Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @themulv on Twitter.  See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

Twenty-four straight hours of college hoops is the dream scenario for those of us who are diehard fans of the sport.  Fortunately, it’s not a dream as ESPN brings back its Tip-Off Marathon for the fourth consecutive season.  Games got started at 12:01 AM EST this morning and go all the way till approximately 1:00 AM EST later tonight.  If you can’t sit in front of your TV for all twenty-four plus hours, then make sure you at least watch these four games.

Belmont @ #14 Memphis – 12:00 PM EST on ESPN HD (***)

Expectations are high for Memphis and Josh Pastner

• Memphis brings high expectations into the 2011-12 season (Coaches Poll #9).  They return all five starters from last year’s team, several key reserves, and add McDonald’s All-American Adonis Thomas.  Josh Pastner has put together an incredible amount of talent that is going to get a stiff test in its first game of the season against an experienced Belmont team.  The Tigers need to greatly improve their turnover percentage (21.9% in 2010-11), three point shooting (32.9% in 2010-11), and defensive rebounding percentage (34.3% in 2010-11) in order to live up to those lofty expectations this season.  Pastner’s squad showed promise on the defensive end last year ranking 23rd and 25th in block percentage and steal percentage, respectively.  They need to maintain that defensive toughness while still trying to improve on the offensive end.
• Belmont gave Duke all it could handle last Friday night in the opener at Cameron Indoor Stadium, losing 77-76.  Turnovers (17), missed threes (6-19), and the Blue Devils’ Mason Plumlee’s great work on the defensive glass (10 defensive rebounds) proved to be the difference.  Still, the Bruins showed excellent offensive balance in the loss with five players scoring in double figures.  Although the FedEx Forum is another difficult place to play, it’s a bit closer to home for Rick Byrd’s team and they have already experienced the ruckus of the Cameron Crazies.  Belmont needs to get off to a better start from the three-point line and limit turnovers to have a chance in this one.
• This game will hinge on turnovers and second-chance points.  Belmont forced Duke to turn the ball over 19 times in the first game and ranked second in the nation last season in defensive turnover percentage.  As previously mentioned, Memphis turns the ball over a lot.  Memphis guard Joe Jackson in particular turned the ball over on 29.1% of his possessions last season.  Look for the Bruins to put all kinds of pressure on a still-young Tigers team to create easy baskets.  At the same time, Belmont relies heavily on second chance points.  The addition of the 6’7” Thomas to the Memphis lineup should certainly improve their defensive rebounding percentage.  If Thomas and the rest of the team can hit the glass hard in his first game, it will limit Belmont’s chances to pull an upset on the road.

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For the last ten years, fairly or unfairly, Duke has had the perception of being all backcourt all the time. Long gone are the days where Christian Laettner, Elton Brand or Carlos Boozer graced the court in Durham. In describing his recruitment decision to attend Michigan last week, Mitch McGary let it all out: “all [Duke’s] big men do is set screens and rebound and that they don’t get a lot of touches.”

Josh McRoberts' Relative Lack of Success at Duke Still Haunts the Blue Devils

Duke Hoop Blog looked at this perception, which moves closer to reality as the memory of its last dominant big man, Shelden Williams, fades out of casual fan memory. The author comes to the conclusion that the Williams/Redick era is the answer, and I see his argument. But I don’t think it’s that simple, or even the biggest factor in Duke’s relative decrease in a post presence over the last ten years. I think the real argument is much more complex and is a combination of four main factors:

1. Read the rest of this entry »

Belmont is good. This is no secret. In years past, Duke opening it’s season by hosting Belmont wouldn’t be a big deal: just another ceremonial squashing of a mid-major to inaugurate the season. But this year, Belmont seems to be designed explicitly for the sole purpose of shocking the Blue Devils. Duke is a good team and Mike Krzyzewski didn’t become the legendary Coach K by overlooking opponents. Duke will be ready to deal with Belmont trying to leverage their strengths against Duke’s weaknesses. That said, what exactly are Belmont’s strengths?

Does Rick Byrd Have The Ingredients Needed To Cook Up An Upset?

