In Saturday’s two headline ACC contests, one ended up a shocking blowout while the other turned out generally as expected. Most anticipated that a game between teams tied for first place would be a tightly-fought battle, but North Carolina easily handled Miami to reclaim sole possession of the top of the standings. In the other big game of the weekend, injuries and a corresponding lack of depth finally caught up with Duke, unable to hold off Louisville’s second half charge. Elsewhere around the league, it was a bad weekend for three ACC schools fighting for NCAA Tournament consideration. Syracuse lost at home to Pittsburgh, while Clemson and Florida State lost to teams with losing conference records. Here are some of the highlights from a busy weekend around the ACC.

Brice Johnson recorded another double-double and North Carolina demolished Miami in Saturday’s battle for first place in the ACC. (Gerry Broome/AP Photo)

• Best Win: The battle for first place in the ACC was completely one-sided as North Carolina dominated Miami  in Chapel Hill. For anyone worried about the Tar Heels after their heart-breaking loss last week to rival Duke, those concerns were erased early in the second half when UNC quickly extended a nine-point halftime lead to as many as 38 points. Brice Johnson led a balanced Tar Heels’ attack with 16 points and 15 rebounds, while five teammates joined him with double figures. For Miami, it was the first of four straight games against ranked ACC opponents — a stretch that will undoubtedly test the Hurricanes’ legitimacy among the league leaders.

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1. The Comeback: If you’re looking for a good recap of Duke – North Carolina, this isn’t it (the Student Section has you covered there). But good on Roy Williams for not calling a timeout during North Carolina’s final possession. It’s not his fault that Joel Berry put on blinders and decided against attacking the basket (or that Marcus Paige wanted no part of the play). Not much else to say at this point other than the obvious — it was an amazing win for Duke considering all of its injuries.
2. Raleigh News & Observer: North Carolina banished the narratives and self-esteem issues following its Duke loss with an absolute beatdown of a very good Miami team. As Roy Williams aptly put it after the drubbing: “Things look better when the ball goes in the basket” (although his rant about Doug Gottlieb not knowing how to put on his shorts won the press conference). Inconsistency in North Carolina’s backcourt wasn’t anticipated this season, but it’s what could keep the team from a Final Four trip to Houston. Marcus Paige doesn’t seem himself right now, and the backcourt as a whole can struggle in feeding Brice Johnson. It’s pretty clear that North Carolina is the best team eligible to play in the ACC Tournament as the teams stand right now, but a lot of teams will cause them problems on their off nights.
3. ND Insider: So much for Notre Dame having the most obvious path to the ACC regular season title. The Fighting Irish’s defense couldn’t keep Georgia Tech’s Marcus Georges-Hunt from putting them two games back of the Tar Heels in the standings (tied for fifth, but holding the tiebreaker with Duke). The clog at the top of the ACC means a lot, as only the top four will get double-byes in Washington, DC, next month (currently Notre Dame and Duke are tied for fourth since Louisville is ineligible). Now’s when things get really interesting. The Tar Heels will go on the road in three of their last four games, including trips to Raleigh (never underestimate a rivalry game), Charlottesville and Durham. Three of Miami’s and Virginia’s four remaining games come against the top six teams in the conference. That leaves Duke and Notre Dame with the easiest finishing schedules (although they start with the most losses).
4. Syracuse Post-Standard: Pittsburgh kept its NCAA dreams alive by finishing a season sweep of Syracuse this weekend. Jamie Dixon clearly has Jim Boeheim’s number (he’s 7-2 in the Carrier Dome), and this year Jamel Artis was the star who killed the zone. Let’s discuss the ACC bubble. Syracuse is probably in (especially since for some unknown reason the Selection Committee will consider Boeheim’s suspension), and that bodes well for the Panthers — a team that lacks many marquee wins but will have a shot at a couple more down the stretch. Florida State and Clemson, however, appear to be in trouble. What’s bizarre is that the Tigers have much better “good wins” than any of the other teams, but they just were awful in non-conference play. Clemson’s upcoming game at Georgia Tech is a must-win and its home contest against Virginia might be too. Florida State desperately needs some wins to close out the season after a possible bubble-bursting loss in Blacksburg. Luckily the Seminoles will get shots at Duke and home against Syracuse and Notre Dame (who has struggled considerably on the road).
5. ACC Digital Network: Dunkuary. Thank me later.

Here is the latest edition of our weekly look at the current ACC standings and team performances, where we focus on which teams are playing better or worse than their records might indicate. Each week we delve into the advanced metrics to find a few interesting teams, player statistics and trends. This week we consider which of the Four Factors are most important to winning in the ACC on a team-by-team basis. Finally, we will forecast how the final standings may look and what that means for ACC schools’ postseason aspirations.

