Unfortunately shoddy wireless means I can’t get a screenshot, but the elation at the end of the Maui championship game between Duke and Kansas came through the TV. Even Coach K was jumping up and down after Tyler Thornton hit the biggest shot of his life. Twice. Austin Rivers was as active as any of the Duke players on the bench (save Marshall Plumlee, whose level of enthusiasm is insane). It’s clear Duke isn’t a dominant team by any meaning of the word, but it’s a really fun team to watch. And the Blue Devils, as always, know how to win.

1. Washington Post – Cavaliers Journal: Virginia is a defensive team this year. Or at least it is without senior Sammy Zeglinski, whose playing time is currently limited by a nagging ankle injury. And Tony Bennett sounds OK with that. He pointed out that the team is “a possession by possession team,” which probably explains why the Cavaliers savor each possession so much (there are only four slower teams in D-I). One has to expect the Cavaliers’ outside shooting will come around eventually, but until then they’ll have to continue relying on their defense.
2. Indy Week: Since 1945 only two coaches, Press Maravich and Les Robinson, were older than Mark Gottfried (who’s only 47) when they took the head coaching job at NC State. The article also provides a nice introduction to the individual roles, many of which have changed since Gottfried arrived, of each major contributor on the team. The final line is still the biggest question that remains:
   

   While Wolfpack partisans still loudly applaud Gottfried’s name during pregame introductions, all honeymoons come to an end. Ultimately, the question is whether Gottfried is the next big thing… or just next.

3. ESPN: Florida State takes to the Bahamas this week for the Battle 4 Atlantis where the Seminoles will start out with UMass, an undefeated team that just throttled Boston College on the road. To be fair, the Minutemen were picked twelfth in the A-10 before the season started. Should Florida State win that game, it will probably face mid-major upstart Harvard in the second round and defending national champion Connecticut in the championship game. This is a pretty good primer for the tournament, which has plenty of interesting storylines and will be Florida State’s first true test this season.
4. Duke Basketball Report: One of the biggest questions facing Duke is who will run the point. Duke Basketball Report has a fairly exhaustive article looking at the history of the point guard position and its use in both Roy Williams’ and Mike Krzyzewski’s offenses. Essentially, the conclusion is that Duke’s backcourt needs to share the responsibilities of a point guard, rather than putting everything on one player. I think the article under-appreciates Quinn Cook’s point guard abilities; then again, I don’t think Cook will be the main option at point until at least conference play and, more likely, next season.
5. iSportsWeb: North Carolina 2013 commit Isiah Hicks is already struggling with eligibility issues. It sounds like there are some missing records from his old school district. If the records are just missing from his previous school district. But if there are red flags at the high school level, there will definitely be red flags at the collegiate level. [In more upbeat North Carolina news, the Tar Heels are slashing prices on tickets to men’s games against Evansville and Nicholls State by 40% for Black Friday.]

EXTRA: Per The Daily Telegraph, several gentleman’s club owners have gotten together in hopes of taking advantage of the NBA lockout and starting a topless basketball league. So far there are 23 teams including ones in Minnesota (may I suggest the Minnesota Bimbowolves for a team name?), Miami and New York. I’ll be sticking with college basketball, but the title of this article was too good to let go unnoticed.

Monday night NC State found itself in a tough spot, down 18 points to Texas on a neutral floor. Things looked hopeless. The Wolfpack started the second half with CJ Leslie going 1-2 from the foul line before proceeding to turn the ball over on both ensuing possessions. Meanwhile Texas continued laying waste to the Wolfpack defense, scoring nine points on its first four possessions. After a miniature comeback was stymied by J’Covan Brown and Julien Lewis the lead was back to 18, and Mark Gottfried called a timeout for his Wolfpack with 11:37 remaining in the game.

J'Covan Brown's Untimely Display of Immaturity Let NC State Back into the Game.

