In the spirit of Halloween, let’s examine some potentially spooky scheduling situations facing ACC squads this season. We all experience anxiety about frightening things that we know are in our future, but sometimes we can also get a good scare from an unexpected source. Below we will present examples of both types of hair-raising situations.

Fright Night: Potentially Scary Non-Conference Match-ups

When schools release their non-conference schedules over the summer, most fans focus on the name-brand opponents first. This frequently means that they fail to notice some of the tricky mid-major schools on the ledger — teams that are often as good or better than many power conference schools. Below is a list of such frightening opponents for ACC teams this year. Beware of these so-called “buy” games, and don’t be surprised if some of these teams put a real scare into your favorite ACC squad. (preseason KenPom ranking in parenthesis)

• November 11 – Eastern Michigan (#88) at Pittsburgh – The top four scorers return for the Eagles, the second highest-rated team in the MAC (KenPom’s ninth-best conference in the preseason).
• November 13 – Chattanooga (#93) at North Carolina – The Mocs are coming off a 29-6 year as the defending Southern Conference champs. They return four starters and will expect to be in the Big Dance again next March.
• November 15 – Iona (#102) at Florida State – Normally a mid-major school that loses four key players wouldn’t represent that much of a threat, but Iona is a program that wins at a high level year after year. The Gaels have won at least 20 games in each of Tom Cluess’ six seasons at the helm.

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There are several different methods available to decide which conference is the best in college basketball. One way is to treat every game equally, and we rely on computers for that, utilizing such tools as the outdated RPI or the tempo-based models like the Pomeroy ratings. A popular conventional wisdom-based practice is to judge leagues based on their relative strength at the top — for example, the number of ranked teams in the weekly polls or high seeds in the NCAA Tournament. But regardless of how we choose to judge the different conferences, the performance of a league against the best of the rest goes a long way toward establishing the perceived pecking order.

Tom Crean’s ranked Indiana team will face three ACC schools in non-conference play. (Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

Today we review the 2o best scheduled non-conference games involving ACC squads in the upcoming season. We chose that number of games because that’s how many times an ACC school will face a team ranked in the Top 25 of one of the two national preseason polls. This includes one game with an indeterminate opponent — Syracuse’s second game of the Battle 4 Atlantis will be against a ranked team regardless of whether the Orange win or lose their first contest in the Bahamas. In addition to those 20 guaranteed meetings with ranked opponents, seven ACC schools could see another ranked team in an early season tournament depending on how their brackets play out.

• Miami – Puerto Rico Tip-Off (Utah, Butler)
• Duke – 2K Classic (Wisconsin)
• N.C. State – Legends Classic (LSU)
• Wake Forest – Maui Invitational (Vanderbilt, Kansas)
• Georgia Tech – Preseason NIT (Villanova)
• Boston College – Wooden Legacy (Arizona)
• Notre Dame – AdvoCare Invitational (Wichita State)

It’s worth mentioning that computer-based non-conference strength of schedule ratings will be determined by how good opponents turn out to be over the course of the entire season. There will always be wins that look good in November and December that don’t seem so great after reality sets in later in the season. Likewise, losing to an unranked team early in the year may not appear so bad in March when that same opponent turned out to be a legitimate team. Read the rest of this entry »

Today we will look at some of the most interesting ACC non-conference games of 2013-14. For this feature we will not include games in early season tournaments because we earlier previewed those events in three parts – Part I, Part II, and Part III. Also, we will not look at any of the specific match-ups in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge in this feature because we’ll focus on that annual event at a later date. That still leaves a good inventory of ACC-related non-conference games to choose from, and as you will see, most of these games will be played in New York City, which is not entirely by accident. Counting tournament appearances, eight different ACC teams are scheduled to play a total of 16 games in the Big Apple — it’s obvious that the ACC is serious about taking advantage of the most recent expansion into the Northeast. A strong presence in New York is clearly part of the conference plan. By comparison, only four ACC teams played a total of five games in the New York area last season, counting a Duke-Temple game played in East Rutherford, New Jersey. In chronological order, here are the seven non-conference games that will be crucial to win for the ACC to meet its goal as the top conference in the nation this season.

Dez Wells Will Lead Maryland in Opener vs. UConn (Charlie DeBoyace/The Diamondback)

Friday November 8 – Maryland vs. Connecticut (Barclays Center – Brooklyn) – 6:30 PM  ESPN2

Without injured point guard Seth Allen, the Terrapins will be underdogs against the Huskies on opening night. The explosive Connecticut backcourt of Shabazz Napier and Ryan Boatwright will be hard covers for the bigger but slower Maryland guards. Dez Wells and Nick Faust must limit their turnovers, a problem for both last season, but the Terps hope to counter with the punishing post duo of Charles Mitchell and Shaquille Cleare.  A wild card for Maryland may be 6’8″ sophomore Jake Layman, who reportedly has been a standout in preseason scrimmages.

Tuesday November 12 – Duke vs. Kansas (Champions Classic – Chicago) – 9:30 PM ESPN

The college basketball world will be focused on the Champions Classic doubleheader on this night. #1 Kentucky squares off with #2 Michigan State in the opener, but most of the buzz seems to be about the nightcap. There are plenty of storylines for this one including the match-up of the top two freshmen in the country, Andrew Wiggins of Kansas and Jabari Parker for Duke. Also, the game is in Chicago, Coach K’s hometown, and the Midwestern backyard of Bill Self. This year’s #1 high school senior Jahlil Okafor lives in Chicago and reportedly will decide soon between Duke and Kansas. Finally, it should be a great game to watch with plenty of top athletes on the floor. Kansas holds a decided edge in the paint while Duke has a more proven backcourt. The game may come down to which team’s newcomers best handle playing on the big stage for the first time.

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