[ed. note — for some reason, this scheduled post did not publish this morning; for that oversight, we apologize.]

1. Tar Heel Fan Blog: In honor of tomorrow and the inaugural Carrier Classic, Tar Heel Fan Blog has Top Gun quotes applied to the North Carolina basketball team. These are absolutely hilarious. I was going to quote my favorites and realized that almost all of them count. Well here’s a shot anyway.
   

   John Henson blocks a shot: “Negative Ghost Rider the pattern in full.” (h/t: @SamWalkerOBX)
   A player attempts to make a play, fails, and turns the ball over [Author’s Note: this is also called “The Plumlee Post Move”]: “Son, your ego’s writing checks your body can’t cash”
   Roy [Williams] puts Blue Steel in the game: “Too close for missiles, switching to guns.” (h/t @tarbender2)

   The moral of this story is that Twitter memes are awesome (and ACC Basketball starts tomorrow).

2. Grantland – ESPN: Mark Titus (Club Trillion) gives his ACC preview with a nice dose of subjectivity. He joined the Bernard James bandwagon, which I’ve been driving since this offseason. I have a few disagreements though. The first is that Harrison Barnes is underrated by casual college basketball fans. Maybe it’s because I live in ACC country, but casual ACC fans do not underrate Barnes. Most acknowledge his slow start last year, but he’s one of the top two choices to win National Player of the Year (with a player in Jared Sullinger who was much more consistent)! My other qualm was putting Duke as the most overrated team. I agree Duke is overrated nationally (the “most” is a stretch, but since only Duke and North Carolina are ranked from the ACC…), but this is an ACC preview. You could believe Duke is overrated if you think Florida State will take second place, but otherwise you’d think Duke is correctly rated. Regardless, it’s a fun article.
3. Raleigh News and Observer: Caulton Tudor thinks NC State can be the third best team in the ACC. No not this year, but consistently. I’ll hesitantly agree with him, but one thing beat writers often struggle with is tempering expectations for the teams they cover. It’s human nature to see the positive spins and start to empathize with people you see every day. But this article really undercuts both the recent success of Florida State (the clear third best team in the league the last couple of years) and the fact that the league’s relative slump is probably cyclical. Not to mention the fact that Syracuse and Pittsburgh are joining, which isn’t going to make the ACC any easier. All that said, I agree that a 9-7 ACC record is a perfectly reasonable goal for NC State this season.
4. Washington Times: It’s been going under the radar recently, but Maryland‘s athletic department is in serious financial trouble. So much trouble in fact that the Terrapins have reportedly decided to cut both men’s and women’s varsity swimming and water polo to help rein in the costs. Currently, Maryland has 27 varsity teams, which is good for third in the ACC behind North Carolina and Boston College, but the Terps are not alone in getting rid of its swimming programs: just in the ACC, Clemson is also currently “phasing out” its swimming programs.
5. Fox Sports Carolinas: Andrew Jones joins the band of reporters who are cautiously optimistic about Seth Curry‘s second shot at taking over the point guard position at Duke this year. An interesting point is that Mike Krzyzewski “insists that his team really doesn’t have a point guard, that once the ball gets in motion on offense the players just play. The Devils run a motion offense, do a lot of read and reacting, which stems from the motion, and sometimes run set plays.” That could be true, but it’s tough to run an effective offense without someone who can handle the ball and make plays when the game is on the line. Will that be Curry?

EXTRA: Covers.com released the Caesar’s over/under of conference wins for some of the top basketball teams in the country. Duke and North Carolina are the only two ACC teams to make the list. The casino places the line for the Tar Heels at 14.5, meaning the Tar Heels can only lose one game (I’d take the under; North Carolina wasn’t a juggernaut last year and the Heels should be beatable this year). Duke’s line is listed at 13, which seems very high as well. Maybe Duke will get things together, but based on the team’s exhibition struggles, the Blue Devils will drop at least three games in conference play. Other highlights include Ohio State set at 15 (the Buckeyes play 18 conference games), and Harvard set at 12.5 (the Ivy League has a 14-game schedule).

