Saturday night’s Maryland loss at Duke closes a historic chapter in ACC basketball history. It marks the Terrapins’ last visit as an ACC member to the Triangle area, long considered the heart of the conference (just ask Gary Williams). That game, a two-point loss in Cameron Indoor Stadium, seems like an appropriate last act in a long-running drama that has been playing since the formation of the ACC in 1953. Duke’s victory had many of the same elements that these games have had for years — specifically, a hard-fought, passionate contest with questionable officiating that ultimately resulted in another frustrating loss for the Terps.

The 1974 Maryland-N.C. State ACC Championship Game Sparked Changes To The NCAA Tourney.
(CNN/Sports Illustrated)

Maryland fans have long expressed the feeling that their team just couldn’t get a fair shake on Tobacco Road. Check out this game recap from a 1974 Maryland-N.C. State game in Raleigh. Near the end of the article, Terrapins’ head coach Lefty Driesell is quoted as follows: “My complaint is the charging calls against us,” Driesell said. “I’m not saying the calls were wrong but it’s only called that way in this part of the country.” He is certainly not alone in thinking that Maryland was at a distinct disadvantage when playing conference games in the Tar Heel State, whether they were on a rivals’ home courts or in the frequent ACC Tournaments held in Greensboro or Charlotte. As Maryland prepares to join the Big Ten next season, let’s take a look at some of the other memories that Maryland will be leaving behind.

Maryland was a charter member when the ACC formed prior to the 1953-54 basketball season. Although the Terrapins captured an ACC title in 1958, it wasn’t until the fiery Driesell arrived prior to the 1969-70 campaign that Maryland basketball became nationally relevant. At the time, North Carolina and N.C. State were the top programs in the league, but Maryland quickly joined them and produced some classic games that had a major influence on the rising popularity of the sport. In 1973, the ACC and its TV broadcast partner, C.D. Chesley, decided to go big with the N.C. State – Maryland game in College Park as a prelude for sports fans to the NFL’s Super Bowl Sunday showcase event. The 87-85 win for David Thompson‘s Wolfpack in front of a nationally-televised audience was a highly entertaining game that helped push the reputation of the ACC as the best and most exciting hoops conference in the country.

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1. Testudo Times: I admittedly don’t know a whole lot about what qualifications earns a coach a spot in the Hall of Fame, but put me down for Gary Williams regardless. Some of the reasons are here, courtesy of Dave Tucker: he won a national championship in the second of back-to-back Final Four appearances; his teams went to 11 straight NCAA Tournaments; and he has the third most ACC wins behind Coach K and Dean Smith. Also of note is how he rebuilt Maryland from the ground up after the school was (arguably unjustly) leveled with NCAA sanctions. Seems like an open-and-shut case to me.
2. Baltimore Sun: Devin Thomas‘s older sister Alyssa is one of Maryland’s best players ever. She also may have played a role in Devin becoming the interior force we now know by beating him in one-on-one as kids (she was faster, so he had to get physical). More interesting is that Thomas almost joined his sister at Maryland until Gary Williams retired and the coach in charge of his recruitment left. Think about a Charles Mitchell – Devin Thomas frontcourt. Hello 100% rebounding rate.
3. Blue Devil Lair: Here’s a look at some efficiency stats that suggest Duke is on track for the Final Four. Duke and Creighton sit in elite efficiency territory and are doing it essentially with offense alone. That’s probably the most interesting part of the equation, as while teams with gaudy efficiency differentials tend to make the final weekend, it generally takes a more balanced team than the Bluejays or Blue Devils to get those margins. What’s also worth noting is that efficiency margins are likely to drop as the season progresses (and the teams you play get better), so Duke’s numbers may be inflated compared with what they’ll look like at the end of the season.
4. Hampton Roads Pilot: Speaking of teams with gaudy efficiency stats, Virginia will almost certainly retain its top spot in Tuesday Truths today. Which begs to question. Just what happened at Tennessee? Was it a wake-up call? An outlier of all outliers (on both ends of the floor)? A horrible match0up? We’ll never know, but that game makes many people very wary of Virginia as a top tier team in the ACC. Beating Syracuse March 1 would go a long way in easing people’s doubts (and could lock up the regular season “title”), but I’m not sure I’ll ever get past that beatdown.
5. Syracuse Post-Standard: Interesting interview from Donna Ditota with Jim Boeheim. While he opens by acknowledging Syracuse’s vulnerability, it’s clear Boeheim has very positive feelings about this team. He noted Baye Moussa Keita’s injury might turn out to be a blessing, as it’s helped Rakeem Christmas accept a bigger role. And then he broaches winning a national championship with limited depth, which–while a natural response to a question on depth–bears significance because of Boeheim’s normal self-deprecating tone.