The Bruins squad is deep. Last year, they played eleven men for more than ten minutes a game. None of their players averaged more than twenty-five minutes a game. This depth is a necessary part of the Bruin’s clever, but physically taxing, pressure defensive scheme. This team plays fast (though not faster than Duke did last season) and tries to force turnovers with tough man to man pressure and trapping schemes. Last year, the Bruins were fairly successful, forcing turnovers on a remarkable 27.5% of defensive possessions, good for second best in the entire nation. Kerron Johnson actually managed to lead the nation in steal percentage, taking away the ball on 6.3% of posessions. No one in the nation even really came that close to matching that per-possession mark. Combine that with an old-school protect the paint mentality and the Bruins managed to successfully limit opponents field goal percentage (though admittedly at the expense of fouling a lot). Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency statistics rated the Bruins as the twenty-third best defense in the country, which is not too shabby. With the relatively inexperienced Duke backcourt, it seems very possible that Belmont should be able to have some success in forcing turnovers.

On offense, the Bruins could take down Goliath with the same tactic that countless mid-majors use: shooting a ton of threes. Belmont, last year, has no problem leaning on the three: 42.3% of all of the Bruins field goals came from behind the arc. Only seventeen schools in Division I shot more from three. Not only does the team take a lot of threes, but they make a lot. As a team, they made 37.8% of their three-point attempts, 33rd best in the nation. Surprisingly, the team rated even better on two-pointers, making 52.2%, the 19th best in the nation. While many teams pick their spots when they shoot threes, going to the long ball relatively sparingly, Belmont moves in the opposite direction, picking their spots on inside shots and only shooting high percentage shots created from keen ball movement. While the Bruins will certainly miss senior Jordan Campbell and his insane 45.8% three-point shooting, Belmont is well-positioned to maintain last year’s highly successful attack.

The irony of Belmont’s strengths is that they play into areas that are usually Duke’s strengths. The recent hallmarks of a Blue Devil team are an experienced back court that can apply excellent perimeter pressure and rarely turns the ball over on offense. With this year’s personnel, it’s unclear if Duke will be able to match previous year’s marks in this era. Seth Curry, Andre Dawkins, and Austin Rivers are all skilled players, but their ability to play effective perimeter defense is largely unproven. In this year’s exhibitions, Duke had a hard time stopping dribble penetration and often found it’s guards getting beat by opponents. While Curry and Dawkins had relatively low turnover rates this year, it’s unclear if they will be able to maintain these rates when both players will be handling the ball more an expected to create their own shots.

Still, despite Belmont’s seeming match-up advantages, Duke still has what might be an effective trump card: size. Ryan Kelly, Miles Plumlee, and Mason Plumlee are big guys that are (usually) talented interior defenders. While Belmont goes inside less than most teams, it’s still an important part of their offensive game plan. If their is one statistic that bodes well for the Blue Devils, it’s that last year Belmont got blocked on 13.0% of all their offensive possessions, the third worst mark in all of college basketball. Mason Plumlee and Kelly both shared a real flair for blocking shots last year and if they get the chance, they have the potential to make things really miserable for Belmont whenever they look to score inside.

Still, it’s easy to see that Belmont has all of the pieces to pull off an upset. Will they? It’s the home opener for Duke. The home opener in a surely loud and rocking Cameron Indoor. If Belmont managed to catch Duke somewhat off-guard, maybe in the middle of the season or after another tough opponent, I’d like their chances better. I don’t think they pull it off tonight, but, at least on paper, the Bruins certainly look capable of shocking Duke.

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

Now that our individual team previews are done, it’s time to look at individual players. With only five all-ACC selections from last season returning there are plenty of open spots to fill, so here are our Preseason all-ACC Teams for the 2011-12 season.

2011-12 Preseason All-ACC Teams

Looking at our projections, North Carolina, Miami and Duke lead the way with eight, six and five selections, respectively. No surprise with Harrison Barnes checking in as the consensus ACC Player of the Year, or Austin Rivers as the ACC Rookie of the Year (though Kellen wants to keep an eye on Maryland’s Nick Faust for the ROY award).

