Although we are less than a month removed from Louisville’s win over Michigan in the National Championship game, it certainly isn’t too soon to look ahead to what the 2013-14 season has in store. With this past Sunday the deadline to declare for the June NBA Draft, we now have a much better idea who the top teams in the country should be once the ball is tipped again in November. In looking at the top of our Post-NBA Draft Deadline Top 25, there are three teams bunched together separated by just three votes — in fact, Louisville and Michigan State are knotted together at the top. It isn’t all too often that a team wins it all, graduates its starting point guard, has its best frontcourt player leave for the NBA, and is still perhaps the top team in the nation, but that’s the case for Rick Pitino and his Cardinals. With Russ Smith and Chane Behanan returning, Louisville will be the early favorites to win the AAC — the ACC, keep in mind, doesn’t come for UofL until 2014. Michigan State received good news on Sunday when Adreian Payne announced he would be returning to East Lansing for his senior season. Payne’s return, coupled with the return of Gary Harris — the Big Ten Freshman of the Year — and Keith Appling, make the Spartans a legitimate championship contender next season. Lastly, there’s Kentucky. Did you really think Cal & Co. weren’t going to be up there? They may not be ranked #1 at this point, but with a downright scary recruiting class incoming boasted by the Harrison twins and Julius Randle — perhaps the top Class of 2013 recruit — the Wildcats’ expectations are sky high. Despite not finishing in the Top 25 and losing at Robert Morris in the NIT, Kentucky will enter 2013-14 as a top three team in the RTC .

The usual Quick ‘n Dirty after the jump…

Quick n’ Dirty:

Whether it is through an exceptional recruiting class, or an impressive finish to the 2012-13 season coupled with a strong nucleus returning, the following four teams surged upward — and for good reason.

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Quick gut check: Is this year’s North Carolina team better at moving the ball than last year’s team? My gut told me there was no chance, especially when that team had Kendall Marshall, the all-time ACC single season leader in assists. My gut was wrong. Well it’s possible that this team doesn’t quite have the passing flair of Marshall, but as a team, this group knows how to move the ball better than last year’s squad. The 2011-12 North Carolina team assisted on 58.1% of its made field goals as opposed to this year’s mark of 61.0%. It’s the best mark in the conference, and against Florida State on Sunday, the Tar Heels’ passing acumen was on full display.

A Better Passing Team Without This Guy? Blasphemy! But True.

North Carolina assisted on 20 out of 31 made field goals against the Seminoles, a 64.5% mark for the game.  While the Roy Williams era North Carolina teams have always racked up assists at a pretty quick rate, the way that this team does it is fairly unusual. The norm for UNC has been a dominant point guard in the mold of Raymond Felton, Ty Lawson, and Kendall Marshall — floor generals who exert a tight control over the game. Yet young Marcus Paige hardly fits that description. Granted, Paige has been playing with increased confidence and better passing during the Tar Heels’ five-game winning streak, amassing an easy nine assists during the course of the game. But, for the most part, this year, UNC’s assists have come from a three-headed monster.

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Andrew Jones makes a compelling case describing the problems that North Carolina has faced this season — the short story is that the Tar Heels haven’t been getting very effective play out of the post or at the point guard position. The slightly longer story is that a lot of North Carolina’s lineups are deeply flawed, most notably the starting version. Up to the first official timeout, North Carolina has been outscored 48-17 in the past five games. This jaw-dropping number tells a simple story: UNC’s starters don’t make for a very effective offensive unit. This point has been most effectively tracked by the incomparable Adrian Atkinson, whose Twitter feed is a treasure trove of North Carolina lineup data. Still, if I had to pick a single telling fact, it would be this one: In conference play, North Carolina’s starters have posted an offensive efficiency of 76.1 while EVERY OTHER LINEUP has an average offensive efficiency of 107.2. North Carolina’s starting lineup is a problem. But, how does Roy Williams solve it?

Williams is Grasping For Answers, So Here’s One – Change the Starting Lineup

Jones makes the argument that a lot of the difficulty hinges on the fact that the starting lineup includes two non-scorers: Desmond Hubert at center and Dexter Strickland at shooting guard. Combine this with Marcus Paige‘s inability to find the bottom of the net on most outings, and you end up with a lineup that can basically only count on Reggie Bullock and James Michael McAdoo to score. Both Jones and Atkinson have an easy fix for the Tar Heels’ offensive woes: just add P.J. Hairston to the mix. It makes sense: According to Atkinson, with Bullock, Hairston, and McAdoo in the lineup at the same time, North Carolina has a net efficiency of +21.1 while posting a net efficiency of +0.2 when the trio aren’t playing together. On paper, the change seems clear — these three guys need to play together more often.

