1. Associated Press (via The State): Clemson freshman Adonis Filer lit up the Citadel for 21 points on seven shots (he was a perfect 7-of-7 from the field but missed a foul shot). After letting the Bulldogs hang around for the first 10 minutes, Clemson broke the game open by locking down on defense. Don’t read too much into the beatdown (the Bulldogs trailed Georgia Tech 20-3 on its way to a 32 point loss), but a 41-point win is a 41-point win, even against Ken Pomeroy’s fifth-worst team in the country. Clemson will need a lot of this type of performance from Filer during ACC play.
2. Washington Post: Mark Turgeon is really concerned about how his team will perform in close games. Unfortunately, Maryland’s non-conference schedule only afforded it one such game (the season opening loss to Kentucky where Maryland went flat down the stretch). Since then it has been a rotating cast of cupcakes. Turgeon has had his team practicing those tight situations all season, but you can’t replicate the intensity of conference play on the practice floor.
3. Streaking the Lawn: Virginia‘s non-conference play was an emotional roller coaster. An undermanned Cavaliers team lost its season opener to George Mason. Less than a week later, they lost to a mediocre Delaware team and missed the chance to prove their own in the NIT Tip-Off. Then Tony Bennett’s team pulled off a shocking upset at Wisconsin and ground out a home win against Tennessee only to lose to a horrible Old Dominion team before Christmas. There were some cupcakes in between those contests, but it’s really tough to tell who the real Virginia is this season. It will be really interesting to see how North Carolina handles Bennett’s system this coming Sunday.
4. Duke Basketball Report: NC State freshman TJ Warren is on pace for a record-setting year. Currently, Warren is shooting 77-of-111 (69.4%) from the field. Only Brendan Haywood and Christian Laettner have sported better field goal percentages as a rookie — and Laettner didn’t manage enough attempts to make the record book. What’s especially impressive about Warren (compared to Haywood) is his versatility. Haywood never saw a shot longer than four feet that he liked, but Warren is a sick 8-of-13 from long range so far this year.
5. The Sporting News: Mason Plumlee looked rather pedestrian against Davidson last night. The Wildcats doubled him every time he touched the ball and his six turnovers show just how rattled he was by their two-pronged attack. In the first half specifically, Plumlee looked totally frustrated by the strategy. In the second half, he looked better (though still not great). But the reason Duke’s future opponents should be warned isn’t that he’ll come back more motivated — they should be warned because Duke still dominated a good Davidson team, winning by 17 points in a quasi-road game (covering Vegas’ 11.5 point spread and matching Ken Pomeroy’s prediction).

You can be forgiven if you don’t know much about Akil Mitchell other than the fact that he is a forward who plays for Virginia. In his first two years in the ACC, Mitchell was a role player backing up and complementing a veteran frontcourt stacked with the likes of Mike Scott and Assane Sene.  He played 22 MPG last year and averaged 4.1 PPG and 4.4 RPG. Those are decent numbers and all improvements over an even smaller role in his freshman year. However, with the departure of star player Scott, Mitchell has stepped into the limelight and performed magnificently. In 28 MPG this season, the 6’8″ forward is averaging 13.2 PPG and 9.2 RPG with a pair of assists and a steal a game thrown in for good measure. This is a remarkable improvement and currently Mitchell sits at fourth in the ACC in rebounds per game while he is just outside of the top 10 in scoring average. What makes this achievement all the more impressive is the tempo at which Virginia plays.

Akil Mitchell Has Made a Huge Leap This Season

As in recent years, Virginia plays at a mind-numbingly slow pace. There are only four teams in Division I that play slower than the Cavaliers, and Tony Bennett‘s team is clearly the tortoise of the conference. So what? This means that Mitchell’s per game production actually underrates how good the forward has been for his team. He’s a top five player in the conference in offensive and defensive rebounding percentage as well as a top five player in offensive efficiency for players who use at least 24% of their team’s possessions. This isn’t an issue of a player who just needed more minutes or a more featured role: Mitchell took a big leap this year, improving in all of his tempo-free metrics even as he took on more responsibility for the offense.

