With all the player turnover these days in college basketball, coaches can no longer rely on incoming freshmen to fill their open roster spots. Correspondingly, ACC coaches hit the transfer market very hard every offseason to plug the holes resulting from their teams’ various spring defections. In order to get familiar with the transfers entering the ACC this season, the tables below break out all the non-freshmen newcomers into three groupings (1) graduate/other immediately eligible transfers; 2) traditional transfers that sat out last year; 3) those sitting out this year). Players within each category are ordered according to the anticipated impact that they will have this season.

The ACC will welcome 15 immediately eligible transfers this season. Four of that group will be suiting up for Kevin Keatts’ NC State squad, as the second-year head coach has basically flipped his Wolfpack roster in just two years. Junior college transfer Derek Funderburke will battle graduate transfer Wyatt Walker for post minutes, while Eric Lockett (FIU) and Blake Harris (Missouri) will join a loaded perimeter in Raleigh. Next, several ACC staffs signed graduate transfers from the mid-major ranks to fill glaring backcourt holes. Louisville‘s Chris Mack reacted quickly to his depleted roster by grabbing Christen Cunningham and Khwan Fore from Samford and Richmond, respectively, a pair of proven guards. Zach Johnson (Florida Gulf Coast) joins Miami as the transfer on this list most likely to have a major impact. Given the departures of Bruce Brown, Lonnie Walker and Ja’Quan Newton from last year’s Hurricanes’ squad, Johnson should be Jim Larranaga’s primary perimeter scorer this season. Florida State and Wake Forest both prematurely lost a guard in the spring, causing those programs to respond with graduate transfer replacements. David Nichols (Albany) may actually be an upgrade for the departed C.J. Walker in Tallahassee, while Torry Johnson (Northern Arizona) somewhat eases the loss of Bryant Crawford from Danny Manning’s Demon Deacons. Another impact graduate transfer, Javan White (Oral Roberts),should provide solid rebounding support for Clemson’s returning starting center Elijah Thomas.

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If there is such a thing as a moral victory, Tennessee exited Chapel Hill with a massive win on Sunday night. As Rick Barnes‘ Volunteers led a more experienced and talented North Carolina club by as many as 15 points in the first half, it felt as though we were watching the second-year SEC coach’s coming-out party. But Barnes wasn’t interested in victories that don’t count in the win column, saying afterward: “I don’t want them to feel good about being close in games. We’ve got to figure out a way to get over the hump.” If Tennessee is going to get over that hump this season, it will need to find a better way to get the ball to wing Robert Hubbs — something the Volunteers failed to do with the game on the line over the weekend.

Rick Barnes almost had a signature win for his early tenure in the SEC (Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports Images)

Tennessee’s offense completely sputtered down the stretch in Chapel Hill, scoring just five points in the critical last five minutes of the game. Hubbs dominated the wing, scoring 21 points on 9-of-11 shooting before sitting with cramps with just over five minutes remaining. When he returned to the Vols’ lineup at the 3:35 mark, his teammates failed to get him the ball on three critical possessions down the stretch. In the first scenario — with Tennessee up one point and 2:46 remaining — Shembari Phillips dribbled around the perimeter for most of the shot clock before giving it to freshman Grant Williams so he could settle for a contested three-point jumper. Here is the offensive set in all of its glory.

In the second critical possession, the Vols — now trailing by one point with less than two minutes remaining — drew up a play out of a timeout to get Hubbs the ball. As the screenshot below shows, Hubbs moves across the lane as if to set a screen along the baseline before pivoting to post up his defender. Phillips then dribbles to the right wing for the post entry pass, but North Carolina’s Kenny Williams plays such great denial defense that Hubbs ends up about 18 feet from the basket. The play fails. Phillips has nowhere to go, so he instead hands the ball off again to Williams at the top of the key, who quickly drives and turns the ball over. Read the rest of this entry »