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1. Tar Heel Blog: North Carolina‘s starting lineup has been a point of contention among fans the entire season. If it’s not replacing Desmond Hubert, it’s replacing Dexter Strickland. The Tar Heels have been getting off to awful starts to games, but it’s not all Hubert and Strickland’s faults. James Michael McAdoo deserves much of the blame in the frontcourt, as he’s currently shooting a smooth 4-of-18 from the field in ACC games up to the first media timeout. Strickland and Marcus Paige are a combined 4-of-20 from the field. Whatever the reason, North Carolina has to quit digging itself such early holes.
2. ESPN: There’s a very strong argument to be made for putting Miami atop the polls this week. The Hurricanes are on an amazing 11-game winning streak that includes arguably the most impressive performance of the year against Duke. With all its players available (admittedly, a smaller sample size) the Hurricanes are 11-0 with the best BPI of any team in the country (Duke is second, and no one else is close). If polls were power rankings, there’s no question Miami should be at the top. Even with the status quo logic of the polls, there’s a very good chance the Hurricanes will make the top spot for the first time in program history this season.
3. CBSSports.com: Virginia is going to be a fascinating case study to watch up until Selection Sunday. Bracketologists appear divided on the Cavaliers. One camp (e.g., Jerry Palm) says they have no chance. Their RPI is too low. Their horrid non-conference schedule (with a couple of abysmal losses to boot) sinks their hopes. But other camps (e.g., Andy Glockner) paint a more positive picture of the Cavaliers. Their non-conference schedule was hurt by normally decent teams (like Old Dominion) playing like cellar-dwellers and failure to make the winners’ bracket of the Preseason NIT. Long story short: No one really knows…
4. Duke Basketball Report: Duke‘s prolific three-point shooting is fairly well-documented. The Blue Devils are shooting over 40% for just the third time in team history since the deep ball was added to the college game two and a half decades ago. The team is also shooting far more threes a game than its previous highly successful shooting years. One interesting fact that Barry Jacobs unveiled is that Duke led the ACC in three-point shooting for three of Coach K’s four national championships. The Blue Devils have always shot the long ball fairly well, but Duke didn’t start relying heavily on the three until 1994-95, the year after Coach K’s epic run of seven Final Fours in nine seasons ended.
5. NBCSports.com: Seth and Stephen Curry have passed Tyler and Ben Hansbrough as the highest scoring brother duo in college basketball history. Seth Curry‘s year at Liberty definitely helped (his scoring average has never recovered after his transfer to Duke), and although he has always been an efficient scorer at Duke, his numbers as a Blue Devil aren’t jaw-dropping. After averaging 20 points per game at Liberty his freshman year, he’s averaged 9.0, 13.2 and 16.8 points per game in his next three seasons in Durham. It’s frankly sort of surprising there haven’t been many more dominant scoring pairs of brothers.

1. US Basketball Writers Association: The USBWA named Miami’s Shane Larkin the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week after Larkin led the Hurricanes to a couple of road wins to move to 8-0 (they’re now 9-0) in conference play. Larkin’s stats from the two games are impressive across the board as he scored 19 points on over 60% shooting with four assists, four steals, three rebounds, and a block to boot. Not bad numbers for a guy who is probably 5’10” on a good day. The Hurricanes have a very favorable final half of conference play looming. The game at Duke notwithstanding, Miami will likely be favored in the rest of the games.
2. Raleigh News & Observer: For the first time since his injury, Dexter Strickland looked like himself defending Erick Green. It’s hard to really notice changes in defense, but it seemed like Strickland has been a step slower this year. Also offensively, my hypothesis for his struggles are that being slightly less explosive has led to more jump shots and more time for defense to get in position. But something underreported so far this season is a new wrinkle in his game: the assist. Last year Strickland’s assist rate was 13.6. This year it’s 23.6! That’s a huge improvement (and shows he’s nearly as effective a distributor as Marcus Paige).
3. Shelby Star: Even just halfway through the season, conference awards look like they’re going to be controversial this season. Starting with player of the year, which realistically will go to one of Erick Green, Mason Plumlee or to a player on Miami (right now Larkin has the hot hand, but Kenny Kadji is equally important on both ends of the floor). Rookie of the year should also be interesting, though Olivier Hanlan would get my vote unless Rasheed Sulaimon or TJ Warren goes on a tear. Regardless, individual story-lines are very interesting going into the second half of conference play.
4. Gobbler Country: Speaking of Green, this is a takedown of his award candidacy from the Virginia Tech faithful. I would actually be a lot more generous to Green. I think he’s a great player with very solid statistics across the board, but it’s impossible to ignore his team’s struggles. His team is so bad that you have to take him out of consideration for national awards. Virginia Tech isn’t deep enough to handle Robert Brown’s slump or Cadarian Raines’ offensive disappearances. No one player can do it alone. That shouldn’t take away from Green’s abilities as a scorer, but one can’t look at stats in a vacuum.
5. Duke Basketball Report: Continuing the theme of midseason reviews, Al Featherston took a look at the ACC’s NCAA chances with four teams sitting squarely on the bubble: North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Florida State. The Tar Heels are in the best shape and appear to be trending in the right direction. Virginia has good enough wins to make the Big Dance, but its losses are incredibly troubling. Maryland and Florida State need marquee wins and fast. Both–especially the Seminoles–will need to do major work in the ACC Tournament, barring winning out in conference play.