EXTRA: Duke conspiracy theorists have more ammo, as the conference announced the official did make a mistake in the second half of the eventual 1-point Blue Devil win against Maryland.

1. For the past month we have been talking about how dangerous Michigan State will be when it gets everybody back healthy later this season. Yesterday, we got our first indication that the Spartans might not be made whole the rest of the season as Tom Izzo announced that Keith Appling might be out for the rest of the season. After about 20 minutes of panic in East Lansing, Izzo clarified his comments to say that Appling might sit out the rest of the regular season. Still Izzo’s initial comments about “shutting [Appling] down” should serve as a reminder that we should be careful about projecting how a team will look when they get all of their pieces back until those pieces are ready to return.
2. After the initial buzz around former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter’s move to push for union status for college athletes we had not heard much about the process. We figured that it would be a long drawn out process that would take years. It still probably will, but tomorrow Colter will attempt to make his case at a meeting in front of the National Labor Relations Board. We will not try to pretend to be experts on labor law, but as Dennis Dodd notes the hearing is to help determine whether the players have the right to collectively bargain for workplace rights. It could be another year before the NLRB even makes that initial decision, which does not even account for the NCAA trying to place injunctions, etc on any progress the athletes makes, but it is still an important step.
3. Over the weekend there were two pretty glaring missed calls that might have affected the outcome of the Arizona–Arizona State game and Duke–Maryland game. The former, Jahii Carson’s pull-up on the rim preceding the other craziness, was pretty obvious to any observer. The latter, the officials and scorekeeper forgetting to change the alternating possession arrow, was less so. Still both the Pac-12 and the ACC admitted that they missed the calls in both situations. In terms of impact, the one in Cameron was probably more significant as it occurred with 6:39 left and took a possession away from Maryland in a game that they lost by two points. At the end of the day, it probably will not affect NCAA Tournament bids since neither Arizona State nor Maryland are getting anywhere near the NCAA Tournament outside of watching from their couch, but it is still not a good look for either conference.
4. Outside of Jameson’s weekly Award Tour posts we have not put much thought into the end of season awards. But this week’s edition of Seth Davis’ Hoops Thoughts, which includes a list of his top ten choices for Coach of the Year, reminded us of just how much people are sleeping on the job that Larry Brown is doing at SMU. Brown might not end up winning National Coach of the Year honors this year, but he certainly has to be in contention and we would be hard-pressed to come up with ten coaches who have done a better job this past year than Brown.
5. Speaking of the most impressive coaching jobs this season, Dan Hanner published an interesting article looking at the changes in efficiency margins after a coaching change for current coaches. The way the numbers and trends suggest which coaches are doing good and bad jobs might not be particularly surprising the degree of some of these changes are quite striking. It should noted that often times the trends are often related to things outside of the coach’s control as you will see with Colorado State, which went from an efficiency margin of 7 before hiring Larry Eustachy to 17 in his first season then back down to 3 this year.

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 12, 2014. The games are presented in the order of best combined Pomeroy overall team rankings (all times EST). This weekend features four games that involve the top eight teams in the standings.

Saturday – Pittsburgh (20-5, 8-4 ACC) @ North Carolina (16-7, 6-4 ACC) – CBS (1:00 PM)

Roy Williams Has The Tar Heels Pointed In The Right Direction.
(Photo: USAToday.com)

Pomeroy Prediction: (#27) North Carolina 69-68 (#15) Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh is coming off that emotionally crushing last second loss to Syracuse on Tyler Ennis’s 35 footer Wednesday night, making the Panthers o-for-4 in games against the top three teams in the league. With no more opportunities for a huge signature win, this game on the road against the red-hot Tar Heels looks like Pittsburgh’s last chance for a regular season win that may impress the NCAA Selection Committee. The Syracuse game was the second time the Panthers lost at home on a last second three pointer, with the other delivered by Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon. But don’t feel too sorry for Pittsburgh – they also have two overtime wins over ACC bottom dwellers Miami and Virginia Tech. Not only has North Caroliona won five straight conference games, but they have been impressive doing so, winning all by double digits. The Tar Heels have even begun to show improvement from the free throw line. They have only bested the 73 percent mark in four games all season, but three of those have been in their last four outings. With Wednesday’s weather related cancellation of the Duke game, North Carolina should be the fresher team physically for sure. But the current mental state of the Pittsburgh team is what may swing the game in the direction of the Tar Heels. After Wednesday’s major disappointment, the toughness and resiliency of the Panthers will be tested.

