1. Charlottesville Daily Progress: Akil Mitchell‘s offense is starting to come around. His defense has been elite all season, but his offense has taken a major step back from last year. His numbers still don’t match the double-double machine he was, but his shooting splits (not counting the free throw line) are almost identical to 2012-13. The good news is that his rebounding is back at an elite level. This year the Cavaliers don’t need him to shoulder nearly the same offensive load, but he’s absolutely critical for the Cavaliers on the boards.
2. Syracuse Post-Standard: So the ratings are back from Syracuse–Duke and it’s safe to say the ACC will want these two schools to play multiple times a year. ESPN’s broadcast on Saturday night outdrew Lebron versus Durant two nights earlier, making it the highest rated sports event of the week (on cable). It also nearly doubled the ratings for North Carolina-Duke last Thursday night, which were admittedly split between ESPN and the local networks. Also, please enjoy more Jim Boeheim memes in the bottom slideshow.
3. Charlotte Observer: Tyler Lewis finally has the starting point guard job at NC State. When Cat Barber started earlier this season, it looked like Lewis might be destined to become a role player coming off the bench. But as Barber’s freshman mistakes mounted, Mark Gottfried started going to Lewis more often. Lewis still can’t keep opposing guards in front of him, but there’s no denying that the Wolfpack’s offense looks best when he’s at the helm. He needs to improve his defense to keep the job in the long term because Barber will assuredly improve his consistency as he gets older.
4. Raleigh News & Observer: Don’t look now but Marshall Plumlee is looking like a talented basketball player. It’s weird to say that there weren’t high expectations for a McDonalds All-American, but Plumlee never got much attention last season or for much of this one. Plumlee isn’t likely to see a huge boost in minutes next year (unless the Blue Devils want to go massive with him and Jahlil Okafor on the floor), but he already looks like a totally different player. He’s become much more confident, and therefore, effective. His shot-blocking and rebounding could end up being the Zoubekian post presence many have suggested that the Blue Devils need to make it to the Final Four.
5. Blogger So Dear: Wake Forest showed some fight last night, playing spoiler at a sparsely attended game in Winston-Salem. The Demon Deacons beat Clemson, probably putting the Tigers on the wrong side of the bubble for good (barring a miraculous ACC Tournament run). Most importantly Jeff Bzdelik’s team showed a spark in the second half that had been missing the last couple of games. His team hasn’t quit yet, and still has an outside shot of finishing .500 with winnable games against Boston College and Miami (though that’s on the road) coming up.

1. GoHeels.com: It may get a little dusty, so make sure to grab the tissues before reading Adam Lucas’ story on Meredith Stapleton‘s trip to see North Carolina beat Duke. Sometimes sports fandom eclipses the event itself. This qualifies. It’s a moving and expertly written story that captures exactly what the game meant for one fan among over 20,000 others.
2. Sports Illustrated: Seth Davis talked with Tony Greene, the referee who made the controversial call in the Syracuse-Duke game before ejecting Jim Boeheim. Unsurprisingly, officials around the country sent messages of support to him afterward. That doesn’t mean he got the call right, though. Davis and Greene don’t discuss the call itself, although he lauds Greene for his demeanor after ejecting Boeheim. That said, how many refs act differently? Their job is to keep their cool, especially after throwing someone out.
3. Baltimore Sun: Speaking of Boeheim, he was in top salty form after the Orange eked out a win last night at Maryland. After the game, Mark Turgeon noted that he thought a foul should have been called with under 10 seconds left that would have sent the Terrapins to the line down one. Boeheim had this to say: “They shot 27 free throws. If anybody is going to complain about the officiating, I’m going to complain. And I think I did enough of that Saturday. Five times that we saw them going to the basket that there was no foul and there was a foul called five times. You want to talk about one play? I’ll talk about five times. If they didn’t turn it over 18 times, they wouldn’t have had to worry about that.” Unfortunately for everyone in attendance, he didn’t drop the mic.
4. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: If Pittsburgh is going to take its program to the next level, Jamie Dixon needs better players. There’s no denying that he’s a great coach and one of the best developers of talent in the ACC. But you just can’t win it all without five-star recruits. Interestingly, it appears Dixon is doing his best to bring more life to his recruiting. Whether that’s because of the rule changes, conference realignment, or at the athletic department’s behest, we’ll never know.
5. Syracuse Post-Standard: Good look at foul differentials across the ACC. North Carolina had the biggest road-home swing, with a -24 foul differential on the road and an equal and opposite number at home. Syracuse, unsurprisingly has the best home differential. Maryland is the worst at home and on the road. One thing I’d like to see removed from the analysis is garbage-time fouls, which likely skew away splits (where you’re more likely to be losing at the end of games).