CBS Sports conducted a survey of one hundred high-major coaches, asking them to answer a few questions about how their peers performed on the recruiting trail. While the bulk of the story wasn’t particularly surprising, there were a few tidbits that are of particular interest to ACC fans. Though North Carolina coach Roy Williams was pegged as the third best recruiter in the nation after Kentucky’s John Calipari and Arizona’s Sean Miller, what is more interesting is the list of coaches who are apparently overrated as recruiters. I didn’t expect to see Bill Self and the very good Kansas program pegged as overrated in terms of recruiting and somehow, I was even more surprised to see none other than NC State’s own Mark Gottfried as the third most overrated coach in terms of recruiting.

Gottfried Isn't Impressing His Peers on the Recruiting Trail (Yet)

This is a little stunning considering how excellent a job it seemed that Gottfried was doing in his first year recruiting for the Wolfpack. Do the coaches know something we don’t about the players that Gottfried landed? Or is this just sour grapes; coaches jealous of a guy who was able to burst back on to the scene and make an immediate impact? Whatever it is, it’s fascinating that a coach who, in his first year after taking a break from coaching, made the list. I’d be eager to know why the other coaches think so little of a coach who seems to be doing the right things on the recruiting trail.

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Can you feel it? Basketball is in the air and we are just a few short days away from ACC teams playing real basketball. It’s exciting to say the least. Though conference play is still a ways off, we thought it would be helpful to compile our pre-season look at each of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s twelve teams into one place, so that it will be easy to look up how totally wrong we were about the season, or conversely, to praise us for uncanny insight into the future. Yesterday we broke down the individual awards, but today, it’s all about the teams.  Here’s how we see everything shaking out, in terms of standings, conference records and postseason placement:

1. North Carolina (14-2) – NCAA top overall seed
2. Duke (11-5) – NCAA #3 seed
3. Florida State (10-6) – NCAA#3 seed
4. Miami (9-7) – NCAA #9 seed
5. Virginia (9-7) – NCAA #8 seed
6. NC State (8-8) – NCAA #12 seed
7. Virginia Tech (8-8) – NIT
8. Clemson (7-9) – NIT
9. Maryland (6-10)
10. Wake Forest (5-11)
11. Boston College (5-11)
12. Georgia Tech (4-12)

In short, we see North Carolina at the top with Florida State challenging Duke (more closely than might be imagined) for the second place spot. We like Miami, Virginia, and NC State to take leaps forward. While Wahoo and Wolfpack fans are probably happy that we see a return to the Tournament for their teams, we can’t offer that same degree of optimism for a Virginia Tech team that seems bound for just the wrong side of the bubble. Again. At the bottom of the standings, we see Wake Forest and Boston College doing slightly better than most, mostly due to our lack of confidence in this year’s Georgia Tech squad. We feel that Clemson and Maryland are due for down years and potential rebuilding growing pains, though if we had to name two teams whose performance in the conference we are the least sure of, we’d probably name those two. If you want to check out more storylines for the upcoming conference season, we’d refer you to the ACC Conference Primer which is chock full of information for this coming year and encourage you to get pumped for a dynamite season.

1. Washington Post: Mike Scott will be very important for Virginia, and in more ways than filling up the stat sheets. Sure his double-figure scoring and double-figure rebounding should help a middling offense and horrendous offensive rebounding squad improve in those areas this season. But more importantly, he’ll draw defenders and allow Joe Harris to move back to small forward. That’s fairly significant, as Harris (a 6’6″ sophomore) was forced to play the power forward spot despite being the team’s most consistent outside shooter last year. Scott should also keep defenses honest in the paint, which should allow an already very good perimeter shooting team more openings. Basically, Mike Scott is the only reason it’s not laughable for the media to rank Tony Bennett’s squad fourth in the conference, as the WaPo observes.
2. Charlotte Observer: A hallmark of Mike Krzyzewski-coached teams is gritty, overplaying man-to-man defense that’s especially effective in keeping opponents from getting open perimeter looks. However, a quick glance at Duke‘s backcourt (Seth Curry, Andre Dawkins and Austin Rivers) doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. The questions proved legitimate in Duke’s preseason scrimmage, as D-II Bellarmine managed to knock down eight outside buckets. Duke doesn’t have much time though, as Belmont made over nine threes a game last season (at a 38% clip). Oh, and the Bruins won 30 games last year and bring back nearly all of their talent. Do I hear a non-conference upset special brewing in Cameron Indoor this Friday?
3. Fayetteville Observer: Speaking of Duke generalizations, Bret Strelow breaks down the importance of big men for the Blue Devils’ upcoming season. And if you look at the roster, it makes sense. How many teams have two athletic 6’10” players and a 6’11” guy who gets buckets? Not many. But Duke’s current frontcourt has had limited success so far, even if Miles Plumlee, Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly all seem capable of breakout seasons. They’re also fighting against the stereotype that Duke big men struggle. Exhibition play tends to overrate frontcourts mightily (if you ask the above question about a D-II school, no matter what caliber, the answer will be an emphatic “no”), but the Plumlee brothers have looked especially good. To live up to its top-five potential Duke needs one of its forwards to have a star campaign.
4. Charlotte Observer: Mark Gottfried didn’t hear a lot of compliments about his team when he first took the job. The trouble seems as much coach-related as talent-related, though — in a recent interview, Scott Wood “basically admits practice used to be ‘just throwing the ball out there and shooting it.’ Now practices have a lot more drills.” That’s the sort of culture Gottfried was facing when he moved to Raleigh. From player quotes such as these, it sounds like Gottfried has the team buying into his style; and if he wins there, players will keep buying it.
5.  Richmond Times-Dispatch: Potential breakout candidate Erick Green may miss Virginia Tech‘s season opener against East Tennessee State with an “Achilles’ strain”. The Hokies have already lost JT Thompson to a season-ending injury, and definitely can’t afford to lose Green too. Green is expected to be the star, both on offense and defense, for Seth Greenberg’s team in its latest pursuit of an invitation to the Big Dance. Here’s to hoping the rash of preseason injuries doesn’t carry over into the regular season because it feels like there have been way more injuries than usual this year.