My personal honorable mentions are Virginia Tech’s Erick Green, Maryland’s Sean Mosley and NC State’s Richard Howell. I’m especially surprised Mosley didn’t show up on any of the teams, but his middling campaign last season probably did him in. Green appears to be in the right place to take over for departing Hokies Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen, but he’s got a ways to go based on the Virginia Tech games I went to last season. Finally, Howell had a sneaky good season last year for the Wolfpack and could be a great frontcourt presence alongside CJ Leslie.

My biggest reach was putting Terrell Stoglin on the first team. He was a decent player last year (who averaged over 20 points per game pro-rated at 40 minutes), but he’ll really need to make some waves if he wants to crack the first team this season. Malcolm Grant and Kendall Marshall are the safer choices for that final guard spot. My reasoning is that Marshall will be hidden statistically behind Zeller and Barnes. In general, Roy Williams point guards are under-appreciated because they don’t put up sick numbers, but with Marshall the case is a little different. He’s a very polished player, but I see him as the perfect complimentary player. North Carolina wouldn’t be nearly as good as a team without him, but by himself he’s not spectacular. Thus, I voted him onto the second team in favor of Maryland’s ascendent sophomore.

On the second team Kellen and I differed on power forwards: he chose Mason Plumlee; I chose Travis McKie. Again for me the key was relative importance. Mason Plumlee may be more talented than McKie, but I’ll be shocked if he’s as important for Duke as McKie is for Wake Forest (and really I’m not sold that McKie isn’t more talented). Duke’s bigs are certainly going to be critical this year, but I think the mere fact that there are three of them (Mason, Miles and Ryan Kelly) will dilute each one’s share of the limelight. I did include Miles on my third team because reports from Durham laud him as Duke’s backbone.

However, both of our teams (mine especially) did a lot of projecting for this season. The only locks feel like Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller and Mike Scott (and it’s conceivable Zeller falls to the second team depending on his role). Player and coach turnover left the ACC relatively unknown this season, but Friday players start earning their spots.

Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist for Rush the Court. Follow him on Twitter @zhayes9.

Every August, ESPN college football guru Kirk Herbstreit releases his Herbie awards, a grab bag of honors and predictions about the upcoming season covering everything from quickest running back to hardest-hitting linebacker. The Herbies are so popular they even resulted in their own half-hour show hosted by Herbstreit and Erin Andrews. With no equivalent in the hoops world, I volunteered to step up to the plate. Some of these awards are Herbie knock-offs, some are 100% original and all are intended to be fun. Whether they look ridiculous by March…well, the jury is out. Here are this year’s Pro-Zach awards, passing out happy pills since 2011:

Washington's Terrence Ross is ready to make the leap

All-Next Chapter

• Team Irreverence: Players Who Don’t Get Enough Respect – GOLD: Rodney McGruder (Kansas State), SILVER: Kent Bazemore (Old Dominion), BRONZE: Doug McDermott (Creighton)
• Shhh, Don’t Tell: Best Kept Secrets – GOLD: C.J. McCollum (Lehigh), SILVER: Alex Young (IUPUI), BRONZE: Dominique Morrison (Oral Roberts)
• Forwarding Address: Top Transfers – GOLD: Mike Rosario (Florida), SILVER: Royce White (Iowa State), BRONZE: Brandon Wood (Michigan State)
• Fresh Approach: Top True Freshmen – GOLD: Anthony Davis (Kentucky), SILVER: Austin Rivers (Duke), BRONZE: Andre Drummond (Connecticut)
• Off and Running: Ready To Take It To The Next Level – GOLD: Terrence Ross (Washington), SILVER: Keith Appling (Michigan State), BRONZE: Michael Snaer (Florida State)

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Matt Patton of RTC’s ACC Microsite is the RTC correspondent for the ACC. You can find him on Twitter @rise_and_fire.

Reader’s Take I

The ACC looks like it has three tiers this year. The top: North Carolina, Duke and Florida State. The bottom: Boston College, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest. And then there’s everyone else.