Another aspect that deserves mention is the officiating. The officials clearly wanted to rein in the physicality of the first half (which didn’t seem over-the-top at the time), and had been calling the opening of the second half extremely tight. Unfortunately for the Longhorns, most of those fouls went against them. NC State was already in the bonus less than four minutes into the half. In the first four minutes of that half, the officials had called ten fouls (they called 51 fouls for the game). Despite the chippiness, Texas was still in control until  J’Covan Brown was called for his fourth foul with 8:25 left, yelled at the ref, and summarily fouled out on the resultant technical. In less than ten seconds the momentum of the game totally changed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Patton is an ACC microsite writer for RTC.

Reader’s Take I

Top Storylines

• Coach K Gets 903: Mike Krzyzewski made basketball history by passing his mentor Bob Knight on the all-time wins list. The record is a testament to Krzyzewski’s consistent excellence over the last three decades. It was an incredible accomplishment and dictated the better part of a week’s coverage.
• Eligibility and Injuries Plague ACC: The ACC has five players out with eligibility issues, seven are out with significant injuries, and one is out after violating team rules. Alex Len (Maryland) may have his eligibility after he sits out ten games (he’ll be back in late December), but DeQuan Jones (Miami) is out indefinitely because of the NCAA’s ongoing investigation into allegations of the Nevin Shapiro scandal; Shane Larkin (Miami) is awaiting word on his eligibility after transferring from DePaul; Thomas de Thaey (NC State) is waiting for his amateur status to be reviewed; and Ian Miller (Florida State) will miss at least first semester due to eligibility issues. On the injury front, JT Thompson and Marquis Rankin (Virginia Tech) are out for the season while Pe’Shon Howard (Maryland), Antwan Space (Florida State), Julian Gamble and Reggie Johnson (Miami), and Leslie McDonald (North Carolina) are out indefinitely with various injuries. Wake Forest’s Ty Walker is suspended for violating the team’s honor code but is expected back against Seton Hall. Yikes.
• Virginia Hype Came Too Soon?: Kellen Carpenter hit the nail on the head in his preview of the Cavaliers. He pointed out lack of offensive balance and inability to make twos as the two biggest questions facing Tony Bennett’s squad. The team has had success from inside the arc in its wins, bu looking at the boxscore from their loss to TCU reveals the Cavaliers shot less than 40% on two-point attempts. Mike Scott was still solid, but the rest of the team struggled a lot. The other problem is Virginia’s crawling tempo makes it very difficult to come back from deficits.
• Mark Gottfied Can Recruit (and possibly coach, too): Mark Gottfried came into Raleigh with high expectations from the Wolfpack fanbase. So far, he has lived up to all of them. Gottfried has a top-five recruiting class sealed up thanks to signing TJ Warren, Rodney Purvis, and Tyler Lewis in the early period; he has another potential star possibly joining the ranks in Amile Jefferson. He also managed to get NC State its best non-conference win in quite a while with a huge comeback against Texas. One of the biggest problems with last year’s team was it could not come from behind. I generally chalked it up to effort or general pessimism that comes with frequent losses. Gottfried seems to have turned things around at least a little. Read the rest of this entry »

ACC Game On will periodically review recent games involving ACC teams and take a look forward at key upcoming matchups.

The Atlantic Coast Conference remains unbeaten, although it took a timely jumper by North Carolina State’s Deshawn Painter to maintain the currently perfect winning record of all conference teams. The Wolfpack’s game against Princeton was the highlight of a mostly lackluster slate of games last night. Mark Gottfried‘s team, already playing without C.J. Leslie, lost Scott Wood to an ankle injury two minutes into it. That, combined with insanely hot shooting by Princeton in the first half made a manageable game suddenly very challenging. Despite being down by three at the half, N.C. State rallied behind the sterling play of Lorenzo Brown to pull out the win in the final seconds. Brown led the team in points, assists and steals, contributing sixteen, eight, and five respectively, as well as snagging five rebounds.

Lorenzo Brown Came Up Big For N.C. State

Clemson and Florida State easily took down their opponents, using highly effective offenses to complement already lethally effective defenses. Both teams shot over 50% from the field, with Florida State managing an impressive 57.1%. For Clemson, the all-round play of Tanner Smith has continued to help the Tigers in myriad ways. Smith led his team in assists and rebounding while also scoring eleven points.