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1. Tallahassee Democrat: Yesterday, Michael Rogner suggested Okaro White becoming more aggressive would help the Seminoles. Another thing to consider is that Florida State did very well in transition against Maine. Part of its success was Maine’s strategy, but the Seminoles reportedly wanted “to establish ourselves in transition,” according to head coach Leonard Hamilton. This year’s team isn’t quite the beast defensively inside the arc as the past few Seminole teams, so it makes sense to try to get more turnovers (on paper the team should be lethal in transition). Definitely keep an eye on this as we get closer to conference play.
2. Winston-Salem Journal: Things are getting uglier and uglier at Wake Forest. Jeff Bzdelik will not be taking any more live calls on his radio show. Apparently the move isn’t to “deflect criticism,” but it definitely looks that way. The show’s producers are trying to cut down on long-winded callers wanting to vent instead of ask questions. Host Stan Cotten and some colleagues at IMG College made the call to move to a format of all pre-recorded questions.
3. Charlottesville Daily Progress: Whitey Reid took a look at ranking the “pleasant surprises” for Virginia, but may have forgotten to point out the forest through the trees. It’s true Teven Jones, Akil Mitchell and Darion Atkins have all surprised people, but what about the team as a whole? If you told me Virginia would be 8-2 with wins over Wisconsin and Tennessee at this point in the season and were missing Jontel Evans for most of it, I would have laughed at you. This team has really outperformed my expectations and Jones, Mitchell, Atkins and Tony Bennett all deserve credit.
4. Keeping It Heel: I think Rich Martin really underrates Ty Lawson (who I think everyone underrates because he played with Tyler Hansbrough) and Kendall Marshall in this article when he compares the two former Tar Heels with Marcus Paige. It’s true they had more cohesive pieces surrounding them when they showed up in Chapel Hill, but they were two of the best point guards in college basketball of the last decade. Paige shows flashes of brilliance — much like Quinn Cook last season for Duke — but he really feels a year or two away from being an ACC-caliber frontman. It will be really interesting to see over the next month how Roy Williams trims his rotation. Paige is probably the best offensive option and he (again, like Cook) has to be the guy for this team to be great, but he’s not starting from the same place as Marshall or Lawson.
5. The Examiner: Miami is a team we could learn a lot about over the next couple of weeks. The Hurricanes picked up an ugly loss early (without Durand Scott), but looked great in their ACC/Big Ten Challenge win over Michigan State. They have a good chance to find themselves ranked if they beat undefeated Charlotte, coming out of a 13-day hiatus for exams. Especially with North Carolina and NC State looking vulnerable early, Miami could find itself in a good position to challenge for the runner-up position in the league. Also Garrius Adams and Bishop Daniels should be rejoining the team sometime next semester, which will help with depth.

EXTRA: Luke Winn’s Power Rankings are always worth the time, though they’re a little light on ACC meat as of late. This week he looked at Mason Plumlee‘s progression from much-maligned contributor to Player of the Year contender. Essentially, Plumlee’s stats are identical to his sophomore season with a few exceptions: He’s drawing fouls like a mad man, he’s hitting his free throws and he’s not turning the ball over. He’s also involved in a lot more possessions. Regardless, it’s really interesting how something as trivial as free throw shooting can affect the overall perception of a player.

1. Boston Globe: Steve Donahue is trying to figure out how to best rebuild Boston College, but after losing to Harvard for the fifth straight year (and in non-competitive fashion), he called off practice. He assessed what the team is good at and what it isn’t, and, long story short: shooting and defense, respectively. With that in mind Donahue changed the look of the Eagles. He went out against St. Francis looking to score 75 or 80 points, and focused the defense on aggressiveness instead of implementing complex schemes. When the first half wasn’t going well, Donahue benched his star player Ryan Anderson for most of the second half. If the Eagles start looking better, we might look back and see coaching genius. If they don’t, we’ll see desperation.
2. Fayetteville Observer: Richard Howell may be the most important player on NC State’s roster this season. He’s definitely not the most talented, but the senior consistently outworks everyone on the floor. Most people expected Lorenzo Brown or CJ Leslie to take the helm of this Wolfpack team, but Howell has been the guy who refuses to quit — he’s the guy that sparks the team and steps up in the big moments. This isn’t to say Howell is perfect, as he still attracts fouls at an alarming rate and lacks the polish to really be an offensive centerpiece. But he’s the type of guy who could bring the talented freshmen into the fold and build on the success Mark Gottfried’s team had to end last season.
3. Charlottesville Daily Progress: Justin Anderson is going to be a special player for Tony Bennett if he stays all four years. Right now, he’s an incredibly athletic wing who adds a little flash to the slowest team in college basketball. But his greatness still comes in spurts. He’s taking too many threes, especially considering his skill set. Anderson is a guy who is going to give some very good teams fits during his career. Combine him with Bennett’s muck-it-up pack-line defense that keeps things close, and it certainly looks like a recipe for success.
4. Washington Post: Mark Turgeon is still figuring out his rotation. Mostly Turgeon is trying to find his most effective combinations. Right now the Terrapins are playing a caliber of opponent that allows Turgeon to tinker a lot with very little risk. Even though he wasn’t on the team last year Dez Wells had a quote that certainly harkened back to a certain elite Terrapin from last season:
   