EXTRA: I’ll leave you with this, courtesy of Bomani Jones.

state fan is a fascinating guy pic.twitter.com/Vh4zLHgUo9

— Bomani Jones (@bomani_jones) February 25, 2014

The story of last week in college basketball was previously-unbeaten Syracuse suffering its first two losses of the season. On Wednesday, the Orange were stunned at home in overtime by Boston College – a team that entered the game with a 6-19 overall record. Hoping to dust off Wednesday’s disaster, Syracuse traveled to Duke on Saturday for a rematch of February 1’s instant classic. The Blue Devils prevailed in the rematch thanks in large part to a controversial charging call that went against Syracuse and led to coach Jim Boeheim’s ejection in the final 10 seconds of the game. Duke’s victory was much needed for the Blue Devils’ slim hopes in the ACC race after it had suffered its fourth conference loss on Thursday at North Carolina. Atop the Big Ten standings, Michigan was able to gain a one-game lead in the loss column over second-place Michigan State after the Wolverines completed their season sweep of the Spartans in Sunday’s 79-70 victory in Ann Arbor. The conference race in the AAC became even tighter Saturday when Louisville knocked off Cincinnati to trim the Bearcats’ conference lead to merely a half-game there. Both teams will be tested this Saturday, as the Cards will travel to Memphis and the Bearcats will travel to Connecticut. As the season continues into its final stretch, it will be very interesting to see how these conference races end up shaking out. The quick n’ dirty analysis of this week’s poll is after the jump.

 Quick n’ dirty analysis.

Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel Evans (@bracketexpert) is Rush the Court’s resident bracketologist. He will update his brackets at least twice a week through the rest of the regular season here at RTC, but his updated brackets can be viewed daily at Bracketology Expert. As we approach March Madness, he’ll also provide occasional blind resumes. Evans has been ranked by the Bracket Matrix as the nation’s 11th-best bracketologist out of hundreds of entries. 

This weekend was supposed to clear up the NCAA Tournament picture, but it didn’t really help much at all. However, a couple of things are obvious right now. Florida had moved to my No. 1 overall seed with Syracuse’s loss to Boston College last week and another Gators’ win over the weekend did nothing to change that. Syracuse‘s second straight loss moved the Orange down to the No. 3 overall seed, and Duke, despite a Thursday loss to North Carolina, remains a solid No. 2 seed.

The movement in this week’s bracket involves Wisconsin, which is a common theme this year. It seems like the Badgers have been on every protected seed line over the course of the last month. The Badgers are now back at a No. 2 seed, and if they can win the Big Ten Tournament, they might still have an outside shot at a No. 1 seed.

Moving down the bracket, the bubble is a headache waiting to happen. Actually, it’s a headache happening right now, as I type this. I haven’t changed the teams at the bottom of my bracket very much lately, because I still feel firm in the best at-large resumes and nothing lately has really changed anything.

