Here are a few things to keep your eye on around the ACC this weekend (all times Eastern).

Saturday, 1:00 PM: Clemson (13-10, 3-8 ACC) at Duke (19-5, 7-4 ACC) Someone call Kenny Loggins, because the Tigers have officially entered the Danger Zone. After losing at the buzzer to Syracuse to suffer yet another heart-breaking defeat at home, Clemson’s NCAA Tournament hopes are in big, big trouble. Sometimes you can pinpoint a specific reason why a team is struggling, but sometimes losing a handful of close games is nothing more than just bad luck. In Clemson’s six ACC games that have fallen within a five-point window, the Tigers are just 1-5. It’s difficult to imagine that anything less than a 5-2 finish will be good enough for Clemson to make a realistic run at the NCAA Tournament, and the immediate road ahead is filled with difficulty. Including today’s trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium, three of the Tigers next four games are on the road against NCAA Tournament-quality teams.

Can Quentin Snider’s return to the Louisville lineup lead them to an ACC Championship? (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Saturday, 2:00 PM: Miami (16-7, 6-5) at Louisville (19-5, 7-4) This is an important game for both Louisville and Miami, but for very different reasons. The Hurricanes have won four of their last five contests and appear to be trending on the right side of the bubble — a road win over Louisville would do wonders for their Tournament resume. As for the Cardinals, point guard Quentin Snider is expected back in the lineup after missing six games with a hip injury. The junior was averaging 14.8 points and 5.3 assists per game over the last four games prior to his injury, so for a team with limited offensive capabilities, getting a healthy Snider back is incredibly important for the prospects of a championship season for Rick Pitino.

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Here is the latest edition of our weekly review of the current ACC standings and team performances where we focus on which teams are playing better or worse than their records indicate. Each week we delve into advanced metrics to reveal a few interesting teams, player statistics and trends. This week we will compare some ACC player usage rates with offensive efficiency, seeing where some teams might benefit from a shift in possessions. Finally, we forecast how the final ACC standings may look given current efficiency margins, and what that means for teams’ postseason aspirations.

Note: All data is current for games played through Wednesday, February 8.

Current Standings

Syracuse‘s rise up the league standings is the story of the week. Jim Boeheim‘s club has now won five straight games by 10 points or fewer. The Orange’s close game effectiveness is why their record outshines a relatively low efficiency margin. For similar reasons, North Carolina continues to top the league standings despite trailing Louisville and Virginia in per possession performance. Florida State‘s efficiency margin now lines up nicely with its record after blasting its last three opponents by an average of 30 points per game.

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Even though surprises and upsets galore dotted the national landscape on Saturday, the ACC experienced a fairly normal weekend of results. Still, there were some good conference storylines throughout the weekend: Jim Boeheim attained a milestone in his team’s home upset of Virginia; Mike Krzyzewski returned to the sideline following back surgery as Duke held off visiting Pittsburgh; and North Carolina triumphed over Notre Dame in a game that had to be rescheduled to Sunday in the Greensboro Coliseum due to a water crisis in Chapel Hill. Here are the highlights from the weekend around the ACC:

Jim Boeheim celebrates Syracuse’s big win over Virginia, the 1,000th victory of his career.
(Rich Barnes/USA TODAY Sports)

• Best Win: Syracuse‘s 66-62 comeback win over Virginia on Saturday was important for several reasons. First, the fourth consecutive victory moved the Orange to a solid 7-4 mark in league play. Next, it also provides another high-quality win that will get them closer to the 10 or possibly even 11 conference wins that will be necessary for an invitation to the NCAA Tournament. Finally — even though the NCAA doesn’t agree — the 72-year-old Boeheim earned his 1,000th win as a head coach, every one of which came at his alma mater. The Orange were led by freshman Tyus Battle, who finished with a season-high 23 points on 7-of-11 shooting, as they rallied from a 12-point halftime deficit to notch the big win. Tony Bennett‘s Virginia teams have only suffered two defeats when leading by double-figures at the half — last year’s Elite Eight loss and Saturday’s defeat.

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Here is the latest edition of our weekly review of the current ACC standings and team performances, where we focus on which teams are playing better or worse than their records indicate. Each week we delve into advanced metrics to reveal a few interesting teams, player statistics and trends. We are at the halfway point of conference play, so we now have more data points to look at – numbers which reveal some interesting trends. This week we will look at home versus away results for each team in the league so far this year. Finally, we forecast how the final ACC standings may look given current efficiency margins, and what that means for teams’ postseason aspirations.