Note: All numbers are current for games played through Wednesday, February 17th.

Current Standings

Things are incredibly bunched up at the top of the ACC right now, with four schools only a game behind Miami and North Carolina in the loss column. Those two will battle for temporary league supremacy this weekend in Chapel Hill, as the Tar Heels try to bounce back from their crushing midweek loss to rival Duke. Note that the Tar Heels have faced the easiest slate of ACC games among the group of six, which may explain why they hold a slight edge on the rest of the league in efficiency margin. Meanwhile, Duke’s recent tough stretch of games has boosted its strength of schedule from 10th to seventh in the last two weeks. There’s an interesting situation also taking form in the lower middle of the ACC standings. N.C. State and Georgia Tech have performed about as well in conference play as Pittsburgh and Florida State, but because of their middling records, only the latter two are considered bubble teams. Maybe then it isn’t so surprising that the Wolfpack knocked off the Panthers and the Yellow Jackets bested the Seminoles, both on the road, earlier this season. And while most ACC fans will be watching the battle for first place this weekend, there will also be an intriguing matchup on Sunday night in Winston-Salem when 1-13 Wake Forest entertains 0-13 Boston College. In a twist of the old axiom, it will be the resistible force (Eagles’ offense) versus the movable object (Deacons’ defense). Something has to give!

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It was a weekend for favorites in the ACC as all seven underdogs lost. Two of those victims were higher-ranked schools that fell on the road in close games. In the most anticipated matchup of the weekend, Duke edged Virginia by a point on Grayson Allen’s controversial last-second shot in a game that lived up to the hype. Notre Dame rallied to take down Louisville after trailing by 11 points in the second half, making it consecutive Saturdays when the Irish rallied from double-figure deficits to take down a league heavyweight. The team the Irish conquered last weekend, North Carolina, returned home after a rough three-game road swing for head coach Roy Williams, to dominate Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon. In the final contest of the weekend, Florida State missed out on a golden chance to improve its resume when late-game execution faltered against Miami. Here are some of the highlights from a busy weekend around the ACC.

Grayson Allen drives in for his controversial game-winner against Virginia. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

• Best Win: This game turned out to be as competitive and hard-fought of a game as we’ve seen in ACC play this year. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski must be thankful that Virginia‘s Malcolm Brogdon could only guard one of his stars at a single time. The senior was Grayson Allen‘s primary defender for the first 25 minutes of play, holding him to only four points during that time. Meanwhile, Brandon Ingram was busy carrying the Blue Devils’ offense — during an eight-minute stretch of the game that overlapped halftime, he scored 20 of Duke’s 22 points. With 15 minutes to go in the contest, Tony Bennett moved Brogdon over to Ingram, and the star freshman only managed two more points the rest of the way. That move, however, allowed Allen to become Duke’s go-to man down the stretch, culminating in his acrobatic driving buzzer-beater to win the game. Did Allen travel on the play? Replays showed he probably took at least three steps. Did he get fouled on the play? Replays showed two bumps that are normally called on such a drive. Did the officials swallow the whistle? Absolutely! The end result was a huge win for the Blue Devils, regardless of what should have or shouldn’t have been called.

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Here is the latest edition of our weekly look at the current ACC standings and team performances, where we focus in on which teams are playing better or worse than their records indicate. Each week we delve into advanced metrics to find a few interesting teams or player stats and trends. This week we will also look at which of the Four Factors are most important to winning in the ACC. Finally, we will forecast how the final standings may look and what that means for ACC schools’ postseason aspirations.

Note: All numbers are current for games played through Wednesday, February 10th.

Current Standings

Things have tightened up at the top of the standings as North Carolina has come back to the field following its recent road trip, which included losses to Louisville and Notre Dame. The depth of the ACC is on display here – 10 teams have winning records and all are even or better in points per possession performance. In a bit of bad news for the rest of the league – Virginia’s stingy defense is back! After allowing each of their first eight conference opponents to top 1.00 points per possession, Tony Bennett’s team has held the last four foes to an average of 0.81 PPP. None of those last four opposing offenses have scored over 50 points, and the Cavaliers have now won their last seven contests. It will be interesting to see if Virginia can maintain its defensive acumen this Saturday at Duke, where it will face the nation’s 2nd rated offense. The Blue Devils have been the one ACC school that has been able to handle Bennett’s pack line defense over the last four years, averaging 1.07 points per possession against the Cavaliers in five meetings.