If you want an example of how crazy it is around the bubble cut line, look at Arizona State.  A week after beating Arizona, the Sun Devils were blown out by Utah on Sunday night. Yet, I still have the Sun Devils as a No. 8 seed. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh, which may have the worst profile of any consensus top 30 team in history, continues to slide after a bad loss to Florida State. Seeding the Panthers is a  huge guessing game right now. Will the committee seed them based on their profile, which clearly makes Jamie Dixon’s team one of the last teams in or out of the field, or based on the way most observers view the team (not including this one): As a Top 25 team that has had a few bad breaks, like the last second Syracuse buzzer-beater? I’m guessing it will be somewhere in the middle right now.

The complete bracket is after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

1. WRAL Sports Fan: What a game. Before we even get to the controversial call, Syracuse and Duke on Saturday night was another evenly-matched contest in one of the best atmospheres of the season. One thing that is lost in the early season tournaments that are increasingly drawing better lineups is the raucous home environments. Moving forward, I thought the call should have been a block (especially under the new rules), but it was a closer decision than many gave it credit for. To me Rodney Hood was set (his feat “shuffled,” but didn’t go anywhere), but he never quite got squared up with CJ Fair. A tough 50/50 call was bound to go against the Orange late there, but it’s unfortunate that it somewhat overshadowed a second terrific game. So with that said, let me second Adam Gold in saying that the ACC has to find a way to make this happen twice a year (and go ahead and queue up the same piece with North Carolina and Louisville for next season).
2. Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician: Oh, and there was Jim Boeheim‘s rant that resulted in his ejection. It was epic. It was a perfect “10” in photoshop-ability. He also embraced it after the game, saying “I thought I got out there pretty good. I was quick; I stayed down; I didn’t get injured.” It was Boeheim’s first ejection in a non-preseason game, and to be clear, I don’t blame him for losing it. I don’t think he was “making a point” to the league or its officials, but I also don’t think the two techs cost his team the game either. Long story short: enjoy the meme.
3. Sports Illustrated: Lastly, here’s a good preview from Pete Thamel that looked at the relationship between Mike Krzyzewski and Jim Boeheim. Other than their penchant for salty press conferences, age, and  significant figures in the wins column, there aren’t all that many similarities between Coach K and Boeheim. But their differences also probably help each other somewhat. Boeheim pointed to Krzyzewski’s ability to teach mental preparation. My guess is that Krzyzewski has learned some things beyond the intricacies of the 2-3 zone from Boeheim too.
4. Washington Post: It’s always a treat when John Feinstein writes on the ACC. This time, he writes about Virginia and the 180 that the team did after Tennessee took them behind a woodshed in Knoxville. The Cavaliers now sit in control of their own destiny in sole possession of first place in the ACC. Likely favored to win the (increasingly unbalanced) ACC regular season title, they will almost certainly get a double-bye in next month’s ACC Tournament. The one big test remaining for Tony Bennett’s team — Syracuse at home — will also be a chance to confirm to the Selection Committee that this team is as good as its record.
5. Tomahawk Nation: Leonard Hamilton‘s team has revived its NCAA chances with a win at Pittsburgh yesterday. Meanwhile, the Panthers likely earned themselves a very uncomfortable position on the bubble. One surprise is how much success that ACC teams are having at Pittsburgh this season, a school known for its great home-court advantage. Part of that may be that this team has over-performed against mediocre and poor teams. Regardless, we should have plenty to talk about with the NCAA Tournament bubble in this league during the last couple of weeks of conference play.

Start your weekend off right, with the RTC Podblast, a quick review of the week that was and a look ahead to the weekend that comes. It was a wacky week of college basketball, with some really odd results, but as we approach the two-week mark until the end of the regular season, it’s likely to only get nuttier as desperation sets in for many teams. Join us as we do our best to work through some takeaways from all of the action.

Make sure to subscribe to the podcast/podblast on iTunes so that you’ll get all of the episodes immediately downloaded to your listening device.

