1. Mode Analytics: Fair warning — you can spend hours with this visualization of where college basketball teams recruit. The only thing that I’d like to see from this is more years included. Obviously with relatively small rosters, things will fluctuate. Fun ACC fact number one: Georgia Tech is by far the most local recruiting school with 13 (!) players coming from Georgia (which is one shy of North Carolina, Duke and NC State’s collective haul in North Carolina). Fact number two: Duke doesn’t have more than two players from any given state (and only Illinois and Indiana border one another).
2. Washington Post: Good stuff by Alex Prewitt putting Maryland‘s resume in (damning) context. To make a long story short, Maryland needs to turn things around. The Terps dug a huge hole in non-conference play, which means there’s no margin for error going forward. But as a (gulp) NIT bid becomes the expectation, what does that mean for Mark Turgeon? He’s had three years at Maryland and done well on the recruiting trail, but his teams haven’t been able to live up to their potential. What’s even more concerning is that, apart from his tenure at Wichita State, there’s not an obvious upward trend at Texas A&M or Maryland. Now I’m a firm believer of giving a coach four years except in extraordinary circumstances, but Turgeon’s seat is going to be very warm next year if things don’t improve soon.
3. Charlottesville Daily Progress: Tyler Ennis isn’t the only freshman point guard turning heads in the ACC. London Perrantes has been a pleasant surprise for the Cavaliers in taking over for the offensively challenged Jontel Evans. Perrantes — as shown by the incident with Okaro White (a significantly bigger and older player) — doesn’t have a confidence problem. And what’s scary is Perrantes is an elite free throw shooter. If his jumper starts falling, Virginia will be nearly impossible to guard.
4. Charlotte Observer: North Carolina isn’t an enigma anymore. Right now they just look like a team that isn’t very good. A lot of different people Andrew Carter interviewed talked about the Tar Heels’ toughness. Roy Williams even harkened back to Tyler Hansbrough as a model of a player who didn’t shy away from contact. That said, there’s still plenty of time for this team to turn things around. They have three great non-conference wins and at least three more chances for more marquee victories this season (to go with a very important match-up in Tallahassee). They might not want to exacerbate things by losing to Clemson on Sunday, though.
5. Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician: As someone who only watched the Big East peripherally, it’s interesting to hear Syracuse discussing whether Pittsburgh is one of its rivals (it actually sounds very similar to Duke fans discussing Maryland). There is also good bit on Dujuan Coleman’s injury impact on Syracuse going forward. And if you still have time, make sure to check out ACC Hustle, a short adapted screenplay of David O’Russell’s most recent film.

1. John Gasaway: Tuesday Truths are back! And with them, some interesting tidbits. Unfortunately, schedules are far from equal this season, but it appears there’s a top tier now separating itself from the pack. That group is Virginia, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Duke. After Duke’s takedown of Miami in Coral Gables last night, I’d expect that foursome to further distinguish itself. As far as future head-to-head match-ups go, Virginia gets Syracuse at home and Pittsburgh away; Syracuse gets Virginia on the road, Duke at home and away, and Pittsburgh away; Pittsburgh gets Virginia at home, Duke at home and Syracuse at home; and Duke gets Syracuse at home and away and Pittsburgh away. Catch all that? On the surface, this schedule favors the Cavaliers and Panthers in the quest for the ACC’s top seed in Greensboro.
2. Winston-Salem Journal: Don’t look now, but Wake Forest won a conference road game! Sure, it was against a beaten-up Virginia Tech team, but now isn’t the time for qualifiers. It’s a time for celebration. Even better news for the Demon Deacons is that Travis McKie found his shot (he went 5-of-6 from beyond the arc en route to scoring 24 points). The highlight of Dan Collins’ article is the interaction with Jeff Bzdelik, though.
3. WRAL: ACC media legend Caulton Tudor pulled no punches in his preview of North Carolina and Clemson. Weirdly, he also hit Virginia with an undeserved drive-by insult (as mentioned above). But the goods are his discussion of the three shoulda-coulda-woulda games for the Tigers. The first came in 1982 (yep, the national title team with Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins and James Worthy) when Matt Doherty and Jimmy Black dragged the Tar Heels from a 10-point second half deficit to win by five. Both teams should be hungry on Sunday, coming off of bad losses.
4. Testudo Times: Jake Layman is in a slump and has been for the last five games. And his slump is likely symptomatic of and a reason for Maryland’s ACC skid. This team needs his outside shooting to spread the floor for its penetrators and bigs to work. It’s no coincidence that Maryland’s three least efficient offensive outings this season came during that stretch, although the only head-scratcher was this week’s loss at NC State. The Wolfpack are not a great defensive team, but Maryland looked lost for the entire second half.
5. Daily Tar Heel: Here’s an editorial calling for North Carolina to relax its rules on the size of the signs students can bring to the Dean Dome. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for letting students bring signs of any size and most any content. But signs won’t erase the “wine and cheese” stereotypes about North Carolina (though the rule certainly enforces them). Letting students vote on ideas to get approved by the athletic department might look like an even more controlled “cheer sheet” that draws so much ire down the road.