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After Friday afternoon’s bombshell announcement that Louisville was self-imposing a postseason ban, the attention returned to the play on the floor for fourteen ACC schools this weekend. In a rarity, five league road teams were favored in the seven matchups, but only three managed to extract victories. In the marquee contest, Notre Dame continued its recent run of superiority over the ACC’s two most storied programs, as the Irish rallied for a big upset win in South Bend over North Carolina in ESPN’s prime time game on Saturday night. Earlier in the day, Virginia Tech also pulled off a mild surprise as the Hokies edged Clemson in Blacksburg, significantly damaging the Tigers’ postseason hopes in the process. In other action, the ACC’s two leading scorers dueled in Durham, with Grayson Allen and Anthony ‘Cat’ Barber putting on a show as Duke defeated N.C. State for the second time this year. Here are some of the highlights from a busy weekend around the ACC.

Demetrius Jackson and Zach Auguste celebrate Notre Dame’s upset win over North Carolina. (Getty Images)

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Here is the latest edition of our weekly look at the current ACC standings and team performances, focusing on which teams are playing better or worse than their records indicate. Each week we also delve into some advanced metrics to find a few interesting teams or player stats and trends. This week we examine home court advantage within the league. Finally, we will forecast how the final standings may look and what that means for ACC schools’ postseason aspirations.

Note: All numbers are current for games played through Wednesday, February 3rd.

Current StandingsDespite Monday night’s defeat at Louisville, North Carolina is still the ACC’s best team in both the standings and in points per possession (PPP) margin. Interestingly, even though much has been made of Duke’s struggles (the Blue Devils are currently in eighth place), it has outperformed every team but one above them in the standings. It appears that Mike Krzyzewski’s team’s inability to win the close ones is the real issue that must be fixed — Duke has lost all three of its contests that were decided by five points or fewer. Conversely, Clemson and Pittsburgh have each benefited by winning all three of their five-point or fewer margin games. Looking further down the standings, we see that N.C. State and Georgia Tech have basically performed at a level equal to Florida State and better than Virginia Tech, but they trail both of those teams in the current standings by at least two games. Heading into the back nine of conference play, future opponents should consider themselves warned — the Wolfpack and Yellow Jackets may barely rank above the likes of Wake Forest and Boston College in the standings, but they are both significantly better than the leagues’ worst two teams. Read the rest of this entry »

1. RickPitino.net: Wait, Rick Pitino is the newest ACC basketball blogger (h/t to Card Chronicle)? Pitino hits us with some great Alfred Pennyworth-esque coachspeak in his latest post: “Many get knocked down; you judge character by how they get up.” Beyond the very bloggy writing, you actually get a pretty cool PDF of the team’s “MVP” metrics for Monday night’s game against North Carolina. It turns out that the Louisville coaching staff tracks everything from hockey assists to poor shot selection.
2. Duke Basketball Report: This is a great look at the ACC through the first half of the season from Al Featherston. The league is really competitive this season, which has led to some peculiar oddities: for example, Georgia Tech is a lot better than its 2-7 conference record (people called last night’s game a “must-win” for Duke, but that Yellow Jackets team isn’t bad). My only real disagreement with the article concerns Pittsburgh‘s inclusion in the “contender” category. The Panthers have only two impressive wins so far: at Florida State and at Notre Dame. Both of those wins were really close calls, but their three losses weren’t. Maybe this Pittsburgh team is good, but I haven’t seen it.
3. Anderson Independent Mail: Jaron Blossomgame is earning his name this season, as he’s become a much more efficient player than last year. An amazing factoid from Dan Hope’s piece on the junior’s emergence is that he’s the first Clemson player since Terrell McIntyre in 1999 to score at least 20 points in four straight games against ACC opponents. He then made the streak five in row in last night’s win over Wake Forest. Blossomgame has an inspiring story, recovering from a grisly high school injury to become a quiet ACC star.
4. Winston-Salem Journal: Wake Forest is officially reeling, having lost nine of their last 10 games including a 56-point second half to Clemson on the way to a blowout loss. That makes Dan Collins’ column on Dave Odom‘s improvement as a color commentator a welcome distraction. Odom will be Wake Forest’s basketball “legend” this year at the ACC Tournament.
5. Miami Herald: What to make of Miami? The Hurricanes looked like a juggernaut against Duke; then they turned around and were blown out by NC State. Maybe the games are related or maybe they looked past an underachieving Wolfpack team. Or maybe, like Angel Rodriguez mentioned, there was a tighter whistle in Raleigh. Either way, Miami’s ups and downs mesh with the whole league outside of Chapel Hill (although with Monday’s loss, maybe the Tar Heels are regressing to the league randomness).