In honor of the opening of college basketball season, Sports Illustrated has a slideshow of college basketball previews going back as far as the early 1960s. The most interesting (with borderline-racist undertones) image is probably the 1967 cover calling for a 12-foot basket, but I’ll leave you with NC State legend David Thompson. Thompson led the 1972-73 Wolfpack to an undefeated season averaging nearly 25 points a game (ironically his least dominant statistical season).

NC State's David Thompson Led the Wolfpack to an Undefeated Season in 1973

CBSSports.com’s Jeff Goodman and other college basketball analysts on Seth Davis’ show Courtside discussed whether or not anyone will be able to catch Mike Krzyzewski‘s 900-and-counting win total when the venerable Duke coach decides to hang it up. Monday, Goodman asked the active coach closest to Coach K, Jim Boeheim to ponder if he stood a chance. Boeheim gave himself no chance whatsoever and even stated that, “I think Mike will coach another ten years.” If that’s true (I for one, don’t think Krzyzewski will coach more than five more), Coach K will end up with somewhere between 1150 and 1200 wins, putting the record essentially out of reach barring an unprecedented career spanning six decades.

As for his best guess, Boeheim mentioned West Virginia’s Bob Huggins as the most likely active candidate for passing Coach K. Goodman did the math: “[Huggins] has 691 career victories. Let’s say he goes 12 more years (until he’s 71) and averages about 25 wins per year. […] That would put him just shy of 1,000 victories.” Barring a sudden retirement, Krzyzewski should pass the 1,000 win mark sometime in the next four years.  Here are other coaches who could (somewhat feasibly) pass Coach K.

Active Coaches That Could Pass Coach K in Wins.

Update: John Gasaway of Basketball Prospectus pointed out a slight wrinkle with Boeheim’s guess that Huggins could pass Coach K: 71 of Huggins’ wins were at Walsh, which was not Division I and therefore would not count on his D-I record.

Now that our individual team previews are done, it’s time to look at individual players. With only five all-ACC selections from last season returning there are plenty of open spots to fill, so here are our Preseason all-ACC Teams for the 2011-12 season.

2011-12 Preseason All-ACC Teams

Looking at our projections, North Carolina, Miami and Duke lead the way with eight, six and five selections, respectively. No surprise with Harrison Barnes checking in as the consensus ACC Player of the Year, or Austin Rivers as the ACC Rookie of the Year (though Kellen wants to keep an eye on Maryland’s Nick Faust for the ROY award).

My personal honorable mentions are Virginia Tech’s Erick Green, Maryland’s Sean Mosley and NC State’s Richard Howell. I’m especially surprised Mosley didn’t show up on any of the teams, but his middling campaign last season probably did him in. Green appears to be in the right place to take over for departing Hokies Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen, but he’s got a ways to go based on the Virginia Tech games I went to last season. Finally, Howell had a sneaky good season last year for the Wolfpack and could be a great frontcourt presence alongside CJ Leslie.