It’s often said that the best way to measure a coach is to look at how his teams perform relative to its talent level. Miami head coach Jim Larranaga has always been well-regarded by using that method of evaluation, and not that anyone should be surprised, but Larranaga is doing it again with his 2013-14 Hurricanes. Back in October, the ACC media tabbed Miami as the 12th best team in the conference. After a shaky 5-5 start to the season, the Hurricanes have now won five of their last seven games, including a solid 2-2 league mark in that stretch. In fact, Miami now looks like it is well on its way to topping its preseason ranking, and the Hurricanes now also have legitimate hopes of reaching postseason play. Let’s take a closer look at how Larranaga has managed to turn things around.

Jim Larranaga is Using a Stingy Zone Defense and Slower Pace to Make Miami Very Competitive.
(Photo: Steve Mitchell / USA TODAY Sports)

It was obvious that this was going to be a rebuilding year after losing five seniors along with ACC Player of the Year Shane Larkin from the greatest Hurricanes team ever. And we also knew that with only four returnees from the 2012-13 ACC champions, it would take them a while to figure out how all the pieces would best fit together. The first 10 games of the season got off to a rocky start with an overtime home loss to St. Francis (NY) and closed with another overtime home loss, this time to league bottom-feeder Virginia Tech. It was at that point when Larranaga decided to try a new defensive game plan in switching to a zone. As a coach who had primarily taught man-to-man defense during his long career, the 64-year old decided to call on a couple of his old coaching buddies for some help. Former Pittsburgh head coach Ralph Willard and Syracuse assistant Bernie Fine each spent a day teaching the details of playing a match-up zone to the Miami coaching staff.

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After the second weekend of conference play, the ACC’s historically best two programs were in trouble. North Carolina was all alone at the bottom of the standings with an 0-3 record, and Duke wasn’t in much better shape at 1-2. Since then, both schools’ Hall of Fame coaches have made some changes to try and turn things around. At least for one week, each coach has managed to stop the bleeding. Duke has now won two straight games — over Virginia (69-65) and N.C. State (95-60) — since Mike Krzyzewski made some lineup and style changes; and North Carolina got its first ACC win Saturday over Boston College (82-71) in the Tar Heels’ only game of the week, featuring a starting lineup change from Roy Williams. Below we will look at the problems that each team was confronting, what the coaches did to address those issues, and consider the results and future expectations as a result.

Duke

Problems. The Blue Devils’ defense simply has not been good enough, ranking outside of Ken Pomeroy’s top 100 in adjusted efficiency for much of the season. Opponents were scoring easily in the paint — perhaps not surprising with Duke’s lack of interior size. But even worse was Duke’s inability to counter that deficiency with good perimeter pressure, and the lack of player communication and teamwork in defensive help situations. Offensively, the Blue Devils were not playing well as a unit, often falling into the habit of one-on-one play with little ball movement.

Coach K is Playing More People to Keep Young Duke Team Fresh.(Photo:cbssports.com)

Adjustments. Krzyzewski and his staff decided to not only make a change in the starting lineup — inserting freshman Matt Jones — but they adjusted the entire rotation. As the TV commentators noted in each game, it was as if Duke was making hockey-style line changes in the first half. Both games followed the same pattern. About three minutes after the tip, five new Blue Devils checked in. A few minutes later, all the starters returned. Soon after that, it was another complete change. At that point in each contest — roughly 10-12 minutes in — all 11 scholarship players had logged at least three minutes of action. While the five-at-a-time substituting did not continue into the second half, Krzyzewski kept using his bench, with no player seeing more than 30 minutes in either contest. There was also a subtle stylistic change on each end of the court. The Blue Devils extended their defense further out than they had been, and they played more of a motion offense instead of mostly using set plays.

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It’s the third weekend of conference play in the ACC, so let’s take a look at the match-ups from an advanced statistics perspective. With every team except North Carolina having played at least four ACC games, we will now be using conference games only statistics along with team rankings 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 January 15, 2014. The games are presented in the order of best combined Pomeroy overall team rankings (all times EST).