Video of the Day: Props to Michael Snaer who continued his string of clutch shots with a buzzer beating lay-up at Georgia Tech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyUK9ip58nM

Jesse Baumgartner is an RTC columnist. His Love/Hate column will publish each week throughout the season. In this piece he’ll review the five things he loved and hated about the previous seven days of college basketball.

Five Things I Loved This Week

I LOVED…. Kansas guard Ben McLemore. I’ve been captivated this guy since the first time I turned on a KU game this year – the only comparison for pure smoothness as a freshman might be Melo at ‘Cuse. I can usually judge a guy’s talent by how willing I am to prioritize his Thursday snoozer at 8:30 PM on ESPN2. Do I delay dinner? Do I push work off till tomorrow? Do I accidentally forget about Date Night just to marvel at a net-snapping three when the Jayhawks are already up 20? If the answer to any of those is yes, I’m hooked. And for me, McLemore is that year’s player. Watch out for this KU team – they might just have all the pieces.

Mancrushing on Ben McLemore

I LOVED…. trying to figure out Duke.  27 points. TWENTY-SEVEN POINTS. The Miami Hurricanes looked like a pro team taking on the high school JV squad – running, slamming, jamming… even Barry Larkin was lovin’ it. So is Ryan Kelly that important to the Blue Devils? Is he the difference between cutting down the nets and a Hurricane doormat? Is he worth all 27 of those points? I guess we’ll find out.

I LOVED…. in a way that only a true John Calipari hater could love, the following headline: “Wiltjer, Noel Help Kentucky Upset Mississippi.” How a team full of Top 10 recruits can “upset” anyone is beyond me. They must realllllly be underachievers to pull off that one…..

I LOVED…. how the real point of this season seems to be how many teams can claim and then quickly relinquish the coveted (or maybe at this point, despised) Number One ranking. Indiana, Duke, Louisville, Duke, and now Michigan. It’s a tribute both to the difficulty of winning on the road with today’s insane fans, but also to the parity of this year’s college crop. I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting money (sorry NCAA, I mean “friendly non-financially based wager”) behind any of these teams. But it should all add up to one crazy March.

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What do you take away from an ACC weekend full of blowouts? Sure, Clemson only beat Virginia Tech by seven points, but the next most closely contested game was North Carolina State’s eight-point win over North Carolina, a score that hides how dominant the Wolfpack looked for long stretches of the game. Still, a team can reveal just as much about themselves in a lopsided tilt as in a closely contested contest. So let’s look at what we learned.