Stat Watch. Tempo will be very important in this one, with Pittsburgh (61 possessions per game) preferring a slower pace and North Carolina (67 PPG) wanting to speed things up. North Carolina hopes that being the fresher team shows up on the boards, where both teams normally excel. If Pittsburgh loses that battle, it will be awfully hard to see them winning, unless they have an unusually good shooting performance against the stout Tar Heel defense.

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1. BC Interruption: Man this post has a lot of typos… oh, they’re actually a metaphor? I see. In case you missed it, Boston College showed the world why it only has six wins this season by blowing a very winnable game in Atlanta last night. The end of the game was terrific with Olivier Hanlan delivering a filthy step-back jumper to take the lead with 3.4 seconds remaining. Despite the overcoaching failure we saw last night in Pittsburgh, Steve Donahue then elected to call a timeout and let the Yellow Jackets set up an offensive play. The Eagles of course proceeded to do their best toreador impression, and I’ll let Marcus Georges-Hunt take it away… Side note: Boston College gave up 74 points on 58 possessions. That gives Georgia Tech an offensive efficiency just shy of 128 points per 100 possessions., which was its best offensive performance of the year, edging out the team’s home opener against Presbyterian. Yikes.
2. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Give Syracuse credit. The Orange hit some tough shots to beat Pittsburgh, while the Panthers started alternating between passes in traffic and around the perimeter before launching ill-advised threes. Time-wasting and (in my opinion) concerns of running offense through Talib Zanna doomed the Panthers on Wednesday night. There were also some shots fired from Joe Starkey, who says that Jamie Dixon’s team doesn’t have another chance for a quality win. North Carolina may not light up the resume like it once did, but beating the Heels is still a quality win.
3. Richmond Times-Dispatch: Jim Weaver wants Whit Babcock to be patient with Virginia Tech head coach James Johnson. That’s a lot to ask with Johnson looking at another season in the ACC cellar — and this time possibly losing 20 games. The cynic in me wonders how much that has to do with Weaver trying to preserve his legacy. However, the more likely scenario is that Weaver truly believes a patient program will be more stable and successful in the long run. There’s certainly some truth there. I also think you don’t want a fan base to expect instant success (or immediate termination), but Johnson needs to start showing improvement quickly or there won’t be much of a basketball fan base to worry about.
4. Chicago Tribune: Demetrius Jackson — Notre Dame’s homegrown McDonald’s All-American — missed the Fighting Irish’s game Tuesday because of “academic issues.” That’s not good. Nor is the fact that either the school or Mike Brey has put out an update on his status. Jackson is of peripheral importance to this year’s team, but he is expected to be a star in the coming years in South Bend.
5. Syracuse Post-Standard: Syracuse opted not to join Mayor Stephanie Miner’s task force, pointing out that a new stadium doesn’t look like it will be taxpayer-funded. Basically, it sounds like Chancellor Kent Syverud doesn’t want the city to have a say in the new arena, although his office will continue to cooperate (i.e., share information) with the committee, but will remain autonomous in its decision-making. This seems like a recipe for disaster.

EXTRA: More Duke–Maryland nostalgia.

