garden, today’s Morning Five is dedicated to the occasion.

1. New York Times: Krzyzewski may be 64 years old, but you’d never know it from watching him on the sideline. Whether the game is against UNC Greensboro or North Carolina, the fiery coach still expects the best out of his team. He up until the wee hours watching film before a big game only to be “shot out of a cannon” for practice the next day. Will he get to 1,000 wins in the next few years? Former assistant Mike Brey thinks so, and it’s hard to argue with him.
2. The Sporting News (interviews with Grant Hill and Nolan Smith): Grant Hill might be the best player Krzyzewski has ever coached and Nolan Smith etched his name in Duke history (and probably his jersey in the rafters) after leading the Blue Devils to the 2010 National Championship. The Sporting News caught up with both former players and the interviews give an interesting look at Coach K and the evolution of his coaching style over the years. Hill remembers a speech from his freshman year two decades ago where Coach K guaranteed, “we’re going to win the national championship this season.” Nolan Smith, on Krzyzewski’s strategy: “Make plays, be a player.”
3. Associated Press: In 1994-95, Coach K offered his resignation after sitting out most of a season with back surgery: “When I did that, I knew I couldn’t lead my team, and I just think that comes from the military,” Krzyzewski said. “If you’re not [able], there should be a different leader.” Luckily, Tom Butters didn’t accept the resignation. He has downplayed the record consistently, pointing out that the game against Michigan State means more to this team than his career. In a sense he’s right. One regular season game of hundreds is insignificant, but 903 wins represents an unprecedented level of continued success among men’s basketball coaches in Division I.
4. Duke Basketball Report: Duke Basketball Report takes a look at 17 of the most important games of Coach K’s storied career. Not all of the games are wins. In fact three are embarrassing losses: A beat-down at the hands of Ralph Sampson and Virginia in 1983; the worst defeat in the history of the Final Four against UNLV in 1990; and a loss to Clemson in 1995 that punctuated a short season for Krzyzewski. After the 43-point shellacking from the Cavaliers, at dinner “one of the diners raised his glass and said ‘here’s to forgetting tonight.’  Krzyzewski fixed him with a glare and said ‘here’s to never forgetting tonight.'”
5. Fayetteville Observer: I’ve linked this before and I’ll probably do it again because Dan Wiederer’s three-part profile of Coach K from 2010 is incredible. The piece is one of the rare instances where you get what feels like a three-dimensional perspective on Krzyzewski and his life. He’s simultaneously revered and vilified by college basketball fans, often at a personal level. This profile captures a man far more complex than the saint or sinner portrayed by most fans. It manages to find a touch of gray in the man with the jet-black hair.

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

Every team in the Atlantic Coast Conference has played at least one game so far, except for Boston College which makes it’s debut tonight. Before we get to breaking down Monday night’s slate of games, let’s spend a little time taking a look at this past weekend and the first few games played by ACC teams. While most everyone stuck pretty closely to the script, there were a few pleasant surprises for ACC fans.

Unsurprisingly, the star of the Carrier Classic was the aircraft carrier itself. The USS Carl Vinson was an incredibly cool setting for a basketball game. So cool, in fact, that the basketball game seemed like an afterthought. While North Carolina beat Michigan State, and John Henson was able to show off his shot-blocking ability by getting nine of them, it was his increased offensive arsenal (which he continued to demonstrate on Sunday against UNC Asheville) that should excite Tar Heel fans. But the real MVP of the event was probably the San Diego sky.

Neither Team Was As Good As The Setting

Belmont lived up to its reputation as a dangerous team and came within one point of upsetting Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke held the line and eked out a victory against the pesky and talented Bruins. This, combined with a blowout over Presbyterian confirms very little about this year’s Blue Devils. Rather, viewers learned a great deal more about Belmont and Presbyterian (one’s quite good and the other’s quite bad) than they did about the as-yet-enigmatic and still-emerging Blue Devils. Wins are wins though, and now Mike Krzyzewski has as many of them (902) as any men’s college basketball coach in Division I history.

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It’s no secret that Roy Williams likes to use large rotations. Most of last year he rotated full lineups with frequency, and it wasn’t new to last year. If you look at his national championship teams from 2004-05 and 2008-09, only one player averaged thirty minutes a game for each team (Raymond Felton and Wayne Ellington). Ty Lawson’s toe injury probably kept him from being another player at around 30 minutes a game. Last year Williams expanded his rotation from eight players to nine (I’m only counting Larry Drew II and Justin Watts as one player), with only Harrison Barnes averaging 30 minutes a game.

Roy Williams is Relying on his Starters more this Season

But in the game against UNC Asheville Sunday, every Tar Heel starter logged at least 30 minutes. In that game, James McAdoo, Reggie Bullock and PJ Hairston all played close to ten minutes, but in two games Williams hasn’t been nearly as open with his rotations as in years past. Whether Williams’ change in strategy was due to a pesky UNCA team that just wouldn’t go away, or wanting to test his starters’ conditioning with the quick turnaround from the Carrier Classic (where the North Carolina starters all also played 30 minutes), is unknown. But especially for a game against a low major team, North Carolina’s reliance on its starters is interesting thus far.

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Kimmel Arena opened up in style. The UNC Asheville Bulldogs hosted the North Carolina Tar Heels in a brand new building that was packed with loud and enthusiastic fans. Bruce Hornsby, whose son, Keith,  plays for Asheville, kicked things off with a jazzy piano rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. The second he stopped, the Bulldogs’ fans cheered as consistently loud and as hard as any crowd in college sports can in an effort to inspire the upset against the nation’s #1 team. As well as the defending Big South champions played, however, and as fantastic as the crowd was on this Sunday afternoon, Eddie Biedenbach‘s team was just overmatched.

Still, like North Carolina‘s win over Michigan State Friday night on the USS Carl Vinson, the victory over the Bulldogs was fine, but not good enough. When Roy Williams finally sat the starters with less than two minutes remaining, there wasn’t a lot of smiling on his bench. This is where the Tar Heels are: They won 91-75 (though the margin felt even bigger than it was), and the Asheville student section chanted “overrated.” It seems a silly thing to do when your team is losing by double figures, but the frowns on the faces of the North Carolina players confirmed the truth of the chant: UNC was not playing up to its lofty expectations.

After Looking Disoriented At The Carrier Classic, Kendall Marshall Bounced Back With A Fifteen Assist Game Against UNC Asheville

It’s an odd thing, and maybe it has more to do with the unrealistic expectations that have been placed upon this team by the greater college basketball world. Yet, when the first half was drawing to a close, I couldn’t help but feel that UNC just looked bad. Asheville was getting out on the break while the lagging Tar Heels weren’t even running the court. Tyler Zeller kept turning the ball over. John Henson looked winded, signaling to come out midway through the first half. Harrison Barnes just looked off, passive in his play and seemingly uninterested. North Carolina led by nine at the half, but the fierce play and tenacity of the Bulldogs to that point seemed like it gave UNCA a good chance of winning out over a tired, unfocused, and out-of-sorts North Carolina team.

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