Georgia Tech Got in the Win Column Over the Weekend

1. Georgia Tech Might Not Be The Worst Team In The Conference. Just when you thought you had them pegged, Georgia Tech has to go and win a game to tie Boston College for worst team in the conference. Of course, Georgia Tech’s first win came against lowly Wake Forest, but then again BC’s only conference win was against Virginia Tech. So who is the front-runner for standings bottom-dweller? It probably actually isn’t Georgia Tech. A lot of the Yellow Jackets’ floundering has to do with their schedule: Three of their five games have been against the best three teams in the conference (Miami, Duke, and NC State). One of their losses was an overtime loss to Virginia Tech and the other was a road loss to North Carolina. Outside of some bad luck against the Hokies, Georgia Tech is playing up to expectations.  Fortunately, the schedule gets a little bit easier as the season rolls on and Tech will have plenty of chances to prove they can win. For what it’s worth, Ken Pomeroy’s system of Pythagorean projections has the Yellow Jackets as only the fifth worst team in the conference.
2.  Erick Green Is A Machine, But It Doesn’t Matter. Virginia Tech is the worst team in the conference per Ken Pomeroy’s projections and it’s a shame. Despite all the tough losses — including this weekend’s defeat to Clemson — Erick Green has been playing sensationally. He plays hard and puts 25 points up each night and yet his team can’t give him any support. Green is running away with the league’s scoring title, averaging 25.2 PPG, while his next closest competitor, Mason Plumlee, is averaging 17.4 PPG. Green is the most efficient scorer on the list of top scorers too — he’s been excellent at just about everything he does this season. He’s easily been the best guard in the conference, but his team has just been dreadful. At the end of regulation, Virginia Tech has only finished ahead of their opponents once — beating Wake Forest by one point. The Hokies ended up winning another game in overtime against Georgia Tech by a more respectable five points, but I bring this up to emphasize how shaky Virginia Tech’s two conference wins have been despite Green’s brilliance. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Fox Sports Carolinas: After losing at Maryland, there was a surprising amount of this sort of chatter going on among fans in particular. “Does the Wolfpack’s loss invalidate win over Duke?” I think that’s a dumb question. The loss was on the road to a good team desperate for the win. Do NC State‘s players wish they had won? I’m sure. But that doesn’t make the loss any more damning. NC State is probably not the top five team some thought it was coming into the season. But it’s also not the team that struggled to beat Boston College. And nothing about that loss at Maryland took away from the previous win.
2. Washington Post: Speaking of that game, Mark Turgeon was livid with his team’s execution. “There wasn’t one timeout they did what I asked. Not one.” Given Maryland’s recent play on the offensive end, it’s hard to criticize the Terrapins’ coach. My guess is we will see Turgeon settle on a point guard when either Seth Allen or Pe’Shon Howard start running the plays he asks. In the long run it has to be the more offensive-minded Allen, but that may not be for a year or more (think Quinn Cook at Duke).
3. Tar Heel Blog: The arguments surrounding PJ Hairston starting over Dexter Strickland are pretty interesting. Most seem to think Roy Williams has settled on Hairston coming off the bench and providing a spark. This made a lot of sense when he was the guy who might hit four threes or miss a ton of shots, but this year he appears to have really improved his shot selection and in turn his consistency. But until Hairston’s defensive efficiency comes close to matching Strickland’s, don’t expect any major changes from Williams.
4. Soaring to Glory: Boston College needs to win close games if it wants fans to believe it has improved from last season. But the fact that so many more of the Eagles’ games are close this season is a big sign of improvement. This year the Eagles aren’t playing teams close for 30-35 minutes and then getting run off the floor at the end like last season. This year they are competing throughout the game, and also Dennis Clifford is still nowhere close to 100%. No one likes excuses, but it’s hard to win close games without one of your two best players.
5. CBSSports.com: Cool work here from Jeff Goodman and Jeff Borzello. The two talked with four coaches who played Duke about the best way to beat the Blue Devils. The answers are interesting. Every one of the coaches thought Mason Plumlee was the key player, since his offense in the middle opened things up for the shooters outside. Interestingly, they all cited different weaknesses related to defense. One said defensive rebounding; one said guarding ball screens, especially specific to Seth Curry; one said their limited bench; and one implied a shallow defense that you can get by if you can withstand the pressure. Overall, I would agree with all four in that order of importance.