My biggest reach was putting Terrell Stoglin on the first team. He was a decent player last year (who averaged over 20 points per game pro-rated at 40 minutes), but he’ll really need to make some waves if he wants to crack the first team this season. Malcolm Grant and Kendall Marshall are the safer choices for that final guard spot. My reasoning is that Marshall will be hidden statistically behind Zeller and Barnes. In general, Roy Williams point guards are under-appreciated because they don’t put up sick numbers, but with Marshall the case is a little different. He’s a very polished player, but I see him as the perfect complimentary player. North Carolina wouldn’t be nearly as good as a team without him, but by himself he’s not spectacular. Thus, I voted him onto the second team in favor of Maryland’s ascendent sophomore.

On the second team Kellen and I differed on power forwards: he chose Mason Plumlee; I chose Travis McKie. Again for me the key was relative importance. Mason Plumlee may be more talented than McKie, but I’ll be shocked if he’s as important for Duke as McKie is for Wake Forest (and really I’m not sold that McKie isn’t more talented). Duke’s bigs are certainly going to be critical this year, but I think the mere fact that there are three of them (Mason, Miles and Ryan Kelly) will dilute each one’s share of the limelight. I did include Miles on my third team because reports from Durham laud him as Duke’s backbone.

However, both of our teams (mine especially) did a lot of projecting for this season. The only locks feel like Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller and Mike Scott (and it’s conceivable Zeller falls to the second team depending on his role). Player and coach turnover left the ACC relatively unknown this season, but Friday players start earning their spots.

Even though real, meaningful basketball has started, indulge me for a bit more while we talk about one more meaningless game. Nolan Smith hinted at it on Twitter a couple of weeks ago and it turns out that the rumors are true: There will be a Duke–North Carolina alumni game featuring some of the very best players in each program’s respective histories. To return to one of the more tragic themes of this fall — the sadness of NBA fans is transmuted into joy for college basketball fans. Due to the NBA lockout, this alumni game is expected to include a sizable number of current NBA players. For Duke, last year’s stars in Smith and Kyrie Irving will team up with some of last decade’s stars, namely Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, and Chris Duhon. For the Tar Heels, the lineup is headlined by a number of stars from the 1990s: Jerry Stackhouse, Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter,  and Brendan Haywood.

Duke Stars Together Again?

Notably lacking from either lineup is the presence of many players from the mid-2000s. While Raymond Felton is expected to play for UNC, and Gerald Henderson will suit up for the Blue Devils, some young blood might add a little more spice to the game. Some accounts, notably this one by Duke Basketball Report, suggest J. J. Redick will play, which would certainly be a welcome addition. The most conspicuous missing name, though, is Tyler Hansbrough. In the Kentucky Villains game, Hansbrough showed that he wasn’t absent from the exhibition circuit. That combined with his continued presence in Chapel Hill during the lockout would seem to make him a prime candidate for taking part in this game.

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1. Scout – Inside Carolina: This is a terrific article on Michael Jordan‘s recruitment to North Carolina from Al Featherston. Everyone has heard about how Jordan was cut from his high school team duing his sophomore year before later etching his place in basketball history in Chapel Hill and the NBA. Jordan wasn’t actually a national prospect until Roy Williams let the cat out of the bag (first to a media friend) against Dean Smith’s wishes. It also probably helped that fellow North Carolina powers, Duke and NC State, were between coaches at that point. The story also gives an interesting look at national recruiting three decades ago, long before the Internet, when coaches basically relied on two summer camps to see the top prospects.
2. Washington Post: It’s easy to wonder if Seth Greenberg is on the hot seat based on Virginia Tech’s recent love of the NIT-side of the NCAA Tournament bubble. But don’t forget that the year before Greenberg arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia Tech was 3-9 in the Big East, good enough for last place. He’s made the Hokies into a perennial 20-win team on the brink of its first NCAA Tournament in years. Also with the construction of a new state-of-the-art practice facility, I think Greenberg will continue to see recruiting success in southwest Virginia.
3. USA Today: The Carrier Classic is back in the news, but this time with more philosophical questions. The game is on Veteran’s Day (this Friday), and will be played on the deck of the aircraft carrier which carried Osama Bin Laden’s body to its burial. Speaking with Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed, Marlen Garcia cleared up any questions about insensitivity with regards to Islam. Luckily she doesn’t believe that there are any — which should allow fans to enjoy the game for what it is instead of worrying about its setting and any indirect political fallout. However, fans should worry about the weather… yes, even in San Diego.
4. Orlando Sentinel: Florida State‘s record may be a perfect 2-0 after exhibition season, but Leonard Hamilton still has a lot of things he’d like to work on. Most notably, the turnover bug (nine in the second half of a dominating win over Georgia Southwestern) is still troubling the Seminoles, who finished ranked #311 out of 345 teams by Ken Pomeroy last season. The good news is that both Bernard James and Michael Snaer played very well, and the team’s smothering defense only allowed Georgia SW to make eleven shots from the field on four assists. There’s still definitely room for improvement, but I’m bullish (which is definitely the word of choice) on FSU coming into this year.
5. Burlington Times News: If you can get past the terrible title pun, this article is actually informative. While initial reports had NC State’s lone senior CJ Williams out for a few weeks with a hairline fracture in his thumb, he was cleared by the doctors and suited up for the Wolfpack’s exhibition against Flagler. Williams went 2-3 from beyond the arc and dished out five dimes in an inconsistent NC State effort. The real offensive star of the game was sharp-shooter Scott Wood, who caught fire going 6-8 from downtown. NC State’s first game is at home against UNC Asheville.