   “Nobody cares about who scores the points, nobody cares about the Terp of the Week, that stuff. That’s good for the team, and that’s good for the school, because they’re really behind us, but as a team we’re not worried about the accolades, we just want to win. Whether somebody scores 50 points or somebody doesn’t score at all, we’ll continue to pick that person up.”

5. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Duke isn’t the only ACC team struggling to crash the boards this season. Georgia Tech has struggled with rebounding margin as well. Somewhat surprisingly, the Yellow Jackets’ advanced splits from Ken Pomeroy don’t back up Brian Gregory’s concerns. It’s true Gregory’s team is in the second half of the country in rebounding its own misses, but the team is actually a solid defensive rebounding team. But stats never give the whole picture, and it’s clear Gregory wants the team to box out more aggressively.

EXTRA: Brian Zoubek is still living the dream as a deluxe cream puff chef based in New Jersey. He planned on giving Duke a sampling of his craft after its trip to the Izod Center to play Temple.

1. Washington Post: The big question coming into the season for Virginia was how the Cavaliers could replace Mike Scott, especially on offense. When Tony Bennett said “by committee” during the preseason, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Replace arguably the best offensive player in the conference by a committee of whom exactly? But Akil Mitchell and Darion Atkins have really stepped up and proven me wrong. Mitchell is playing very well offensively, averaging nearly 13 points and 10 rebounds a game. Together they’re making the transition as smooth as possible, though the team’s reliance on freshmen will still hurt at spots during the season.
2. Fox Sports Carolinas: Expect to see a lot more articles in this vein if Mason Plumlee‘s production keeps up. He’s absolutely having a first-team All-America season — maybe even a national player of the year season. He took plenty of criticism over his first three years, so it’s only fair he gets credit now. The thing that remains to be seen is how his brother joining Duke’s rotation (which will likely happen soon) will affect the team. It should quash some of the “Duke doesn’t have depth inside” talk and may also help with Duke’s rebounding struggles.
3. Virginia Tech Collegiate Times: Virginia Tech is renewing its long-standing rivalry with West Virginia this season, but James Johnson isn’t making a big deal about it. Part of his reasoning is because the rivalry has been dormant since his players were in middle school. Another part is likely West Virginia’s recent success since hiring Bob Huggins having eclipsed the Hokies on the national scene. Regardless, this is the kind of series that can’t hurt if the Hokies want to be in contention for an at-large bid come Selection Sunday.
4. Tallahassee Democrat: Well Florida State certainly didn’t impress the country’s top recruit Andrew Wiggins on the basketball floor Wednesday. But the school and its fans certainly let Wiggins know he’d be welcome. The Seminoles honored both of Wiggins’ parents at halftime with highlights from their Florida State careers. The fans stood for much of a blowout trying to emphasize their commitment to a sport that normally takes the backseat in Tallahassee. A coed’s tweet to Wiggins went viral. However, the game just emphasized the tough choice Wiggins has to make: Be a part of a Kentucky team that should be among the favorites to win it all, or help take his parents alma mater to a place it’s never been before. Wiggins gets compared — fairly or unfairly– to LeBron James and his decision is analogous to the decision LeBron faced in free agency. If he does choose Florida State, Leonard Hamilton’s team will instantly become a conference contender.
5. WRAL: Longtime producer and photographer Rick Armstrong remembered back to his early days in journalism three decades ago when NC State won its most recent national championship under Jim Valvano. Some stories read like they’ve been told over and over, at parties, over dinner and in the office. These are some of them. Armstrong still pines for the days when Jimmy V and the Cardiac Pack fought their way to an unlikely national title. Nostalgia makes for a great muse.