• 0:00-4:18 – BC Stuns Syracuse!
• 4:18-10:41 – UNC Rushes the Court Against Duke (oh yeah, they won the game too)
• 10:41-18:10 – Weekend Preview

It’s another weekend of conference play in the ACC, so let’s take a look at the match-ups from an advanced statistics perspective. All statistics used are for results in ACC conference games only along with team rankings (#1-#15) in each category. For each game we will show how the two teams compare in efficiency ratings and the four factors, offense versus defense. We will also look at interesting areas of particular strength and weakness that could hold the key to the outcomes of these games. All numbers are from Ken Pomeroy’s site and are current through games of February 19, 2014. The games are presented in the order of best combined Pomeroy overall team rankings (all times EST).

Saturday – Syracuse (25-1, 12-1 ACC) @ Duke (21-6, 10-4 ACC) – ESPN (7:00 PM)

Pomeroy Prediction: (#5) Duke 70-65 (#9) Syracuse

A little of the shine came off this weekend’s national spotlight game, when Syracuse suffered its first defeat of the season Wednesday night, and then Duke stumbled Thursday night in Chapel Hill. It wasn’t surprising that the Orange finally lost one, given all the narrow victories they’ve had lately, but it is shocking that the culprit was Boston College, and also that the loss happened in the Carrier Dome. The fact that average teams keep taking Syracuse to the wire is probably of bigger concern right now. It’s quite possible that this depth-shy Syracuse team is starting to wear down a bit. Even though they play a zone defense which uses less energy than man-to-man, the heavy minutes played may be affecting the Orange’s starters. In ACC play, Syracuse has four players logging over 35 minutes per game. Duke also looked like a tired team Thursday. The Blue Devils’ normally high powered offense had no juice in the second half of that game, going a stretch of almost nine minutes without a field goal. Much of the credit should go to North Carolina’s defense and the outstanding Smith Center crowd, but when Duke did get an open look, they usually came up short -probably due to tired legs. So, we should not expect either team to repeat the offensive display from the first meeting, when each scored at an astounding rate – both over 1.30 points per possession. With their fourth game in eight days, the Blue Devils may have to depend on the Cameron Crazies and a bunch of minutes from the bench, to get over the energy hump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Three Key Takeaways.

North Carolina Had A Huge Edge in Free Throws, Making 13-of-17 In the Second Half. (Brad Jenkins/RTC)

1. North Carolina proves that the Heels can (still) compete with any team. It now seems like a distant memory, but back in November and December, North Carolina was maddeningly inconsistent, beating each of the top three teams in the preseason AP poll but also dropping games to UAB and Belmont. The Tar Heels are no longer losing to the average teams, but they still are rising to the challenge when facing the nation’s best. That was the case again on Thursday night, as the Tar Heels thoroughly outplayed #5 Duke in the second half, rallying from behind to notch the big home win. Not only did North Carolina win its eighth consecutive game, but they once again showed impressive mental toughness in coming from behind for the second time in three days. This is beginning to look like a team that could make a nice run in March. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Syracuse Post-Standard: Mike Hopkins is into advanced statistics. Specifically, he looks at rebounds per minute (a stat NBA teams look at closely to try and gauge a college player’s future potential on the blocks). He also has his own version of the player efficiency rating that he uses to scout teams and address concerns for the upcoming season. It’s interesting he chooses per-40 stats instead of the raw efficiency stats, though.
2. Raleigh News & Observer: NC State needs a really strong showing the rest of its season to wind up in the NCAA Tournament. A weak bubble helps, but the Wolfpack need a lot of wins and don’t have a lot of time to get them. At this point, NC State is Pittsburgh-Lite in terms of resumes (essentially no horrible losses but no good wins either). They have a better RPI than resume, which is troubling (in that “you’ll count as a good win, but don’t have a good shot at making the Big Dance” kind of way). The good news is that’s a foundation that a win at Pittsburgh would help a lot with (especially with one big ACC Tournament win), but NC State is a long shot at this point.
3. FSU News: Big administrative news out of Tallahassee, as Eric Barron will be moving to Penn State to serve as president. Barron will leave Florida State in early April. It’s a turbulent time for the school as a whole, as they look for a billion dollar capital campaign to push Florida State into the top 25 public universities in the country (Barron said he’d continue his fundraising, but it’s going to be tough to raise a billion dollars with an interim president). One interesting piece of the puzzle is Florida law, which gives state politicians much more influence in school matters than most states. This is a huge future hire from an ACC fan perspective, as things could get rocky if the future president isn’t as dedicated to the ACC as Barron(who always was a public supporter of the conference)  has been.
4. From The Rumble Seat: Bobby Cremins and Homer Rice are being elected into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame tomorrow. Cremins was a huge part of Georgia Tech basketball’s ascension to relevance before the school pushed him out in 2000. Three years later the school reconciled with him, honoring Cremins with his name on the court. Rice was the athletic director for 17 years, and the athletic success (in football and basketball) under his tenure is a large part of the Yellow Jackets’ perceived high potential.
5. iSportsWeb: I hate to break it to John Ernstes, but there’s no chance that Wake Forest lands Gregg Marshall. Wichita State is paying Marshall very well. While the Wake Forest job would be a moderate increase in exposure, I doubt they’ll be willing to break the bank. And he’s definitely got easier success with the Shockers than he’d have in Winston-Salem. I think Wake Forest has to aim a little lower (or at least riskier).