And finally, in memory of one of the greatest heavyweight boxers ever, check out Mark Kram’s 1975 piece on “The Thrilla in Manilla” between Muhammad Ali and the recently-departed Joe Frazier (you can also watch the fight below). Frazier was by all accounts one of the toughest fighters who ever lived. He was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, and spent his formative years working on a farm. His professional career was headlined by three fights against Muhammad Ali. Frazier died on Monday after battling liver cancer for the last few months of his life.

While I suppose that the official list will go up sometime this afternoon, Jeff Goodman went ahead and released the Naismith Award Preseason List. It’s not too surprising for folks that have been looking at similar lists all summer long. The biggest and completely unsurprising news is that four North Carolina players are on the list: Harrison Barnes, John Henson, Tyler Zeller, and Kendall Marshall. Other than that? Only one other ACC player was tapped for the list, Duke‘s Austin Rivers, who was one of only seven freshmen included. So, considering that the Wooden Watch List excludes freshmen, the big two preseason national player lists are essentially the same as far as the ACC is concerned.

Austin Rivers Is The Only ACC Player Not From UNC To Make The Naismith Pre-Season List

This is kind of annoying. Much like the Wooden list, the Naismith list reaffirms the fact that the national media doesn’t seem to think that there is much top tier talent in the ACC outside of Tobacco Road. I understand that it’s in all likelihood another down year for the conference, but overall, this must be frustrating to the league’s other great players like Mike Scott, Malcolm Grant, and Durand Scott. That’s all without even mentioning a player like Seth Curry too. It’s amazing that a potential breakout star guard at Duke who is the brother of Steph Curry and the son of Dell Curry is still apparently operating under the radar. I feel like there is very little doubt that by the end of the season, the national media will be talking about the Duke junior as one of the nation’s best, so I find it really odd that he didn’t crack either list.

The only rationale that I can think of for the lack of non-Tar Heel players is a strong national belief that there are very few tremendously talented individuals in the ACC this year. Maybe it’s the wide array of new faces in the conference or an overall lack of familiarity with the cast of characters in a conference that suddenly seems very young. In any case, the task is clear for the top-flight conference players who don’t live in Chapel Hill: You are going to have to work harder to make a name for yourself this year. Get to it, gentlemen.

While college basketball starts tonight, ACC fans still have to wait until Friday evening at 7 PM EST.  Simultaneously, Wake Forest, Florida State, North Carolina State, Miami, and North Carolina will all tip off with the first actual games of the season. While their are a number of intriguing match-ups scheduled for several of these teams, there is one game that’s going to get the lion’s share of attention. Specifically, I’m talking about, you know, the one that’s going to be played on a modified deck of an aircraft carrier.

North Carolina and Michigan State Will Battle For This Huge and Heavy Trophy This Friday.

It’s ridiculous-sounding, but it’s really happening and it’s less than a week away: the Tar Heels will take on the Michigan State Spartans on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in front of President Barack Obama and the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. Honestly, I still can’t quite believe that it’s happening. Right now, the make-shift arena is under construction, and even in an incomplete state, it looks pretty cool.

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