Note: All data is current for games played through Wednesday, February 1.

Current Standings

Despite suffering some recent injuries to its backcourt, Louisville looks like the ACC’s best squad at the halfway point in conference action. The Cardinals’ efficiency numbers are certainly boosted by the 55-point shellacking that they put on Pittsburgh, but remember that North Carolina and Duke also put together dominant one-game performances against NC State and Georgia Tech, respectively – and they have played softer league schedules to date. Further down the standings we see some teams with records that do not correspond with their per possession performance. For instance, Virginia Tech may be 5-5 in the ACC standings but its overall play from an efficiency standpoint has only been slightly better than that of Boston College (against comparable schedules). Keep on eye on Clemson – the 3-6 Tigers have now won two in a row and four of their losses have come by five points or fewer or in overtime. North Carolina may have faced the league’s easiest slate so far, but that’s about to change. The Tar Heels have only faced two ACC foes with winning records so far, but their last eight contests will feature six such squads.

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1. Duke Basketball Report: If nothing else, this ACC basketball season has been wild — JD King takes a run at trying to make sense of the madness. One thing that might have helped is if he had included RPIforecast data on some of the potential bubble teams. There’s still a lot of variance this far out, but the prediction site pegs Wake Forest and Clemson on the right side of 44 and everyone else on the wrong side (at least per the incredibly flawed RPI). Georgia Tech in particular has a big challenge ahead of it to make up for a lackluster non-conference schedule.
2. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Ken Sugiura looks at Josh Pastner‘s honeymoon season at Georgia Tech, focusing on the thoughts of former players and school legend Bobby Cremins. All are ecstatic with the job Pastner has done so far this season. Former star Dennis Scott pegged the ultimate X-factor for Pastner, which is that he needs to recruit at a high level. Recruiting was the one area where previous head coach Brian Gregory struggled mightily (Paul Hewitt recruited inconsistently and didn’t get consistent buy-in; however, I think he was a better fit than Gregory). Pastner to this point has shown at a minimum that he can exceed low expectations, but his most talented teams at Memphis always failed to live up to the hype.
3. Washington Post: Another year, another Virginia team that looks like a Final Four contender. Tony Bennett is one of the most consistent coaches in college basketball, but whether because of small sample size or a hidden fatal flaw in his system, his teams simply haven’t achieved their full potential in March. As Ava Wallace’s piece here points out, this year’s team is much younger than the average Bennett team. But thanks to unwavering leadership from London Perrantes (and good recruiting/player development from the coaching staff), Virginia hasn’t missed a beat.
4. Roanoke Times: While Mark Berman avers that the Hokies are in good position, I’m not entirely sure that’s true. On one hand, Virginia Tech has looked the part of a NCAA Tournament team for most of the year. On the other, its projected RPI isn’t great, and Ken Pomeroy’s and Jeff Sagarin’s ratings are even worse. That’s not a typical recipe for making the Big Dance. That’s not to say that this season is something to scoff at, just that the Hokies’ eye test looks considerably better than the team’s statistical profile. Still, a couple of marquee wins could change things dramatically — the Hokies have shots upcoming against Virginia at home with a game at Louisville.
5. ESPN: Justin Jackson is living up to the potential many people saw in him over the past couple of years, and the change has largely been in his aggressiveness. He’s still not North Carolina‘s best player (hello Joel Berry), but he’s part of the reason this team has a chance to go deep come March. Roy Williams needs Theo Pinson to get healthy, and at least assuming reports are accurate that he only has an ankle injury, North Carolina is clearly playing the long game by giving him plenty of time to recover.

So much of this season’s focus has zeroed in on college basketball’s blue-blooded programs, both those holding true to their stature and those that are floundering. But although their names are not as sexy, this season’s early group of bubble teams features a handful of programs that have little to no recent experience in the NCAA Tournament. For coaches at these schools, climbing the mountain to March Madness can be a veritable game-changer. As we slowly turn the corner into February and the last six weeks before Selection Sunday, fans, coaches, alumni and general observers should all keep a close eye on Northwestern, Virginia Tech and TCU to see if they can end their long droughts by closing the deal.