Read the rest of this entry »

The gentlemen over at Blogger So Dear (SBNation‘s Wake Forest blog) took note of the conference’s unblemished record yesterday morning: “The ACC is 22-0 this year so far…it must be asked…can we run the table?” Another four wins later and the last perfect conference (sorry Pittsburgh, your application is for 2014-15) is still standing.

Blogger So Dear is Definitely Worth the Follow for Wake Forest Sports

1. Sports Illustrated: I’m not sure how I missed this for yesterday’s Morning Five, but Seth Davis’ post on Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight’s relationship is a must-read. In some ways the men are as different as you could imagine, but take a look at some of Knight’s old Indiana games and you’ll see (and lipread) the same fire that’s characterized Coach K’s sideline persona. The article speaks for itself, and I can’t begin to do it justice so I’ll just leave the rest to Seth Davis.
2. TarHeelBlue.com: This is a cool series North Carolina‘s athletic department is doing where once a month it’s hosting a chat with a member of the basketball team. Whoever is up next is going to have pretty big shoes to fill (sorry for that), as Kendall Marshall led off the series with a chat covering everything from his love for kicks to his favorite place to eat on Franklin Street. Marshall has been getting well-deserved love for his social-networking on Twitter (he’s overtaken Missouri’s Kim English as the best follow in college basketball), so if you ever get tired of “#riseandgrind #nodaysoff goin to the gym” athlete tweets, check him out. I’d be very excited to hear Harrison Barnes answer fan questions, but the true must-read chat might come if Blue Steel (the walk-ons) are ever given a chance.
3. New York Daily News: Maryland will face off against Kentucky in the first college hoops battle at the new Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn next season. The new building will host the New Jersey Nets (who will probably be getting a new name), but John Calipari “approached the Nets months ago and asked to have his team play the first college game there.” This is interesting to me on a couple of levels: (1) Calipari coached the Nets a while ago and it would be kind to call his tenure anything but a failure; and (2) Nets’ co-owner Jay-Z is a big Kentucky fan. The game is scheduled for November 9, 2012.
4. PressBoxOnline.com: Maryland legend Ernie Graham is finally having his jersey retired 32 years after he left Maryland. Graham’s story is a sad one filled with drugs, but he’s using his story (much like former Boston College stand-out Chris Herren) to help keep others from falling into the same trap. Graham’s crowning achievement was scoring 44 against NC State in 1978. The record is even more amazing taking into account the lack of a three-point line and that he only played 25 minutes per game. Because of his troubled past the athletic department has been largely distant, but a combination of getting clean and Maryland hiring new athletic director Kevin Anderson will finally bring closure and recognition to a great college career.
5. Associated Press: NC State relapsed into its coasting tendencies from last year in a tight 60-58 win over Princeton last night. Princeton notoriously plays a brand of basketball based on slowing the game down, not committing turnovers, and moving the ball (trust me, NC State fans know). This kept the Wolfpack out of transition, which has been their bread and butter in their opening two games. However, the biggest news of the game was Mark Gottfried’s cold-blooded assassin, Scott Wood, suffering a bad ankle injury early. The good news is that X-rays came back negative. The bad news is that Wood could be out “for a while,” according to Gottfried.

Duke Blue Planet produced an awesome video in honor of Coach K’s record-setting victory Tuesday night (their tribute site also has some pretty outrageous stats, but this one courtesy of @TheDevilWolf is unbelievable: “Coach K has coached 169 players [148 at Duke]. Of those, 84 have played in a Final Four, and of those, 41 won national championships”).

Last week, we talked about a survey of one hundred Division I coaches, where each was asked a variety of questions about their peers, specifically about their aptitude for recruiting. While it was an interesting glimpse into the world of reputations, the most intriguing tidbit had to do with NC State’s new head coach, Mark Gottfried. In many quarters, Gottfried was being hailed for already lining up one of the best recruiting classes in the nation, a remarkable feat for a new coach. With Rodney Purvis, T.J. Warren, and Tyler Lewis all lined up for the coming year, all seemed well in Raleigh.