Top Storylines

• Can North Carolina Win Its Third Ring in the Roy Williams Era?: By all counts, yes. And to this point I haven’t heard any “undefeated” nonsense from anywhere, which means people’s expectations aren’t totally out to lunch. There are several other very good teams this year. Last year’s Tar Heel team wasn’t unstoppable, even at the end of the season (they lost to a #4 seed, remember?); I don’t expect them to be unstoppable this year, either. But if you’re looking for the most complete team with the fewest unknowns, you won’t find it anywhere else in college basketball. My one peeve with the offseason coverage of this team is the idea that four of the five starters should be first team All-ACC (or even All-American). There are only so many possessions in a basketball game. Only so many players can be integral. Part of the intimidating nature of this team on paper is that no one player controls the team’s fate: On any given night, Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller or John Henson are all candidates to blow up the scoreboard (though in Henson’s case, it’s usually keeping opponents off it). It’s the fact that the combination could be more than the sum of its parts that makes the Tar Heels a lock for preseason number one.

Another Season, Another Set of Huge Expectations in Chapel Hill

• Will Florida State Challenge Tobacco Road And Make The ACC Interesting Again?: Yes. I was pretty low on Florida State for my summer update, but I’m currently very high on the Seminoles. Specifically, I think Bernard James is the best defender in the country (though John Henson is a significantly better rebounder), and Jeff Peterson will be able to find offense more effectively than Chris Singleton and Derwin Kitchen last season. Oh, and the Seminoles are also hungry after an ugly loss to VCU left them stranded in the Sweet Sixteen last year (and they then had to watch the Rams march on to the Final Four).
• How Will This Year’s Batch Of New Coaches Fare?: I think Jim Larranaga will objectively perform the best, but I also think he has the most talent at his disposal. Against my better judgment, I’m warming up to this NC State team and Mark Gottfried’s leadership (at least for the first few years). As for Georgia Tech and Brian Gregory, yikes. There’s been a little recent buzz about the Yellow Jackets being better than people expect (which is a very low threshold), but I don’t see it. Gregory has an undermanned roster full of guys he didn’t recruit with nothing to speak of in the post, and he doesn’t have a dedicated home court. Not the combination for success. In College Park, Mark Turgeon should return Maryland to regular conference title contenders again once he reopens the pipeline to Washington, D.C., talent.

1. Yahoo (Contributors): The biggest news out of the largest sports website in the world is that ESPN college sports star writer Pat Forde just joined the ranks at Yahoo (as of midnight), but this article on the average attendance of conferences caught my eye. Somewhat surprisingly the ACC ranks an abysmal fifth with just over 10,000 fans per game, only ahead of the Pac-12 (which should really be ashamed for being behind the Mountain West). It definitely hurts that Duke is limited by the intimate atmosphere of Cameron Indoor Stadium and that the conference is experiencing a relative slump. The full list is pretty interesting too. Apparently all of D-I was seen live by 27,626,125 people last season.
2. ESPN – North Carolina: We mentioned ESPN’s new North Carolina Basketball blog, authored by Robbi Pickeral, yesterday. Probably the most interesting content she wrote in the first day were her five anticipatory thoughts on the Tar Heels for this year. The North Carolina game at Kentucky tops the list, as it should. But a couple of her choices are more suspect. Namely, “Will Harrison Barnes score 40 (again)?” and “Freshman impact.” Really, I could care less whether Barnes scores 40; I’m far more interested to see if he manages to build on his stellar end to last season. And freshmen could be interesting, but certainly not in my top five considerations about this Tar Heel team; how about a look at John Henson‘s offensive growth instead?
3. Atlanta Journal-Constitution – College Recruiting: “Could Duke make an all-out effort to recruit a Georgia basketball star and not succeed?” The question references the talented power forward Tony Parker, a player whom Mike Krzyzewski has doggedly pursued throughout the recruiting season. Parker fits the recent Coach K big man mold perfectly, sizing up well with former Blue Devil interior stars Elton Brand, Carlos Boozer and Shelden Williams. With Miles Plumlee graduating and Mason Plumlee likely moving onto greener pastures, Duke could really use Parker.
4. The Mikan Drill: The trio of Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Kendall Marshall are stealing most of the limelight in excitement for North Carolina’s top-ranked team heading into the season. Somewhat lost in the shuffle is the man who kept that team alive during its growing pains early last season, Tyler Zeller. This is a good look at Zeller’s strengths (passing and running the floor) and weaknesses (defensive rebounding). My only addition to each category would be his beautiful baby-hook shot and unfortunate tendency toward injuries.
5. Mercury News: Interested in a summary of conference realignment to date? Dave Skretta takes a look at the winners and losers. Conference realignment has been a mess, especially in this age of Twitter bringing news faster than final decisions can be reached (or, for the more cynical, worse sources). This is a good recap of what has actually happened, though I disagree that the Big Ten and Pac-12 were really losers in conference realignment. Both chose to stay put with incredibly lucrative media contracts, instead of taking back-up plans that might actually serve to lower their revenue cuts.