1. ACC Sports: Expansion is upon us. A 7:00 AM conference call between all of the ACC presidents will determine which, if any, of the other potential schools under consideration will be invited to join the Atlantic Coast Conference. The smart thinking on this is that Lousiville has the inside track on joining the conference and the possibility of adding more than one school is very slim. This has got to be disappointing news for Connecticut, which has lobbied hard for inclusion in the ACC, and to a lesser extent Cincinnati, Navy, and South Florida, all of which have also made bids to join the league. It looks like football success may be the deciding factor, though both Connecticut and Cincinnati are pressing hard on the issue of academics where those schools have an advantage over Louisville.
2. ESPN: Maryland‘s exit from the ACC doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a clean break after all. The noise that Maryland president Wallace Loh has been making about not intending to pay the full $50 million exit fee has roused the collective ire of the conference that Maryland has scorned. The ACC has filed a lawsuit against Maryland seeking full payment of the agreed-upon exit fee. The suit is supported by all member schools (outside of Maryland) as well as the three incoming schools (Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Notre Dame). In terms of a conference seeking full and complete restitution from a departing member, this is a big time move, at least on paper.
3. Wisconsin State Journal: The Bennetts loom large in Wisconsin basketball lore and the match-up between Tony Bennett‘s Virginia Cavaliers and his former mentor, Bo Ryan’s Wisconsin Badgers, is about as storied a coaching storyline as you can get in terms of Wisconsin basketball intrigue. Now, obviously the market for “Wisconsin basketball intrigue” is about as niche a topic of interest as possible, but for those who are interested, this is a big one. Tony Bennett was a basketball hero at Wisconsin-Green Bay and an assistant coach at Wisconsin under Bo Ryan, who succeeded Bennett’s own father, Dick Bennett, who coached Wisconsin from 1996-2000. The point is that for Virginia’s coach, tonight’s match-up against the Badgers is rather important.
4. Miami Sun-Sentinel: Miami sports fans don’t exactly have the best reputation for supporting their team and sadly that reputation extends to the students at the University of Miami whose attendance at basketball games can be described as spotty at best. Despite fielding a successful team for the past several years, Miami continues to trail the vast majority of the conference in average and annual attendance figures. With the ranked Michigan State Spartans coming to town as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge tonight, head coach Jim Larranaga is optimistic that the students and fans will show up for what could potentially be a pivotal turning point in Miami’s basketball history. Miami is good enough to give the Spartans a competitive game, and if they can do so in front of a raucous home crowd, the game could turn into a watershed moment for the Larranaga era in Coral Gables.
5. Blogger So Dear: Would someone please check on Bart Johnson? After Wake Forest took a tough loss to Nebraska, things aren’t looking great in Winston-Salem again these days and Demon Deacon fans are despondent. Faith in head coach Jeff Bzdelik has plummeted below already dangerously low levels and our favorite Wake Forest bloggers seem prepared to make a deep run through the entire The Cure discography. It’s pretty bleak.

BONUS: Maryland stomped Northwestern in last night’s game in Evanston, but the story was a little different when the two teams last faced off… in 1958. The Northwestern archives and the Washington Post are happy to point us to the footage of this long-ago meeting. It’s honestly pretty rad.

