This season may have just wrapped up, but we are always looking forward to next season. Here’s a much too early look at how the ACC may shake out in 2018-19.

The Four Kill4s Arrive in Durham With Much Fanfare

1. Duke. We’ll see if Gary Trent returns, but either way, it’s another loaded freshman class that will make the Blue Devils the most talented team in college basketball. RJ Barrett, Cam Reddish and Zion Williamson are the top three players in the class of 2018 and will be joined by the top-rated point guard, Tre Jones.
2. Virginia. The Cavaliers lose Devon Hall and Isaiah Wilkins but return their starting backcourt of Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy, plus ACC Sixth Man of the Year De’Andre Hunter. Look for Mamadi Diakite to continue a long line of athletic bigs who flourish in Tony Bennett’s system.
3. North Carolina. Joel Berry and Theo Pinson are gone, but the Tar Heels return Luke Maye in addition to Cameron Johnson and Kenny Williams. Roy Williams is also bringing in his best recruiting class in years, with point guard Coby White and wing Nassir Little set to arrive. The improvement of sophomore big men Garrison Brooks, Sterling Manley and Brandon Huffman will be important to watch.
4. Virginia Tech. Buzz Williams loses just Justin Bibbs and Devon Wilson from this year’s squad, and he will return a senior-laden backcourt with Ahmed Hill and potential All-ACC player Justin Robinson. Chris Clarke and Kerry Blackshear, Jr. are versatile bigs who can hit shots from the outside. Last year’s freshmen class also has the potential to break out, especially Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s on the Christmas wish list for each coach in the ACC this holiday season? Let’s take a look.

Jim Christian May Have Already Gotten His Gift With a Win Over Duke (USA Today Images)

• Jim Christian (Boston College): A healthy Deontae Hawkins. The Eagles pulled off a surprising upset of Duke thanks to red-hot three-point shooting, but they won’t be able to sustain it without some help on the interior. Hawkins was averaging 12.4 points and 9.1 rebounds per game before suffering a season-ending knee injury on November 29 at Nebraska. Sadly, Santa can’t fix knee tendons.
• Brad Brownell (Clemson): Some luck in close ACC games. The Tigers appear poised to get back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since Brownell’s first season, but they will need to avoid being snake-bitten like last year’s team that lost nine ACC games by six points or fewer.
• Mike Krzyzewski (Duke): Trevon Duval’s jumper to improve. Teams like Boston College are leaving the freshman point guard open for jumpers in favor of helping on Marvin Bagley III, and Duval is falling into the trap, making just 5-of-33 three-pointers on the season.
• Leonard Hamilton (Florida State): Somebody makes a free throw. The Seminoles shoot 65.8 percent from the line (295th nationally) and M.J. Walker (13-of-16) is the only regular making over 78 percent this season.

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Although the competition was mostly uninspiring over the last several days, it was a very busy weekend of basketball around the ACC. This week will bring an improvement in competition for the league, beginning with Duke taking on Michigan State in the first game of the Champions Classic in Chicago tonight. Just because the opposition wasn’t great, though, doesn’t mean we should ignore opening weekend. Here are the five biggest surprises from the first weekend-plus of the brand new ACC season.

Wake Forest Fell Hard to Georgia Southern on Friday Night (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

1. Wake Forest loses to Georgia Southern. This was a mild surprise but certainly not shocking to anyone who follows the mid-majors. Georgia Southern features two excellent guards in Ike Smith and Tookie Brown, both of whom played well on Friday night. Wake Forest, in its first game without all-ACC star John Collins, showed just how much they will miss the big man this season. In a game with ample opportunity to show their value, junior center Doral Moore battled foul trouble and finished with just two points, while sophomore center Sam Japhet-Mathias played just seven minutes without a point. Danny Manning’s small-ball, backcourt-heavy lineup is workable with Bryant Crawford leading the way, but not if they don’t even have the best backcourt on the floor. Read the rest of this entry »

This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage.

Burning Question: Can Danny Manning avoid a speed bump as the team relies more on its backcourt?

Wake Forest caught a lot of people off guard last season. Sure, head coach Danny Manning was a popular rising star in both the media and blogosphere, but most experts felt like the Demon Deacons were still a year or two away from a ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Instead, super sophomore John Collins morphed into arguably the most productive player in the ACC (earning himself a spot in the NBA First Round over the summer), and Wake Forest eked itself into the First Four of the Big Dance. In year four of the Manning era, he faces a bigger challenge. In addition to losing the all-ACC First Teamer Collins, Wake also lost starting power forward Dinos Mitoglou to the European pros.