1. CBS Sports and ESPN: A couple of interesting tidbits from after Syracuse‘s miracle win last night at Pittsburgh. First, according to the Panther players after the game, they forced the Orange to take the shot they wanted. And truthfully, if you go back a couple possessions, I’m pretty sure they were fine with CJ Fair’s long three and step-back 15-footer too. Even more impressive is Tyler Ennis‘ resume in the last five minutes of one-possession games and overtime: he’s 8-of-9 from the field, 14-of-14 from the free throw line, with six assists and no turnovers. Ennis lives for the moment. It’s amazing (and lucky). But the best make their own luck, and it’s starting to look like Ennis is one of the best.
2. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Here’s where I’m going to jump on the Internet bandwagon. Jamie Dixon shouldn’t have used his last timeout — the one he called after making a free throw to go up one with 4.4 seconds left. The one that let Syracuse set up a final play. Unless a Pittsburgh player was woefully out of position or Syracuse happened to be in the perfect formation to get an easy shot, I would have kept that timeout. But when it comes down to it, Pittsburgh played well enough to win and just caught a bad break. Unfortunately, that bad break probably puts the Panthers in the bubble conversation (although with its record, I think the Panthers are a shoo-in barring an epic collapse).
3. AP (via Winston-Salem Journal): Wake Forest athletic director and chairman of the Selection Committee Ron Wellman (hey, at least he doesn’t have to worry about a conflict of interest anytime soon) announced some changes in how the NCAA seeds its teams that will matter for bracketologists. The two big ones are allowing rematches earlier in the tournament and having “more latitude in assigning teams to sites closer to their homes.” The second point runs counter to Wellman’s goal of honoring seed lines. If you honor the seeds and locations, you’re going to end up with ones in home regions for eights, which is beyond stupid.
4. Fayetteville Observer: Duke vs. North Carolina was postponed last night, but that doesn’t mean we won’t talk about both teams. Here’s a good look at Marcus Paige from Bret Strelow. Paige, a little like Ennis, doesn’t have gobs of natural athleticism, but they both seem to make the game slow down. That’s essentially where the similarities end, though — Ennis is a distributor who morphs into an unstoppable machine in the final five minutes, while Paige is the first offensive option all game long.
5. Washington Post: Terrific short (18 minutes) documentary on the dying Maryland–Duke rivalry, focusing on the back-to-back national championships in 2001 and 2002. The Duke title year (2001) was when the rivalry came into its own with four (yes, four) absolutely tremendous, unforgettable games. I’ve mostly come to accept the Terrapins leaving for the Big Ten at this point, but work like this definitely makes me think twice. For a good stretch in the 2000s, the Maryland-Duke games were on an unparalleled level. There’s still a level of vitriol that runs between the schools that made for unbelievable atmospheres.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Sean Moran, the RTC recruiting guru. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to discussing the recruitments of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions at The Intentional Foul dedicated to recruiting coverage and analysis. You can also follow Sean at his Twitter account @Seanmohoops for up-to-date news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Note: Scout.com used for all player rankings.

Romelo Trimble: McDonald’s All-American

Gary Williams was known for getting the most out of his players, not for recruiting McDonald’s All-Americans. In fact, the last Burger Boy to attend Maryland was shooting guard Mike Jones, a product of the 2003 high school class. Now almost 11 years later, current Terrapins head coach Mark Turgeon is trying to raise the talent level in College Park to compete in the NCAA Tournament. After missing out on the Harrison twins last year, four-star guard Romelo Trimble is set to become Turgeon’s first McDonald’s All-American at his current job. The 6’3” point guard from Bishop O’Connell High School in Northern Virginia is currently ranked as the No. 8 point guard and No. 35 player overall in the class of 2014.  The school is known as a basketball powerhouse that competes in the prestigious Washington Catholic Area Conference (WCAC) and was once the home of current L.A. Laker Kendall Marshall.

Trimble is a powerful guard who has a rare combination of size, strength and speed. A natural shot-maker, Trimble has worked hard over the years to improve his actual point guard play. If a defender gets too close to him, he can bully his way into the paint for a short jumper or a layup. If the defender sags off, Trimble has range from well beyond the three-point arc. Just this week Trimble scored 26 points and added 12 rebounds and six assists in an upset win over rival Paul VI and then scored a career-high 47 points against another WCAC foe on Sunday.

Melo Trimble just poured in a career high 47 points in a 1 point win at Gonzaga @LIGHTSKIN_MELO

— O'Connell Basketball (@OConnellBBall) February 9, 2014

Trimble is currently the primary leader to earn All-Met Player of the Year in the DC, Maryland and Virginia high school area. While he should be able to step in immediately to play for Maryland when the Terps start Big Ten play, Turgeon is also hoping that he will bring his winning attitude to the Terps. As a junior, Trimble led O’Connell to the WCAC championship and last summer he led his DC Assault AAU program into numerous tournament championship games.

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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 5, 2014. The games are presented in the order of best combined Pomeroy overall team rankings (all times EST).

Sunday – Clemson (15-6, 6-3 ACC) @ Syracuse (22-0, 9-0 ACC) – ESPNU (6:00 PM)

Freshman Point Guard Tyler Ennis Leads Top Ranked Syracuse.
(Mark Konezny/USA TODAY Sports)

Pomeroy Prediction: (#4) Syracuse 59-49 (#47) Clemson

Syracuse continues to win in different ways which is really the mark of a true winner. The Orange win on off-shooting nights, when they fall behind like they did against Miami, or when they blow a late leads like they did last Saturday versus Duke. Trevor Cooney carried them on Monday night against Notre Dame, which is a good sign, as Cooney is the only scary three-point shooter on the roster. With Tyler Ennis running the show, and the front line featuring C.J. Fair and Jerami Grant playing well on both ends of the court, the Orange are still undefeated and now ranked #1 in the country. If Cooney has regained his touch, this becomes a team that is really tough to guard. On the other hand, Clemson is a team of extremes when the Tigers take to the road in the ACC. They have won three of their five conference road contests but lost the other two in non-competitive blowout losses to Pittsburgh and North Carolina. This looks like another tough road trip for Clemson where its offensive struggles will be magnified against Syracuse. To beat the Orange, you need some shooters to come through and the Tigers are only making 31.2 percent of their threes. Even worse for Clemson may be the disparity in turnovers in this game, as the Tigers are (statistically) the worst ball-handling team in the ACC.