1. Raleigh News & Observer: North Carolina lost to Butler in the Maui Invitational, sending fans on a roller coaster ride bottoming out down 29 points, peaking at a last gasp comeback that cut the deficit to six, before settling somewhere in between. The Tar Heels were pushed around all night, and defended the perimeter woefully. About the only positive to take away from the game was the last 12 minutes, but North Carolina has to get a lot tougher and can’t coast after big wins.
2. Sports Illustrated: Mike Krzyzewski wants to “circle wagons” and figure out who’s staying in the ACC. It’s clear the Maryland move caught Coach K by surprised, and he’s concerned about the stability of the conference. Before the powwow he may want to wait to see if the Terrapins manage to reduce the $50 million exit fee: if they can, Krzyzewski is absolutely right to question the conference stability. It sounds like Coach K wants reaffirmation from Clemson and Florida State and supports replacing Maryland with Connecticut or Louisville.
3. Charlottesville Daily Progress: Tony Bennett really likes the progress of his freshmen, three of whom made up the Cavaliers’ top scoring trio in their win over North Texas. Bennett’s system definitely has a steep learning curve, so expect the frosh to get better as they understand their roles in the pack-line defense. Long story short: don’t write off Virginia finishing in the top half of the conference just yet. This team still has a long way to go, but it’s improved a lot even just through six games.
4. Tomahawk Nation: Props to Michael Rogner for charting an efficiency-based +/- for Florida State that takes into account garbage time and other anomalies. While the charts need more data to help take care of outliers (for instance, Terrance Shannon likely won’t play as well most games as he did against St. Joseph’s), but the data is still interesting. It confirms the Seminoles are a more consistent offensive team so far this season, and freshman point guards Montay Brandon and Devon Bookert have a lot to do with it.
5. Miami Herald: This story is mostly about football, but the NCAA just issued a brutal ultimatum to former Miami players. Mark Ennis described it best: “The NCAA is holding a gun to Miami’s head and telling former players ‘give us what we want or she dies.'” Barry Jackson reported that the NCAA sent out a letter to Miami players telling players that the NCAA will assume their guilty if they don’t talk. This definitely feels like a intimidation tactic by the NCAA to get evidence.

1. Not that there have been too many games to base these decisions on, but the first ACC player of the week for the season is Maryland forward Alex Len. The Ukrainian sophomore tallied a career high 23 points and 12 rebounds in Maryland’s close loss to Kentucky on Friday night in the Barclays Center. If Len can continue to play like that, he has a chance to move into the grouping of elite ACC big men that includes Mason Plumlee, James Michael McAdoo, and Reggie Johnson, among others. NC State guard Rodney Purvis took Rookie of the Week honors after leading his team in scoring against Miami (Ohio).
2. Keeping it Heel: Roy Williams is obviously a great coach with two national titles to his credit. But with this year’s team not of his typical mold in Chapel Hill, he has had to change his philosophy somewhat. It has long been a North Carolina tradition not to start freshmen at the beginning of the season when more proven options are available, but  Williams has gone with freshman Marcus Paige this season as the starting point guard. According to Horran Cameron, Williams has realized that the best players need to be on the court regardless of experience. It remains to be seen if Paige can blossom to the level of Williams’ national championship point guards Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson, but it is a good sign for the freshman that he has gotten this level of trust from Day One.
3. Today is ESPN’s 24-hour basketball marathon and it is capped off by one of college basketball’s great traditional match-ups:  Duke vs. Kentucky, this time, as part of the Champions Classic in Atlanta. It is the first time that Coach K and John Calipari have met since Calipari began coaching at Kentucky, and the first time the schools have met since December 2001. The featured matchup of this game will surely be Duke senior forward Mason Plumlee taking on Kentucky freshman sensation Nerlens Noel. While Kentucky may be athletically superior, they are a much younger team than Duke, and Coach K typically has Duke ready to play in these marquee early games. While this match-up will be excessively hyped throughout the day, treat it as an early season litmus test for two teams that have high expectations for this season.
4. Tallahassee Democrat:  Following Florida State’s disappointing opening game defeat to South Alabama, which dropped the team out of this week’s Top 25, Leonard Hamilton has called upon his upperclassmen to play an increased leadership role, especially senior guard Michael Snaer. With seven newcomers on the roster, Hamilton hopes that his upperclassmen can keep the team going while the younger players get acclimated to big-time college basketball. The likelihood of Snaer, Ian Miller, and Okoro White all having subpar games at the same time is pretty slim — although it did happen against South Alabama — so it is clear that these players will need to be on top of their games to avoid more embarrassing losses. There’s a lot of basketball left to be played, so it is good to see Hamilton trying to light a fire under his team after a lackluster opener, and it appeared to pay off considering Florida State’s resounding bounceback victory against Buffalo.
5. The Virginia Cavaliers have not gotten off to the best of starts, particularly with expectations fairly high following the program’s NCAA berth last year. Following a defeat in their opener against George Mason, the Cavaliers struggled to put away Fairfield in their NIT Season Tip-Off first round game in the only close game involving ACC teams last night.  However, with both starting point guard Jontel Evans and backup Malcolm Brogdon out with injuries, Tony Bennett was forced to turn to junior Joe Harris to run the point in crunch time. While they don’t play the same position, it looks as though Harris is going to be relied upon nearly as much as Mike Scott was last year to produce when the Cavaliers need help. While the experiment worked yesterday, Bennett surely hopes that Harris can move back off the ball to his more natural wing position and that his true point guards can return from injury as the competition in this tournament gets tougher (Michigan, Kansas State, and Pittsburgh are the other major conference teams in the event).