Bryant Crawford has big shoes to fill with John Collins gone. (Photo Credit: Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports)

That means this year’s team will rely heavily on its backcourt — especially juniors Bryant Crawford and Keyshawn Woods — for success. Seven-foot junior Doral Moore will be joined by graduate transfer Terrance Thompson in the frontcourt, but neither has the talent of Collins. Moore was a turnover machine last year (26.9% TO rate), and while Collins made a massive leap in usage and efficiency between his freshman and sophomore seasons, he was a much more efficient player to begin with. The Deacs’ general lack of depth in the frontcourt, along with the arrival of consensus top-50 wing Chaundee Brown, means there are likely to be a lot of three- and maybe even four-guard lineups in Winston-Salem this season.

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A couple of Saturdays ago at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Wake Forest gave Duke all it could handle before eventually falling by five points in an exciting ACC shootout. The Demon Deacons followed that disappointment up with a comeback home victory over Pittsburgh, which improved their record to 16-12 overall and 7-9 in the ACC. Going into tonight’s home game against Louisville, Danny Manning‘s third team in Winston-Salem sits among Jerry Palm’s First Four In and Joe Lunardi’s First Four Out. The Deacs pass the eye test with an emerging star in sophomore big man John Collins and a host of additional young players playing beyond their years, but their resume still contains one glaring vacancy that a win over the Cardinals would undoubtedly resolve. With a dismal mark of 0-8 against the RPI top 25, Wake Forest’s best win came over Miami (FL) in mid-January and there are few remaining opportunities to notch an attention-grabbing signature win.

Wake Forest’s John Collins has emerged as the ACC’s best big man. (Brian Westeholt/Wake Sports)

For a program that has not sniffed meaningful postseason basketball since 2010, Manning acutely diagnosed his team’s mental hurdle after the loss at Duke: “We have to continue. We have to find a way. There are no close victories. There are no close feel-goods. There’s none of that. We have to find a way to get it done for the rest of our conference games.” If Wake Forest is to find that elusive quality win tonight against Louisville, it will assuredly be on the merits of an offense that ranks 11th nationally, per KenPom. The Demon Deacons’ defense (131st nationally) is still a work in progress, but with Collins quickly proving to be the ACC’s most talented big man and a number of capable shooters spotting up around him, a defense that bends but doesn’t break may be all they need.

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We are rounding out our ACC Must-Follow List for the year with Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest in this post. If there are any other Twitter accounts that you think should be included, send us a tweet @rtcACC or leave a message in the comments section below.

For the rest of our Must-Follow List, check out the rest of our posts for this year. Note that these will release throughout the day on Thursday.

Virginia

Tony Bennett doesn’t have a Twitter account, but there are some good parodies (Getty Images)

• @UVAMensHoops – Official Twitter account of Virginia’s men’s basketball team
• @JeffWhiteUVa – Jeff White, Director of News Content for official Virginia team site
• @WhiteysWorld365 – Whitelaw Reid, Staff Writer, Virginia Magazine (Official Alumni Magazine)

Players

• Justice Bartley – @justicebartley2
• Trevon Gross, Jr. – @Sir_Trey
• Kyle Guy – @kylejguy5
• De’Andre Hunter – @Dr_Dre14
• Ty Jerome – @tyjerome_
• Jeff Jones – @Jeff_r_Jones
• Austin Nichols – @a_nichols33
• London Perrantes – @London_Tyus
• Jarred Reuter – @JarredReuter22
• Jack Salt – @JackSalt33
• Marial Shayok – @supermarial03
• Darius Thompson – @dthomp15
• Isaiah Wilkins – @IsaiahWilkins21

Bloggers and Beat Writers

• @TheUVAFool – Streaking the Lawn, independent site covering Virginia athletics
• @cavalierinsider – Cavalier Insider, coverage of Virginia athletics from The Daily Progress
• @ARamspacher – Andrew Ramspacher, Virginia athletics beat writer for The Daily Progress
• @JerryRatcliffe – Jerry Ratcliffe, columnist on Virginia athletics and the ACC for The Daily Progress
• @DoughtySports – Douglas Doughty, Virginia athletics beat writer for The Roanoke Times
• @RTD_MikeBarber – Mike Barber, Virginia and Virginia Tech beat writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch
• @normwood – Norm Wood, Virginia and Virginia Tech beat writer for The Daily Press
• @DavidTeelatDP – David Teel, reports on the ACC for The Daily Press
• @Cavs_Corner – Cavs Corner, Virginia focused site on the Rivals network
• @DamonDillman – Damon Dillman, Sports Director at CBS19 Charlottesville

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This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage.