EXTRA: Coach K was “under the weather” (reportedly treated for high blood pressure at Duke Hospital) and missed Duke’s win last night at Georgia Tech. Jeff Capel took the helm, possibly foreshadowing the future in Durham. Krzyzewski is expected to be back on Saturday for Duke’s game against NC State.

It was not a weekend of tight games in the ACC, with all but one of the seven contests featuring a final margin in double figures. Saturday’s heavyweight matchup between Virginia and Louisville turned out to be completely one-sided, as the visiting Cavaliers dominated from the outset in the nationally-televised game. N.C. State pulled off the biggest upset of the weekend by taking out Miami behind a remarkable performance from its star point guard. North Carolina easily dispatched Boston College, as expected; Florida State avenged an earlier loss by beating Clemson in Tallahassee; and Syracuse edged Georgia Tech in the only close contest on Saturday. Sunday featured two home wins for teams that remain a part of the crowded upper half of the ACC standings – Notre Dame easily handled Wake Forest, and Pittsburgh took care of Virginia Tech. Here are some of the highlights from the weekend around the ACC.

Malcolm Brogdon led the way in Virginia’s domination over Louisville.
(Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

• Best Win: Just a short week ago, we still weren’t sure what to make of Tony Bennett’s team. They were clearly in a rut, having lost all three league road games, and they were facing a week with two more away games. For 39 minutes in Winston-Salem on Tuesday it appeared as if those woes away from home would continue. But a miracle comeback gave Virginia its first ACC road win and appears to have sparked something more. The Cavaliers manhandled the ACC’s second place team, 63-47, in a masterful defensive performance that held Louisville’s two leading scorers (Damion Lee and Trey Lewis) without a point in the first half (the pair finished with 10 points on 3-of-13 shooting). The Cardinals never challenged, allowing Virginia to cruise to its most impressive ACC performance of the year. Seniors Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill led the charge with 13 points each. If this weekend’s performance is any indication, it may be a bit premature to count out the Cavaliers with respect to a third consecutive ACC regular season title.

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1. Newport News Daily Press: If you didn’t see Wake Forest’s epic collapse against Virginia last week, it was an all-timer. Truly, it was a spectacle. And this article doesn’t even mention that the game broke Bill James’ “safe lead” formula! But the real reason to talk about the beneficiary of Wake’s choke job is the Cavaliers’ subsequent dismantling of Louisville on the road on Saturday. There were (and are) questions surrounding Louisville (e.g., the Cardinals haven’t beaten a certain NCAA Tournament team yet), but statistically, they came into that game as the best team in the ACC. Emphasis on were (they’re now third in the league, according to Ken Pomeroy). Virginia was awesome offensively and completely locked down Damion Lee on the other end. It was the best performance by any ACC team in any game this season.
2. Winston-Salem Journal: Wake Forest fans don’t want or need to be reminded of this, but the program’s road struggles have continued under head coach Danny Manning (to his credit, many of his players overlap with the disastrous Jeff Bzdelik era). Wake Forest is now 2-48 in its last 50 ACC road games, with the two wins coming against Boston College (2012) and Virginia Tech (2014). Manning was quick to point out that “it doesn’t weigh on me from that sense, this is my second year,” but if the slump continues into another year, he’ll start feeling more pressure.
3. Raleigh News & Observer: “This schedule has been so ridiculous I can’t even remember what the crap day it is,” North Carolina’s Roy Williams complained last week. Meanwhile, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim described the league’s schedule as “horrific.” Needless to say, the two longtime coaches (here’s betting Mike Krzyzewski would join them in their displeasure) aren’t very happy with the effect of television and realignment on ACC schedules. But Williams wasn’t done complaining: He’s also tired of hearing about Ben Simmons “Green Room Guys.” Come to show solidarity; stay for the Tom Izzo anecdote.
4. Notre Dame Insider: Senior forward Zach Auguste has seen his field goal percentage drop precipitously in ACC play this season. The dip may be related to Jerian Grant’s missing ability to spread the floor and give the big man additional space to operate. Tom Noie thinks so, suggesting that Auguste’s shot selection may be more challenging in the All-American’s absence. Auguste thinks he may just need to slow down. Either way, Notre Dame has a very tough upcoming four-game stretch (at Miami; vs. North Carolina; at Clemson; vs. Louisville) and the Irish will need everything from Auguste they can get.
5. Tomahawk Nation: Florida State is rounding into form after an important weekend home win over Clemson. Perhaps most promising from the victory was the strong play from veteran Devon Bookert. The Seminoles are also starting to flash some vintage Leonard Hamilton defense in how they’re blocking shots and playing typically disruptive perimeter defense.

EXTRA: This excerpt from former Duke star Jay Williams’ new book is great.