1. Inside Carolina: In the Roy Williams era, it hasn’t been too difficult for North Carolina to score. The combination of a brisk tempo and a humming offense has meant that Chapel Hill residents have gotten used to gaudy scores and the discounted biscuits that come when UNC scores over 100 during a home game. This year, however, it seems more likely that the team will derive more of its identity from defense. While John Henson and Tyler Zeller were great interior defenders, the perimeter defense of the Tar Heels was inconsistent at best last season. This year, with speedy Marcus Paige at the point and gifted defenders Dexter Strickland and Reggie Bullock on the wings, it seems likely that UNC could have one of the better perimeter defenses in the Roy Williams era.
2. Raleigh News & Observer: Down the road in Raleigh, North Carolina State is thinking about defense as well. Despite the lofty expectations that have been placed upon the Wolfpack, one of the easily spotted weaknesses for this team is defense. In Mark Gottfried’s first year, NCSU had a middling defense, and with the departure of paint protector DeShawn Painter and the ball-hawking tandem of C.J. Williams and Alex Johnson, there is concern that the defense could get worse. Still, the Wolfpack has been focusing on defense in practice, striving to improve in areas where the team fell short. C.J. Leslie and Richard Howell were often the cornerstones of NCSU’s interior defense last season, but both struggled to stay on the court due to foul trouble. Each is working on defending without fouling while maintaining the same intensity that served the team so well last year. Increased time on the court for either will do nothing but help North Carolina State become the elite team that many pundits are expecting.
3. Washington Post: The immediate eligibility of Dez Wells is a story with a lot of big time basketball implications for the Maryland Terrapins. On a human level it’s a big story for Wells, his family, his mentor, his teammates, and the Maryland basketball family as they all stood by him and hoped for the best when things looked bleakest for Wells. Sexual assault is a heinous offense that is psychologically damaging to its victims in a way that few other crimes are. To be wrongfully accused of committing this crime and to lose your place at school and on your basketball team is a heavy load for a young man to carry. It’s hard not to be happy for Wells who seems to have found a new and supportive home in College Park. His newfound eligibility is really just the cherry on top.
4. The Virginian-Pilot: James Johnson is the only rookie coach in the ACC this year, and his road will be far from easy as he tries to rebuild a Virginia Tech program that seemed permanently stuck just outside the NCAA Tournament under Seth Greenberg. The departure of Greenberg made things seem even more difficult as players transferred and recruits like Montrezl Harrell de-committed. The scary thing is that it could have been much worse. Erick Green, the senior star point guard of the Hokies, considered transferring away from Blacksburg as well but Johnson’s appointment (previously an assistant under Greenberg) to the head spot tipped the scales in favor of VT. Now the Hokies are going to try to enjoy a rebirth as an up-tempo team that complements a blistering, frantic attack with the determined inside presence of a now-healthy Cadarian Raines. Little is expected of Virginia Tech this season, but it sounds like Johnson and Green hope to surprise the rest of the ACC.
5. Washington Times: Last year, Virginia had a watershed moment with coach Tony Bennett. The Cavaliers were respected as one of the toughest defenses in the nation and Mike Scott was garnering praise as a potential All-American. When Bennett left Washington State to take on the project of rebuilding Virginia, it was clear that this wouldn’t be an easy job with a quick solution. It’s somewhat surprising then that Bennett was able to talk Washington native Joe Harris into following him to the other side of the country to play for a rebuilding team. Entering his third year, however, Harris is poised to take a starring role on a team that is expected to again make plenty of noise in the conference. Harris has NBA size and skills and, in a featured role for Cavaliers (including some time at the point with Jontel Evans out), the sharpshooting guard will hopefully see some more of  the seeds of his and Bennett’s hard work blossom.