Burning Question: What sort of “sophomore leap” can we expect from Bryant Crawford, John Collins, and Doral Moore?

Wake Forest is coming off an incredibly disappointing season. Despite having a pair of talented seniors in the lineup, the Demon Deacons managed only two league wins last year, causing fans to suffer flashbacks of the Jeff Bzdelik era. The 2015-16 team was better than its record, though, and that discrepancy largely falls on the shoulders of the team’s most talented (and now graduated) players: Codi Miller-McIntyre and Devin Thomas. This year the Demon Deacons will lack their senior leadership but that may finally provide Danny Manning the distance he needs to fully reshape the basketball environment in Winston-Salem. First, I’m an admitted Manning apologist. His results have so far been inconsistent, but Bzdelik passed along a culture so toxic that no one could have reasonably expected a quick fix. This, however, is the year Manning must start to show real progress (with next year being the year to make a leap in the conference standings). The road will be tough and the win total may not reflect significant improvement, but Wake Forest needs to beat the worst teams in the league (here’s looking at you, Boston College and Georgia Tech), while playing competitively against the better teams (hey, Virginia).

John Collins is an analytics darling, but can he make the leap the statistics suggest? (Bob Hebert/Getty)

To replace Miller-McIntyre and Thomas, look no further than sophomores Bryant Crawford, John Collins and Doral Moore. Collins in particular carries the Luke Winn-endorsed high usage and efficiency hallmark of breakout sophomores, and Crawford effectively replaced Miller-McIntyre’s role for much of last season. How competitive Wake Forest will be, though, depends mostly on the team’s ceiling (the ACC is stacked) and I’ll be surprised if Crawford and Collins aren’t the keys to the Deacs’ highest performance. Crawford will need to cut down on his turnovers while Collins needs to prove efficient in increased minutes, but those are achievable goals. Moore, on the other hand, showed flashes of brilliance last season. You can’t teach tall, but Manning appears capable of coaching up his bigs. If that holds true, Moore could become a real star in the ACC by the time he’s done there. Joining the trio of star sophomores are graduate transfer Austin Arians from Milwaukee, who should provide some immediate help on the wing. Don’t look for Arians to become a volume scorer in Winston-Salem, but he can keep opponents honest with his shot and he never turns the ball over. It’s also possible we’ll see a quantum jump from Mitchell Wilbekin this season. His brother Scottie Wilbekin made a big step forward at Florida between his sophomore and junior years. Read the rest of this entry »

This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage.

Burning Question: Is Danny Manning ready to turn this team around a year early?

If you look carefully at Wake Forest, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned with this team. For the second straight season, the Demon Deacons lost several players in the offseason: Madison Jones was dismissed; Darius Leonard graduated; and Aaron Rountree transferred. And among the players still residing in Winston-Salem, the two most talented — Devin Thomas and Codi Miller-McIntyre — are also wildly inconsistent. But despite these concerns, there are also some prompts for optimism. The Deacs return their top five players in terms of minutes played, and three of those five were only freshman a year ago. Danny Manning, in only his fourth year on the bench, appears to have all the makings of a great head coach. Throw in a sneaky good recruiting class of three talented players (sixth-best in the ACC, according to the 247sports composite ranking), and this year’s team has the potential to take a big step forward.

Danny Manning needs to mold Devin Thomas into a more efficient player this season. (photo: Winston-Salem Journal)

Whether Wake does will largely depend on the health and productivity of the veterans. Miller-McIntyre broke his foot last week and will be out through the first couple of games at a minimum. Manning will need him healthy as soon as possible, although giving Mitchell Wilbekin and Bryant Crawford (a consensus four-star point guard) some early time running the show might not be a bad thing. On the other hand, Miller-McIntyre’s untimely injury makes Jones’ dismissal slightly more painful. Wilbekin is more of a short shooting guard than a true point guard, and who knows how quickly Crawford will adjust to the college game? Miller-McIntyre is a proven ACC commodity, and even Thomas, a player capable of creating his own offense from his work on the backboards, could struggle without his old point guard providing him touches. The reality is obvious: If Miller-McIntyre can’t get healthy enough to display what’s become an annual tradition of personal improvement, this Wake Forest team is likely to struggle to climb to the ACC’s middle tier.

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This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage. You will find a list with links to all the team previews on the ACC Microsite Preview Page, located here.

How fast can Danny Manning turn around this program?

