The Big 12 may have fired the first shot in the war for America’s top conference — or at least its favorite to watch this season — earlier this week with the triple-overtime classic between Oklahoma and Kansas. The 109-106 Jayhawks’ victory may have been the first truly great game of the year, but it won’t be the last, and the ACC will certainly have something to say something about that. It’s not often that the behemoth East Coast conference does anything under the radar, but the ACC deserves some additional attention this season. Were you aware that five of KenPom‘s top 11 teams reside in this league? Duke (#8) and North Carolina (#11) will always be touted by fans and the media. Virginia (#6) has notched some big wins this season as well a few notable losses. Louisville (#7) was home to the offseason’s biggest scandal and has been featured in two of this season’s biggest games — against Michigan State and Kentucky.

Miami is quietly having a very good season. (Getty)

But one of those five ACC teams has marched itself to a 12-1 start without attracting much attention. Miami (#7) is shooting 50 percent from the field, scoring more than 80 points per game, and have already notched victories over Utah, Butler, Florida and Syracuse. So why hasn’t the hype train found its way to Coral Gables? Four other highly-ranked ACC teams limits the available oxygen, but there are also a number of reasons to be reluctant about Jim Larranaga‘s squad. First, Miami’s schedule has been iffy. It ranks 234th nationally and, as a result, its only loss came to an up-and-down Northeastern (#81) team at home. Furthermore, the wins the Hurricanes have logged are impressive, but none came in true road games. In fact, Miami has so far only played two of those against mediocre competition (at Nebraska and La Salle).

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

Can Jim Larranaga lead another experienced team to a magical season?

When the USA Today/Coaches Preseason Poll was released in October, we were a little surprised to see Miami among the others receiving votes grouping rather than listed in the Top 25. Even more shocking was that the Hurricanes came in 37th in the overall voting, behind seven other ACC schools. The recently released AP Preseason Top 25 gave Miami slightly more respect, placing them 31st in the voting. It’s our view that the Hurricanes are going to be better than that, and several notable media members seem to agree; both Gary Parrish (CBS) and Dick Vitale (ESPN) rank Miami at #21 in their Top 25s, and the ACC Media listed the Hurricanes as the ACC’s fifth-best team heading into the season. Our main reason for optimism regarding this year’s Miami squad involves the long and demonstrated coaching track record of Jim Larranaga.

In looking at Larranaga’s last 12 seasons, a clear pattern emerges that shows that experience on his teams really matters. And it REALLY matters. From 2005-15, there have been four occasions in which Larranaga brought back a more experienced squad than the previous year. In each case, his team’s conference wins rose dramatically (average of +4.5 wins) and Larranaga led all four of those squads into the NCAA Tournament, including the George Mason team that made the 2006 Final Four. With a returning roster that includes four seniors and two juniors among his top eight players, this year’s Miami club is well-poised to make another similar jump. It says here to watch out for the Hurricanes as a possible darkhorse league championship contender. Read the rest of this entry »

How quickly can Jim Larranaga rebuild at the ACC level?

There’s no denying Jim Larranaga is a great coach. He won at George Mason and he won when he got to Miami. But the question is whether he can put together a program in Coral Gables like Leonard Hamilton or Tony Bennett have in Tallahassee and Charlottesville? There are two parts of coaching at any level: player development and game coaching. Two seasons ago, Larranaga showed he was a master at both. But at the college level, there’s a third equally important factor in play: recruiting.

Jim Larranaga needs this team to improve on last year’s. (photo credit: AP)

Leonard Hamilton is the better comparison because Miami doesn’t have nearly the investment in basketball as Virginia, but both Hamilton and Bennett run sustainable programs. He also turned Miami into a strong Big East program before moving on to Tallahassee. Hamilton’s team has had its ups and downs, but Florida State is always competitive and will be a contender every few seasons. It’s important to remember that building a program takes time, but this year should say a lot about Miami’s momentum. Last season, Larranaga established his floor: close to .500 overall, bottom of the middle tier of the ACC, and a win in Chapel Hill. The team was competitive. Rion Brown stepped up as the only important returnee from the 2013 conference champions. Now he’s gone, leaving junior Tonye Jekiri and sophomore Manu Lacomte to take the reins here.