Then of course, came the results of the survey in question, where Gottfried was named the third-most overrated recruiter in college basketball. This was interesting news, and I began to wonder what the coaches knew about Gottfried that the general public didn’t. It turns out that Gottfried might not actually be the issue, but rather the class that he has assembled. Buried in CBS Sports signing day coverage was an article where Goodman and Jeff Borzello answer a number of questions about next year’s incoming class. In a few separate instances, the two raised doubts and landed a few backhanded blows when talking about the Wolfpack’s recruits.

Is Rodney Purvis Overrated?

Borzello named Purvis the most overrated player in the class, despite later lauding him as the “best first recruit.” Goodman named NC State as having the best incoming backcourt, but threw in the tidbit that it was mainly because he felt no particular group of players stood out. He also added that he felt that all three of the Wolfpack’s incoming class were potentially overrated. These comments seem to indicate that perhaps the reason the coaches felt Gottfried was overrated as a recruiter was simply because the players he landed weren’t actually as good as had been reported.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Charlotte Observer: The biggest news around the conference (and country for that matter) is Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski attempting to pass Bob Knight as the all-time winningest coach in men’s D-I history Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. The Charlotte Observer has two terrific articles up on Coach K’s early years as well as his relationship with Bob Knight. Both articles help frame Krzyzewski’s coaching career by looking at his roots. I expect there will be plenty of great content from around the country on Krzyzewski and the milestone this week, so definitely keep an eye on our Morning Fives for more highlights.
2. Associated Press: In news that didn’t surprise many college basketball fans, CJ Leslie has been suspended the first three games of NC State’s season for $410 of improper benefits. According to the university, a former NC State student let Leslie borrow his car and paid for his apartment application fees. Losing Leslie hasn’t hurt the Wolfpack so far, as they beat UNC Asheville (who gave North Carolina more of a game than it bargained for yesterday), and absolutely eviscerated Morehead State in their first two games. I’d be surprised if any more of this came from the NCAA investigation.
3. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Speaking of suspensions, Georgia Tech’s Glen Rice, Jr., was also suspended the first three games of the season for a “violation of team rules.” That’s fairly harsh punishment for an internal violation, which I and Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s Mark Bradley take to mean new coach Brian Gregory means business:
   

   “Brian Gregory isn’t a smooth talker. Ask him the time and he’ll tell you, but he won’t give you a tutorial in watchmaking. He’s a Chicago guy, and he’s as subtle as Dick Butkus. What has passed for standard operating procedure at Tech won’t cut it with this coach, who’s known, in suitable unadorned fashion, as BG.”

   Gregory’s squad is off to a great start after dominating Florida A&M Friday.

4. Wilmington Star-News: Mark Gottfried has been “part salesman, part carnival huckster” trying to get the word out about his NC State team (and inspire some confidence in a weary and wary fanbase). Probably my favorite anecdote from the article is when Gottfried threw his jacket in disgust after a questionable foul call. The problem is that no one initially saw it, so he threw it again to the pleasure of the RBC Center crowd. NC State has a history of and Gottfried looks to try to join those ranks.successful, super-energetic coaches
5. Raleigh News & Observer and Winston-Salem Journal: Jeff Bzdelik has his work cut out for him in his second season as Wake Forest’s coach after an abysmal 8-24 first campaign. He’s instituted a motion offense to help account for lack of a post presence. But both of these articles focus on Bzdelik’s optimism on the upcoming season. No, the Demon Deacons aren’t going to compete for the ACC crown this year, but he believes that he’s starting to build a solid foundation for future success. He also has a good 2012 recruiting class that should infuse much-needed talent and size to the Demon Deacon roster next season.

ACC Basketball is upon us! The conference kicks off basketball with a bang tonight. Only two of the games are televised; luckily, they’re two excellent games. North Carolina is taking to the high seas to play Michigan State in the Quicken Loans Carrier Classic at 7:00 PM EST on ESPN. Meanwhile on ESPNU, Duke welcomes the talented Belmont Bruins to the unfriendly confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium in what many are (and should) be predicting as a potential upset at 9:00 PM EST. But on to the links!