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1. SBNation: Interesting post-mortem on the Duke-Syracuse instant classic and how the Orange zone forced Jabari Parker into some bad shots. But part of the issue was Duke’s offense, which often gives Parker the ball in a position where he’s forced to isolate. That isn’t to say that Parker shouldn’t learn to pass out of a double-team or recognize the long help-side defender, but Duke needs him — even against a zone — to remain aggressive because it opens up the floor for the rest of the team. Tyler Ennis was a different story — he lived at the free throw line (where he and Jerami Grant were really the difference in the game).
2. Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician: Speaking of Syracuse, the Orange were bailed out by Trevor Cooney in a big way last night. The sharpshooter went unconscious, knocking down 9-of-12 threes against Notre Dame in a game Syracuse only won by six points. CJ Fair regressed in the most painful kind of way, going 2-of-13 from the field en route to six points. The Orange need to get these performances out of their system now because they still have games at Pittsburgh, at Duke, at Virginia and at Florida State left to play. Seriously, those are arguably teams #2 through #5 in the ACC right now.
3. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Bad news out of Atlanta as Georgia Tech’s Solomon Poole has been dismissed from the team. That’s not to say he was a very important piece of the squad — he hadn’t played since early January — but his older brother Stacey is still on the team and he was the most obvious backup for Trae Golden, a player who had to sit out much of the game at Wake Forest with a groin injury.
4. Charlottesville Daily Progress: Here’s a midseason evaluation of Virginia that could probably be more generous. I mean, this team is 8-1 in ACC play with a very legitimate shot to grab the top seed in the ACC Tournament (and is a mortal lock for a double-bye). Malcolm Brogdon has been tremendous in conference play, and a grade of a B seems really low for Joe Harris (though I suppose that depends on your expectations coming into the season).
5. Baltimore Sun: Sure, you can get another nostalgic “I still think of Maryland as an ACC school and I’ll always think that way” quote from Roy Williams, but the real reason to read this article is the elite-level trolling that Seth Allen does at the bottom of the article: “North Carolina, without question, because it’s louder than Duke,” Allen said. “Duke is small — they’ve got the [Cameron] Crazies over there sticking their hands out. But North Carolina is just really loud.” Your move, Duke fans.

Hello February! College hoops welcomes you into 2014’s second month with a mouth-watering slate of action. You may be sold at “Duke-Syracuse,” but there will be plenty of games that don’t set Carrier Dome attendance records worth watching. That’s not to say that your college basketball fan credentials will be confiscated if you aren’t settling in to your couch for some ACC on ESPN action at 6:30 PM ET today – because they will be – but here are some other storylines to watch on the first day of February.

Perfection Will Be Tested

All Three Unbeatens Are In Action Saturday. With Visitors From Durham In Town, C.J. Fair And Syracuse Look To Be The Most Vulnerable Of The Trio.

For the first time since 1976, there are three teams 20-0 or better in college basketball, and all three are in action on Saturday. Wichita State shouldn’t have any issues with Evansville (3-6 in the MVC) at The Roundhouse (3:00 PM ET, ESPNU), but both Arizona and Syracuse face serious threats to their dreams of perfection. The Wildcats visit Berkeley to take on a Cal team (10:30 PM ET, P12 Nets) which had been undefeated at home up until Wednesday, when Arizona State squeezed out an overtime win over the Bears. If Mike Montgomery’s team is to add the signature victory of all signature victories to its resume, they will need senior Richard Solomon to have a big game against that impressive Arizona frontcourt. All the way across the country, Duke would be well-served to find a way to match up with the impressive frontcourt of their undefeated opponent. The Blue Devils are not a great rebounding team, but in their game with Syracuse (6:30 PM ET, ESPN), keeping the Orange (ninth nationally in OR%) off the offensive glass will be imperative for Coach K’s squad. On the other end, look for Jabari Parker to get plenty of touches out of the high post. A record crowd is expected at the Carrier Dome for this one, which obviously sounds like good news for Syracuse. Maybe not, though. The last time there was an attendance record set at the dome (last February, versus Georgetown), a do-it-all 6’8” forward named Otto Porter torched the Orange for 33 points and eight rebounds in a lopsided victory for the visitors. Can Parker induce a little déjà vu on Saturday, and end Syracuse’s perfect season while he’s at it?

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