Saturday – Pittsburgh (16-1, 4-0 ACC) @ Syracuse (17-0, 4-0 ACC) – ESPN (4:00 PM)

Syracuse’s C.J. Fair and Pittsburgh’s James Robinson Renew Their Rivalry in a New Conference.
(Photo: bigstory.ap.org)

The best match-up of the weekend is ironically between these two ACC newcomers. Something has to give as Pittsburgh is leading the conference with 78.5 points per game in ACC play, while the Orange have the stingiest defense, allowing only 50.0 points per game. As he has all season, senior Lamar Patterson leads the way for the Panthers, averaging 20.0 PPG in ACC games. He will probably match up frequently with Syracuse’s All-America candidate C.J. Fair (17.1 PPG) in Pitt’s man-to-man defense. The battle at point guard may decide the game as Syracuse’s freshman sensation Tyler Ennis faces off with Pitt sophomore James Robinson. In conference games only, Ennis leads the league in assists (6.5 APG) and steals (3.0 SPG), while Robinson has the ACC’s best assist/turnover ratio (16/2).

Stat Watch. Pittsburgh leads the ACC by a huge margin in field goal percentage in conference games at 51.6 percent, while Syracuse is 10th at 40.9. Ball-handling will be important as these are the top two teams in the ACC in steals. It will also be interesting to see how many three-point shots Pittsburgh tries against the Orange zone, as they are last in the league in attempts, while Syracuse allows more than any other team.

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There is no question that Virginia entered the season fully expecting to be able to count on senior Joe Harris to elevate the team to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012 and make a serious run at the upper echelon of the ACC. Harris was considered one of the surest bets not only on the Cavaliers roster, but in the entire new-look ACC. He made the all-conference first team last season and received preseason votes for ACC player of the year.  After a non-conference slate from which the Cavaliers emerged an uninspiring 9-4 with zero standout wins and whiffs in statement games versus VCU, Wisconsin and Tennessee along with a bad loss to Wisconsin Green-Bay, fans and analysts alike surmised the Cavs were having disappointing seasons from just about everyone on the roster. But Harris was actually the main culprit, with his scoring way down and, perhaps most puzzlingly, carrying an average of only seven field-goal attempts per contest.

UVA’s long-term fortunes are directly tied to Joe Harris (credit: associatedpress)

Now, four games into the ACC slate, it appears that Harris has finally found his scoring stroke at just the right time. Virginia, needing a strong conference record to offset its non-conference woes, has begun 3-1 in the ACC with only a tough loss to Duke at Cameron Indoor blemishing their conference record. It’s no coincidence that much of what glaringly ailed Tony Bennett’s team early on has seemingly been remedied. The defense is still suffocating; the frontcourt is back to providing secondary scoring options and commanding the glass; and the team is getting better shots as a result of improved ball movement and patience.

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Much was made of the three former Big East teams entering the league this season and having to adapt to the ACC’s style of play. This notion was supported by the simple fact of sheer numbers; the returning ACC teams would number 12 teams while the Big East was sending over only three units. What did not get enough preseason attention was how the ACC as a whole would adapt to the very different styles of play of the three incoming teams, all quite successful programs in their own rights. Notre Dame under head coach Mike Brey is known for its selfless team basketball, execution, cutting and the extra pass, while developing a litany of elite low post big men like Luke Harangody, Jack Cooley, and now Garrick Sherman. While the Irish lost its best player in Jerian Grant for the year, their style of play was on display and ultimately decided the outcome in a statement win against Duke.

Pitt’s James Robinson is a large reason the Panthers are 16-1 (Photo: pittsburghpanthers.com)

Syracuse’s famous 2-3 zone has helped in establishing itself as one of the best teams in the nation and has put the Orange among a group of three unbeaten teams remaining. Their defense has flummoxed ACC opponents to the tune of allowing only 50.0 PPG to ACC foes through their first four games. They clearly have taken charge and dominated the tempo in their outings, most recently holding UNC a full 30 points below its season average of 75.6 PPG. While it remains early in the ACC race, so far it seems obvious that both Syracuse and Pittsburgh have been forcing their own tempo and style of play on their opponents and not vice versa. Jamie Dixon’s Panthers are known for their toughness and gritty play, both of which were evident in their recent 12-point road victory over N.C. State. Famed ESPN analyst Dick Vitale confirmed this theory and perception when he noted: “There are certain programs that get certain labels that help them big-time psychologically… the mindset is where you’re at a negative before you ever start playing, and I think Pittsburgh has that, that label of being tough.”