1. Columbia Daily Tribune: Former Miami coach Frank Haith‘s new job didn’t get started off as planned. In addition to cries of dismay from fans at the hire (and apparently the Columbia Daily Tribune, which offers this description of Haith’s departure from Miami: “A guy facing an NCAA Tournament-or-unemployment season at the basketball backwater of Miami was suddenly in charge of a senior-laden team built to contend for a Big 12 title”, Haith brought baggage after the Miami scandal hit like a ton of bricks over the summer. However, his luck since coming to Missouri hasn’t been the best either: Mike Anderson left him no recruits for this season; he lost an incoming transfer and had another player leave; and he lost one of the team’s most pivotal players in Laurence Bowers to injury. Ouch.
2. Boston Herald: Steve Donahue is very, very patient. It’s hard to tell from reading this article whether Donahue is patient or just resigned. While it’s true you want to ground yourself in reality, it won’t help you recruit: “He’s conceded that he won’t win recruiting wars with ACC powers Duke and North Carolina for blue chip prospects.” The fact is, a good recruiter absolutely can win those battles (see: Sean Miller at Arizona or even Mark Gottfried at NC State in recent weeks). Boston College has something to offer high-level recruits that Duke and North Carolina do not always have available, though: playing time. The article also makes a great point that Donahue has a history of starting slow, as his teams faced losing seasons in his first six years at Cornell.
3. Burlington Times-News: With the additions of Pittsburgh and Syracuse, the ACC won’t just see its overall basketball talent increase, but it will also have to change scheduling dramatically. Currently teams play 16 games, four of which include home-and-homes against rivals (i.e., Duke plays North Carolina and Maryland twice every year) and three other rotating home-and-home series. But the addition of two more teams will mandate the conference move to at least an 18-game conference season (basically, the same parameters would exist with two more one-time opponents factored in). Nothing is as satisfactory as a round-robin schedule where everyone gets two shots against everyone else, but conference expansion has made that impossible.
4. Richmond Times-Dispatch: The writers over at the Richmond Times-Dispatch put together five trivia questions about the ACC. One very interesting fact I found was that Florida State has never won an ACC title (with the Seminoles’ last basketball title of any kind coming in 1978 in the Metro Conference). Although I’m going to disagree with number four: James McAdoo is not this year’s Harrison Barnes. Partially because Barnes came into last season so hyped (but mostly because guys like Barnes and Jared Sullinger returned for another year of college), the media hasn’t crowned any freshmen as the next big thing this year. If there’s an apt comparison for McAdoo, it’s Marvin Williams (the most gifted member of the Tar Heels’ 2005 National Championship team, who also came off the bench).
5. Asheville Citizen Times: Looking for a pie-in-the-sky local preview of the UNC-Asheville vs. North Carolina game coming up this Sunday? Then the Asheville Citizen Times is your paper! The piece actually points out a couple of interesting tidbits: (1) the last time Roy Williams generously christened a non-BCS arena, the Tar Heels lost to College of Charleston in 2009 (the year after the National Championship); and (2) the Tar Heels won’t arrive in Asheville until 5:00AM Saturday morning before the Sunday game because of a cross-country flight back from tonight’s Carrier Classic. UNC Asheville is the favorite to repeat in the Big South and to receive a 16-seed for the Big Dance.

EXTRA: Former Duke basketball player Reggie Love will leave the White House by the end of the year. Love is currently working on an MBA from the prestigious Wharton School of Business at Penn and cited focusing on education as the reason for his departure. In addition to missing a very valuable teammate for pick-up hoops games, President Obama will also miss Love for his cultural influence: “The president also credited Love for expanding his musical repertoire, introducing him to artists like Nas and Lil Wayne.”

Image of the Day:

The Aircraft Carrier Setting for Tonight's Game between Michigan State and North Carolina Looks Epic

CBS Sports conducted a survey of one hundred high-major coaches, asking them to answer a few questions about how their peers performed on the recruiting trail. While the bulk of the story wasn’t particularly surprising, there were a few tidbits that are of particular interest to ACC fans. Though North Carolina coach Roy Williams was pegged as the third best recruiter in the nation after Kentucky’s John Calipari and Arizona’s Sean Miller, what is more interesting is the list of coaches who are apparently overrated as recruiters. I didn’t expect to see Bill Self and the very good Kansas program pegged as overrated in terms of recruiting and somehow, I was even more surprised to see none other than NC State’s own Mark Gottfried as the third most overrated coach in terms of recruiting.