We all know that lists of top players tend to be very silly. For a sport as big and expansive as college basketball, these lists can quickly become incredibly silly. Strange inclusions and weird snubs are almost inevitable. That said, the latest CBS Sports list of The Top 100 Players in College Basketball is just ridiculous. Still, lists are fun so let’s talk about this one and all the reasons that it’s just goofy.

All Systems Silly (CBSSports.com)

Of the top 100 players in college basketball, twelve are from the Atlantic Coast Conference.  Of the twelve best players in the ACC, half of them come from North Carolina, a quarter of them come from Duke, and one player each comes from N.C. State, Miami and Virginia. Here is the list of rankings, players, and schools. Below that, we’ll have ourselves a talk.

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1. Above the Rim – Charlotte Observer: When you think Duke basketball, you probably think of a star-studded backcourt. Most years the frontcourt feels like a perpetual group of role players. But this year things may be different. Heavy losses to Duke’s perimeter players (Nolan Smith, Kyrie Irving and Kyle Singler) leave much of Duke’s experience up front with the Plumlees and Ryan Kelly. In China during the offseason (against middling competition to be certain) the frontcourt shined with Kelly leading the team in scoring at 15 points per game, Miles Plumlee dominating the boards at nearly ten boards a night and Mason Plumlee shooting a ludicrous 18 for 22 from the field. I don’t want to steal anymore of the article’s thunder, but these three guys–not Austin Rivers–are going to be the key to whether Duke lives up to its Top 10 expectations this season.
2. SCACChoops.com: This stat-centric ACC hoops blog has started dishing out its team previews, with Boston College and Clemson first on the docket. Make sure to check out their game simulations once real games start, but for now the projections for returning player production should be enough to keep your attention. The Tigers’ Andre Young is projected to be a star, averaging 15 points per game. In addition to the numbers, Theo Jones also adds some qualitative points as well.
3. The Chopping Block – Orlando Sentinel: Who will step up in the wake of Derwin Kitchen and Chris Singleton’s departure from Florida State? One man may be the graduate student transfer from Arkansas, Jeff Peterson. Peterson originally committed to Princeton but ended up heading from Iowa to Arkansas before utilizing his fifth year to transfer to Tallahassee. His addition makes six seniors (including two graduate students), who should make the Seminoles a tough team yet again this season. The Sporting News checks Florida State in at #27 in their Top 50 for this season.
4. Duke Hoop Blog: Mitch McGary’s father talks about the path his son took to becoming ESPNU’s second ranked recruit in the 2012 class. The portrait is a different take than one might find from high school scouts because it’s from the inside. McGary is from a small town in Indiana, and has come out of relative anonymity by putting on a show at summer camps and skill academies. One thing to note is it sounds like he still has some work to do academically to make sure he’s eligible to compete (McGary himself is quoted saying, “I could’ve gotten straight As my senior year and I still would have to go to a junior college.”). His current list, despite contrary reports, includes Michigan, Duke, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky and Maryland.
5. Boston Globe: Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo is putting his foot in his mouth after giving what seemed like a candid and inflated retelling of the Eagles’ influence over conference realignment. Specifically, he recanted his statement that led to all the weekend speculation about ESPN’s role in the expansion. In some ways this actually makes me raise my eyebrows even more because if he had been misunderstood he wouldn’t have apologized, just clarified. Furthermore, DeFilippo apologized for airing the ACC’s dirty laundry, seemingly making it like he turned the conference against the idea of inclusion of Connecticut.