Oh, and North Carolina found a way to hold Duke‘s offense to no field goals in nearly 10 minutes of game time en route to a win in Chapel Hill.

1. It has been relatively quiet in terms of news around the Ed O’Bannon case, but yesterday the plaintiffs picked up a significant victory as a federal judge gave the ok for the class action suit to go to federal court. It will still be a very long time before we get a verdict in the case, but this is a big step in that direction. Having said that with all of the legal maneuvering that the NCAA can do here they will probably try to stall this case as long as possible because it appears that the only thing that can stop this case from being decided by a verdict is if the two sides reach an agreement.
2. Luke Winn’s Weekly Power Rankings are already probably one of the most challenging columns to write under normal circumstances (part of why we link it almost every week), but after Wednesday night’s craziness it was made even tougher. Luke still produced some interesting stats, but our favorite one this week might be his comparison of Big Ten Win-Loss records against efficiency margins. It is essentially a graphical version of John Gasway’s Tuesday Truths, but the direct comparison seems to make it much more illustrative of how records can sometimes be deceiving.
3. It seemed inevitable that once Rick Pitino (ok, and Tom Izzo too) spoke out against his players using social media that John Calipari would come out defending social media. The fact that Calipari supports social media should not be a surprise since he uses it better than any other major coach. The best part of Calipari’s appearance on Mike and Mike outside of making fun of the hosts for their performance in the celebrity game during NBA All-Star weekend was him saying that Pitino and Izzo ” know nothing about social media.” Say what you will about Calipari, but he knows how to cater to his target audience. Pitino and Izzo can target the donors and administrators who might not be into social media. Calipari will just target the teenagers who will become NBA lottery picks in a few years.
4. Tomorrow’s game between Duke and Syracuse may have lost some of its luster with both teams losing the game leading into their showdown, but don’t tell that to fans trying to get tickets on the secondary market. According to TiqIQ the upcoming Duke-Syracuse game will be the most expensive ticket this season with an average price of $2,125 on the secondary market. Now these figures are from before Duke’s loss at UNC so that number might have come down a little bit, but the biggest factor in what makes Duke games so expensive (outside of Duke usually being very good) is how small Cameron Indoor is.
5. With March approaching most programs are focused on their on-court performance. For Southern their performance off the court and in the classroom might be more important than what they do on the court as they are hoping be able to avoid a postseason ban over its APR. If Southern, which leads the SWAC, is ineligible for the postseason it would mark the second consecutive season that the SWAC regular season champ was ineligible for postseason play. Interestingly, Southern was a beneficiary of the ban last season as they earned the SWAC’s automatic bid after Texas Southern was ineligible to compete in the postseason.