Gottfried Isn't Impressing His Peers on the Recruiting Trail (Yet)

This is a little stunning considering how excellent a job it seemed that Gottfried was doing in his first year recruiting for the Wolfpack. Do the coaches know something we don’t about the players that Gottfried landed? Or is this just sour grapes; coaches jealous of a guy who was able to burst back on to the scene and make an immediate impact? Whatever it is, it’s fascinating that a coach who, in his first year after taking a break from coaching, made the list. I’d be eager to know why the other coaches think so little of a coach who seems to be doing the right things on the recruiting trail.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Washington Post: Mike Scott will be very important for Virginia, and in more ways than filling up the stat sheets. Sure his double-figure scoring and double-figure rebounding should help a middling offense and horrendous offensive rebounding squad improve in those areas this season. But more importantly, he’ll draw defenders and allow Joe Harris to move back to small forward. That’s fairly significant, as Harris (a 6’6″ sophomore) was forced to play the power forward spot despite being the team’s most consistent outside shooter last year. Scott should also keep defenses honest in the paint, which should allow an already very good perimeter shooting team more openings. Basically, Mike Scott is the only reason it’s not laughable for the media to rank Tony Bennett’s squad fourth in the conference, as the WaPo observes.
2. Charlotte Observer: A hallmark of Mike Krzyzewski-coached teams is gritty, overplaying man-to-man defense that’s especially effective in keeping opponents from getting open perimeter looks. However, a quick glance at Duke‘s backcourt (Seth Curry, Andre Dawkins and Austin Rivers) doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. The questions proved legitimate in Duke’s preseason scrimmage, as D-II Bellarmine managed to knock down eight outside buckets. Duke doesn’t have much time though, as Belmont made over nine threes a game last season (at a 38% clip). Oh, and the Bruins won 30 games last year and bring back nearly all of their talent. Do I hear a non-conference upset special brewing in Cameron Indoor this Friday?
3. Fayetteville Observer: Speaking of Duke generalizations, Bret Strelow breaks down the importance of big men for the Blue Devils’ upcoming season. And if you look at the roster, it makes sense. How many teams have two athletic 6’10” players and a 6’11” guy who gets buckets? Not many. But Duke’s current frontcourt has had limited success so far, even if Miles Plumlee, Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly all seem capable of breakout seasons. They’re also fighting against the stereotype that Duke big men struggle. Exhibition play tends to overrate frontcourts mightily (if you ask the above question about a D-II school, no matter what caliber, the answer will be an emphatic “no”), but the Plumlee brothers have looked especially good. To live up to its top-five potential Duke needs one of its forwards to have a star campaign.
4. Charlotte Observer: Mark Gottfried didn’t hear a lot of compliments about his team when he first took the job. The trouble seems as much coach-related as talent-related, though — in a recent interview, Scott Wood “basically admits practice used to be ‘just throwing the ball out there and shooting it.’ Now practices have a lot more drills.” That’s the sort of culture Gottfried was facing when he moved to Raleigh. From player quotes such as these, it sounds like Gottfried has the team buying into his style; and if he wins there, players will keep buying it.
5.  Richmond Times-Dispatch: Potential breakout candidate Erick Green may miss Virginia Tech‘s season opener against East Tennessee State with an “Achilles’ strain”. The Hokies have already lost JT Thompson to a season-ending injury, and definitely can’t afford to lose Green too. Green is expected to be the star, both on offense and defense, for Seth Greenberg’s team in its latest pursuit of an invitation to the Big Dance. Here’s to hoping the rash of preseason injuries doesn’t carry over into the regular season because it feels like there have been way more injuries than usual this year.

In honor of the opening of college basketball season, Sports Illustrated has a slideshow of college basketball previews going back as far as the early 1960s. The most interesting (with borderline-racist undertones) image is probably the 1967 cover calling for a 12-foot basket, but I’ll leave you with NC State legend David Thompson. Thompson led the 1972-73 Wolfpack to an undefeated season averaging nearly 25 points a game (ironically his least dominant statistical season).

NC State's David Thompson Led the Wolfpack to an Undefeated Season in 1973