With nowhere to go but up, Wake Forest hopes to have hit a home run with the hiring of former NBA star and Tulsa head coach Danny Manning after a miserable stretch under Jeff Bzdelik. Hired to fix a program that was winning on the court but losing off of it (multiple player arrests), Bzdelik flipped the script. His players generally stayed out of trouble, but his teams never sniffed postseason play. The four-year period included a weak overall record (51-76), bad ACC performance (17-51), one of the nations’ worst road records (6-38), and a single ACC Tournament win. No wonder the fan base demanded a change. Assuming Manning will improve from the depths that Bzdelik took this program, how long will it take him to lead Wake Forest back to the role of an ACC contender?

After Four Miserable Years, Wake Forest turns to Danny Manning.
(wxii12.com)

Danny Manning had one on the most storied collegiate careers in history, leading Kansas to the 1988 National Championship and earning National Player of the Year honors along the way. After a long NBA career, Manning decided to pursue a life in coaching. But unlike many former stars who make the move to coaching, Manning went the college route — starting at the ground floor as the director of student-athlete development/team manager, followed by five years as an assistant coach, all at his alma mater — rather than joining an NBA staff.  He deserves credit for not taking a short cut and using his name recognition to land a head coaching job before he was prepared for one. He spent the last two seasons as Tulsa’s head man, which not only gave him excellent experience in the role but also prepared Manning for coaching at a small private school that values academics but also wants to compete athletically with the big public schools. Another interesting thing about Tulsa is that it has historically served as something of a breeding ground for coaches, several of whom have gone on to great success at the high-major level. Look at the chart below. Can Manning become the fourth former Tulsa head coach to reach the pinnacle of the sport, and can he do it at Wake Forest?

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1. He has not coached a game yet, but the Steve Wojciechowski era is already off to a great start. Prior to yesterday, he already had three four-star recruits for his 2015 recruiting class and then he topped it off with the commitment of Henry Ellenson to Marquette. We will point out that Wojciechowski had a huge edge in this recruitment–Henry’s brother Wally transferred to Marquette earlier this summer and that they are from Wisconsin–but he still managed to beat out Michigan State and Kentucky for Henry, a top 10 recruit in the class of 2015. There are already some who are criticizing the commitment saying that this is a package deal since Wally, who averaged just 2 points per game at Minnesota, received a scholarship, but package deals are hardly unique in college sports although they typically involve someone getting an assistant coaching job or something along those lines and while Wally is certainly not a star he did play for a legitimate high major program last year.
2. After having to back out of his transfer to UCLA when he was not accepted into the school, Jon Octeus has found a new home with his decision to transfer to Purdue. Octeus, who averaged 13.4 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game at Colorado State, had originally attempted to transfer to UCLA as a graduate student, but was denied admission to the school, which was a huge blow to the Bruins and might have been the first time we had heard of a graduate student basketball transfer being denied admission. Although the school’s press release does not officially say that he has been admitted (just says that he is pursuing a “Master’s degree in the school of technology”) we are assuming he would not make the same mistake twice. Operating under the assumption that he got admitted this time, Octeus, who would be eligible to play immediately with a graduate transfer waiver, should provide the Boilermakers with a steady influence to balance out what should be their strength inside with A.J. Hammons, 10.8 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game last year, returning.
3. With the way that things appeared to be going for suspended Texas guard Martez Walker the announcement that he had withdrawn from the school should not be that surprising. Walker, who was arrested a month ago for what was described as a domestic violence incident and was arrested again a week later for violating an order not to be in an on-campus residence hall, had been suspended indefinitely and at the time of his first arrest we noted that he probably would not be back any time soon given all of the media attention around athletes and domestic violence in the wake of the Ray Rice video. In the end, Walker, a reserve who averaged 4.7 points and 2.3 rebounds per game and was not expected to see a significantly increased role, opted to leave the school. We have no idea where he will end up next, but we hope he can get his life together.
4. The commitment of Doral Moore to Wake Forest might not make headlines like Ellenson’s commitment to Marquette, but it was still big for Danny Manning. Moore, a four-star center, committed to Wake Forest after a visit to Winston-Salem this past weekend. He had also been considering Illinois and Kentucky before deciding on Wake Forest. As Jeff Borzello notes Moore has the potential to develop into a much better prospect than he is currently rated and unlike Ellenson and more highly touted prospect he is much more likely to stick around for a few years.
5. We mentioned the transfer of Jon Octeus earlier and although he is not on Jeff Eisenberg’s list of impact transfers (presumably due to the timing of his announcement) he is just one example of how important these transfers can be. Eisenberg’s list covers many names that you should be familiar with including a few you may have forgotten about (especially if they had to sit out that dreaded one year instead of getting the now ubiquitous exemption). If you  haven’t kept up with transfer movements or just need a little refresher this might be a good place to start before you get caught off guard at the start of the season.