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1. Charlotte Observer: What’s plaguing Duke, North Carolina and NC State? The fine beat writers and sports columnists of the Charlotte Observer (and effectively the Raleigh News & Observer) took a shot at pinpointing the issue. What is glaringly obvious is that Duke has the highest ceiling and has been a disappointment to start conference play. Coach K going with hockey-style line changes against Virginia worked like a charm for most of the game, but the Cavaliers’ late run still points to overarching issues. North Carolina has talent, but it’s increasingly clear that the pieces just might not fit correctly there without PJ Hairston. NC State is rebuilding with (unsurprisingly) mixed results. Also a fun fact from Stephen Schramm: “The last time there was an AP basketball poll without Duke and North Carolina was December 28, 1982.”
2. Cardiac Hill: Pittsburgh got some horrible news this week as Durand Johnson tore his ACL and will be out for the rest of the season. Johnson was an important offensive option from the bench, as he’s one of the Panthers’ best three-point and free throw shooters. Losing him will likely mean more minutes for Jamel Artis and maybe Chris Jones. I’d certainly like to see Jones get a little more run because he’s been a very efficient scorer in his limited minutes.
3. Macon Telegraph: Speaking of Pittsburgh, the Panthers travel to Atlanta today to give Georgia Tech its second chance in as many tries to knock off a new member of the conference. Pitt is a better team than Georgia Tech, but I think the Yellow Jackets have a shot if the can cobble together a decent offensive performance. The key will be locking down Lamar Patterson and the paint, but the big question is whether Chris Bolden has finally found his shot or whether the game against Notre Dame was an aberration.
4. Baltimore Sun: Jonathan Graham has been a very pleasant surprise for Mark Turgeon this season, although his playing time is at least partially due to the less pleasant surprise that has been Shaquille Cleare and Charles Mitchell’s collective season. Graham is currently the sparkplug in the post for Maryland. Despite a size disadvantage, he’s been effective and he also brings a toughness that has been missing on the Terrapins’ front line.
5. Syracuse Post-Standard: Syracuse is a big draw this season. I wouldn’t go as far to say the Orange are “like the Miami Heat or the Boston Red Sox,” but they’re certainly one of the hotter tickets in most places. That said, the Orange played their first road game at Virginia Tech in front of a half-filled stadium. But I’ll offer a caveat to these numbers: This is the first year ACC fans have had a chance to see Syracuse. Also, better teams sell out faster and more often.

EXTRA: PJ Hairston is slated to join the Texas Legends in the NBA’s D-League.

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.

There was a lot of movement in my bracketology this weekend. After  a loss to Clemson, Duke is now free-falling. North Carolina, sitting at 0-3 in the ACC after a loss at Syracuse, has fallen all the day to the No. 8 seed line. Ohio State, a team which really has a lackluster overall profile after back-to-back losses to Michigan State and Iowa, has now fallen to my final  No. 3 seed position. The Buckeyes had risen to a No. 1 seed in a bracket I released last week. Colorado and Oregon are also falling quickly. The Buffaloes have the better resume but are preparing for bad news about leading scorer Spencer Dinwiddie, who went down with an apparent knee injury last night in a loss to Washington. If Dinwiddie is out for the year, you will see that reflected in my next bracket. Among the teams moving up include Oklahoma, which handed Iowa State its first loss of the season over the weekend. San Diego State has also continued to climb and is nearing the No. 2 seed line, but stays as a No. 3 for now. Iowa also leaped up to the No. 5 line after one of the best resume-building wins of the year at Ohio State.

Last Four In: Indiana State, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Georgetown
First Four Out: Arizona State, St. Mary’s, Boise State, Southern Mississippi

Another week of college basketball is in the books and with that was another week of noteworthy upsets. Previously undefeated and third-ranked Ohio State relearned the rigors of the Big Ten, as the Buckeyes fell twice this past week – at #4 Michigan State on Tuesday and at home to #8 Iowa on Sunday. Having lost its first ACC game to Notre Dame, #24 Duke rebounded nicely with a home win over Georgia Tech before suffering another conference loss – this time on the road to Clemson. Previously 13th-ranked Oregon and 17th-ranked Colorado discovered the perils of Pac-12 play, as the Ducks dropped home games to California and Stanford, and the Buffaloes were thoroughly outmanned in a loss at Washington on Sunday. If the first two weeks of conference play serve as any indication, the conference season will be full of excitement, surprises, and a rather fluid RTC25 the rest of the way. The quick n’ dirty analysis of this week’s poll is after the jump.

Quick n’ dirty Analysis.

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