1. Streaking the Lawn:Awesome future non-conference news out of Charlottesville. One thing that’s been dying lately are home-and-home series with non-conference foes, but Virginia will (hopefully) iron out the details on a future head-to-head with local rival VCU. That should make for a really interesting series, and looks to benefit both parties. The Rams and Cavaliers get another marquee non-conference game to prove its strength come Selection Sunday. Fans get a potential budding rivalry played at a high level. Although there is a chance Tony Bennett’s pack-line, slow-down system will spontaneously combust when it meets Shaka Smart’s HAVOC scheme.
2. Baltimore Sun: Jake Layman didn’t have a seamless transition when he got to College Park. He struggled academically and athletically in his first semester, but the freshman is looking for a new start for the new year. Layman has the chance to be a great four-year player for Mark Turgeon, but he just has to focus on “getting better every day.” Don’t expect Layman to be the Terrapins’ most important piece this season, but look for him to be more comfortable on and off the floor.
3. Keeping It Heel: PJ Hairston seems to be growing into a more important role in Chapel Hill this season. He took full advantage of Reggie Bullock’s injury in the Tar Heels’ win over UNLV, playing 32 minutes, scoring 15 points on 10 shots, and grabbing four steals. If Hairston continues to improve — specifically on his shot selection and defensive intensity — don’t be surprised if Roy Williams pushes him to play starter minutes (or replaces Dexter Strickland in the starting lineup).
4. SBNation Boston: Things are looking better in Chestnut Hill. No, the Eagles aren’t looking like contenders but Boston College has looked much better over its recent five-game winning streak. Specifically, the defense is greatly improved and freshmen Joe Rahon and Olivier Hanlan are both averaging double figures. Steve Donahue’s schedule hasn’t been littered with world-beaters, but there’s a lot to be said for learning how to win. This team should be more competitive — even if they don’t win more games — than last year’s squad.
5. Chapelboro: Jeremy Gerlach wrote a travel guide for the ACC (albeit leaving Chapel Hill, Tallahassee, Atlanta, Winston-Salem and College Park off the list). With conference play tipping off this Saturday, you may want to do some research before picking your road trips. This article is an OK place to start, but I’d probably look a little more closely.

1. Chicago Tribune: Apparently some marginal prospect quietly and unobtrusively decided to accept a basketball scholarship to a little known college yesterday. Just kidding. Jabari Parker is going to Duke because he liked the school and thought Michigan State wasn’t a great fit with Branden Dawson already filling the role that Parker expects to play. It’s a huge get for Duke as Parker was the clear number one prospect in the Class of 2013 before Andrew Wiggins decided to reclassify.
2. State of the U: He’s not Jabari Parker, but Miami landed a nice verbal commitment for the season after next in four-star shooting guard Adonys Henriquez. Head coach Jim Larranaga and his staff have been busy trying to prepare the Hurricanes program for the departure of its veteran core. Since Henriquez is in the high school Class of 2014, he won’t be able to provide immediate help next season, but it is good to see that the recruiting work of Miami is bearing some fruit.
3. Washington Post: If you are undecided in terms of a potential career, I’d like to recommend becoming an assistant coach for the Maryland Terrapins. Apparently assistant Dalonte Hill is due a $25,000 bonus if Maryland makes the NCAA Tournament, while Bino Ranson and Scott Spinelli only receive $16,667 in bonus pay if the team goes dancing. Hill makes $307,440 in guaranteed pay, while Spinelli makes only $207,440. Ranson gets $182,400 with an extra $25,000 for media work. Sure the hours are long, the travel is crazy, and there is little to any semblance of job security, but when you make that much as an assistant, it doesn’t seem like such a bad trade-off.
4. Yahoo! Sports: North Carolina is not very good at basketball this year and people are talking about it after the Tar Heels were embarrassed against Texas on Wednesday night. The reasons why North Carolina is losing aren’t complicated: bad defense, wildly inconsistent offense, and a seeming inability to compete with the top rebounders in college basketball. If there is any solace in these problems, it’s the simple fact that these are fairly common issues for a team that is relying heavily on inexperienced big men. These things happen while power forwards and centers figure out how to be effective on the collegiate level. The good news is that most of these players will almost certainly get better with experience and time. Unfortunately for the Tar Heels, with conference play mere weeks away, the team really doesn’t really have that much time to jump-start this season.
5. Wilmington Star News: The Bob Cousy Award watch list was announced this week and it includes seven ACC players. The fairly comprehensive list has 80 names, but it will be cut down to 20 by New Year’s Day. Of the seven, Erick Green and Lorenzo Brown are probably playing at the highest level, but Quinn Cook and Pe’Shon Howard are very talented distributors on good teams (a factor that probably plays a bigger role than most would care to admit). Shane Larkin is in a similar situation to Howard, but both probably need superlative performances to make the cut.  Freshman Montay Brandon of Florida State is unlikely to make the next round since there are at least two other players on his own team who are probably better point guards than him (Devon Bookert and Ian Miller have higher assist percentages and offensive efficiency scores). Dexter Strickland is unlikely to be listed as one of the nation’s top 20 point guards, mostly because he plays at the point guard position for fewer than 10 minutes a game, spending the bulk of his time at shooting guard.