With all of the ACC previews behind us, it’s time to put everything together in our first ACC Power Rankings of the season.

	1. Duke has all of the pieces to be a much better team than last year’s team. While the recruiting class is small, don’t forget redshirt freshmen Alex Murphy and Marshall Plumlee. Mason Plumlee may be the focal point of the Blue Devil offense. But the big question is how improved will Quinn Cook be?
	2. NC State has the most complete team on paper. Add three top-shelf recruits to a talented returning group that includes two potential conference players of the year, and there’s bound to be plenty of hype. But will the Wolfpack be able to overcome their defensive woes (and the historical defensive woes of Mark Gottfried) and play like the end of last season, or will they play like the rest of the year?
	3. North Carolina (tied) lost a lot from last year’s team with the four leading contributors with Reggie Bullock as the sole returning starter. But Roy Williams reloads instead of rebuilds. James Michael McAdoo may be the best player in the league, and Bullock looks ready to step up production. Freshman point Marcus Paige has big shoes (or at least a lot of shoes) to fill, but he’ll have help from backcourt veterans Dexter Strickland and Leslie McDonald.
	3. Florida State (tied) may fall on its face, but Leonard Hamilton and Michael Snaer have earned the right to be taken seriously after knocking Duke and North Carolina off en route to the conference championship. Keep an eye on Okaro White and Terrance Shannon this season. You can trust Hamilton’s team to bring it defensively, but can they stop turning the ball over?
	3. Miami (tied) looked rough in its exhibition loss, but there’s no denying the talent on this roster. The Hurricane frontcourt of Reggie Johnson and Kenny Kadji is the best in the league; Durand Scott and Shane Larkin make an exciting backcourt duo; and there’s no shortage of athletic wings to help fill out the lineup. But can Jim Larranaga realize his team’s talent?
	6. Maryland also has a lot of talent on its roster, but the Terrapins were abysmal offensively last season. To make matters worse (though potentially better in the long run), Terrell Stoglin is no longer with the team. Nick Faust and Alex Len need to make big improvements for Maryland to finish in the top half of the conference. Keep an eye on Maryland’s freshmen.
	7. Virginia has some interesting pieces, and Tony Bennett‘s system appears very effective. But the Cavaliers don’t have Mike Scott and his mid-range game to bail mediocre offensive possessions out anymore. This team will rely on its tenacious defense because it’s hard to see the offense being consistently effective.
	8. Virginia Tech hired James Johnson to replace Seth Greenberg, and Greenberg left Johnson with some real talent. The Hokies are a sleeper to finish in the top half of the conference if Erick Green, Jarell Eddie and Cadarian Raines mesh well. Depth will be an issue, but those three are very good players. Johnson also has established relationships with the players, which should make his transition smoother.
	9. Wake Forest is really young. But a strong freshman class joining two of the best scorers in the league should make the team marginally more competitive than the last two years. Don’t sleep on Travis McKie. McKie is a match-up nightmare for every team, and shouldn’t surprise anyone when he averages close to 20 points a night.
	10. Clemson probably should be ranked higher than this. Certainly based on roster talent and previous results, the Tigers look better than tenth in the league. That said, Milton Jennings and Devin Booker haven’t shown the consistency to take over primary roles. If Jennings lives up to his McDonald’s All-American billing and Booker gets more aggressive, this team could finish much closer to the middle of the pack.
	11. Georgia Tech (tied) looks OK on paper, but didn’t add anything significant from last season’s 4-12 campaign. This points to another rough season in Atlanta, though Glen Rice Jr.’s sudden departure may prove more of a blessing than a curse.
	11. Boston College (tied) will be a significantly more watchable team this season. The team is still young, and still low on ACC-caliber talent. But the sophomore trio of Ryan Anderson, Patrick Heckmann and Dennis Clifford are the real deal. They also all improved a lot just over the course of last season (except Heckmann, who went down with mono).