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1. Emmanuel Mudiay‘s decision to head to overseas–maybe partially influenced by questions regarding his eligibility–has sparked some discussion about the possibility of more players spending a year overseas–and be paid–rather than going to college. This is hardly a new phenomenon with Brandon Jennings being the most prominent player to follow this path, but it appears that several players in the class of 2015 are contemplating it. According to Mudiay, three highly rated players in the class of 2015 have contacted him about following in his footsteps. Mudiay didn’t offer any names, but based on the comments in the column by Evan Daniels it would seem like  Jaylen Brown is the most likely candidate in the class. Obviously there is a long time to go until the class of 2015 matriculates and we doubt that this will become a trend, but it is something worth keeping an eye on.
2. Dunk City might not be getting back to the Sweet Sixteen any time soon, but Florida Gulf Coast picked up a significant addition when Rayjon Tucker committed there yesterday. With Brett Comer, Bernard Thompson and Jamail Jones all entering their senior years this season, the Eagles will need a lot of help starting in the  2015-2016 season, which means that Tucker, a three-star small forward out of North Carolina, could play a big role. It is also a big addition for second-year head coach Joe Dooley as it shows that he can still capitalize on the team’s NCAA Tournament run from two seasons ago despite Andy Enfield leaving for USC soon after the season ended. The school–or at least the location–could sell itself, but there are plenty of schools you could say that about that cannot be consistently competitive. Tucker is not the first significant pick-up for the school after Enfield’s departure, but could help provide the program with momentum going forward.
3. Lost in all of the Mike Krzyzewski-Team USA debate over the past week is the question as to how much longer Krzyzewski will even be at Duke to “exploit” any recruiting advantage he may have. As we have pointed out many times the Krzyzewski coaching tree is not particularly noteworthy in terms of potential successors. One name that has been mentioned at times is Johnny Dawkins. With his experience as a star player at Duke, working under Krzyzewski as an assistant, and coaching at a big-time program he would appear to be an ideal fit. Unfortunately, his job security at Stanford has been questionable at times, which makes the extension that was announced yesterday notable. The timing of the announcement–details on years and money were not made public–is strange since it would seem that Dawkins does not have anything to bargain with like open jobs. Dawkins, who has a 117-87 career record with four postseason appearances, was on the proverbial hot seat early last year before turning it around finishing with a Sweet Sixteen appearance that included a win over Kansas. We are not sure that Dawkins is the right fit for the Duke job when it opens up eventually, but as long as he has a job at a major program he should be viewed as a top-tier candidate.
4. Schools cannot financially incentivize student-athletes to come play for them outside of scholarships, which have been discussed here and on other sites ad nauseum, but they can improve their surroudings. The most well-known example of this is Kentucky’s Wildcat Coal Lodge, but even smaller programs need to try to keep up. One example of this is at Houston where they announced their planned “Basketball Development Facility” (basically practice facility) with a reported $25 million price tag. The construction is expected to start this week and finish by August 2015. With what has essentially become an arms race in this area we wondering how much of this is to try to get ahead the competition as opposed to merely trying to keep up with it.
5. Ivan Cruz Uceda will half to sit out the first half of the season for Miami due to a NCAA rule requiring a student-athlete to enroll in college one year after graduating high school. Cruz Uceda, a native of Spain who turns 23 on October 24, played at Harcum College where he averaged 14.6 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.1 blocks per game as a sophomore before committing to play at Miami. We don’t claim to be experts on NCAA bylaws, but you would assume that someone in the Miami athletic department would have seen this coming months ago. In any event, it put the Hurricanes in the difficult position of having only nine scholarship players to start the season with seven of them being newcomers. Cruz Uceda will not be eligible to play until January 13 in what should be an extremely difficult environment for this first game–a trip to Duke.