Is Another Chicago Curse About to End? (USA Today Images)

• Northwestern. With a 7-2 Big Ten record and its first AP Top 25 ranking in seven years, Northwestern is finally in position to end the other less-publicized Chicago area losing streak. Though there have been a few close calls over the course of the last decade, head coach Chris Collins seems to have the group of Wildcats that will break through. His team currently ranks 29th in the RPI, having gone 18-4 against a schedule that KenPom rates as the 67th toughest in college basketball. The selection committee values road wins and Northwestern has answered this season by winning four of its first five Big Ten away games. Hopes are high in Evanston, and with nine games left in the Big Ten season, it would take a fairly monumental collapse for Collins’ team to play its way out of the Big Dance.

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Four ranked ACC teams took to the road on Saturday afternoon, but only one emerged unscathed. Syracuse picked up its biggest win of the year by beating Florida State at the Carrier Dome; Georgia Tech edged Notre Dame at the buzzer in Atlanta; and Miami used a huge first half run to handle North Carolina with surprising ease. Wake Forest could not complete the home underdog sweep, blowing a late lead against Duke. On Sunday, Virginia nearly grabbed a huge non-conference road win for the league, but the Cavaliers fell to Villanova at the buzzer. Here are the highlights from the weekend around the ACC.

Tyler Robeson helped Syracuse hold off Florida State to give the Orange an important ACC win.
(Rich Barnes/Getty Images)

• Best Win: There were several good choices for this honor this weekend, but we’ll go with the school that probably needed a big win the most. In beating the Seminoles by a score of 82-72, Syracuse gained its first win over a ranked team this year and moved to 5-4 in league play. Given its lousy 8-5 non-conference record, the Orange probably need at least 10 ACC wins to make a reasonable case for this year’s NCAA Tournament field. Two of Jim Boeheim‘s graduate transfers led the way against Florida State, as Andrew White and John Gillon scored 24 and 21 points, respectively. Syracuse led at the half by 18 points before a furious Seminoles rally cut the lead to two late — Gillon then took over, making eight straight free throws to salt the game away.

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Here is the latest edition of our weekly review of the current ACC standings and team performances, where we focus on which teams are playing better or worse than their records indicate. Each week we delve into advanced metrics to reveal a few interesting teams, player statistics and trends, and this week we also analyze the crazy deep-shooting improvement in the league this year. Finally, we forecast how the final ACC standings may look given current efficiency margins, and what that means for teams’ postseason aspirations.

Note: All data is current for games played through Wednesday, January 25.

Current Standings

Louisville leaped to the top of the ACC in efficiency margin thanks to its 106-51 humiliation demolition of Pittsburgh on Tuesday night. The Cardinals now own the league’s best defense, while North Carolina continues to claim the top offensive unit. In what has been a very tough week for top-10 teams around the country, Florida State’s blowout loss at Georgia Tech on Wednesday night may have been the most surprising result. At this point in the season, the Yellow Jackets should be taken seriously — sporting a solid 4-4 record against the second-toughest schedule in the nation’s deepest conference. That win probably also thrust Josh Pastner into the pole position in the race for this year’s ACC Coach of the Year award. No one around the league — including Pastner himself — could have predicted that both North Carolina and Florida State would fall in McCamish Pavilion by double figures.

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We entered the weekend with a three-way tie at the top of the ACC standings and that is still the case as all three leaders were victorious on Saturday afternoon as North Carolina won a tight one at Boston College, Notre Dame handled Syracuse in South Bend, and Florida State held off visiting Louisville. In other action, Duke ended its two-game skid by coming back from a double-digit halftime deficit to defeat Miami on Saturday night. Then on Sunday evening, Clemson dropped its fifth straight–this time at home by a single point to Virginia Tech–putting the Tigers’ postseason hopes in major jeopardy. Here are the highlights from the weekend around the ACC.

Freshman Jonathan Isaac has been on fire lately for Florida State. (Phil Sears/AP)

• Best Win: Leonard Hamilton‘s team has taken on all comers to begin ACC play and has done more than hold its own – going 5-1, all against ranked opponents. Saturday in Tallahassee, Florida State finished the tough opening stretch in style by beating Louisville by a score of 73-68. It wasn’t the prettiest contest as there were a total of 45 fouls whistled and both teams shot under 40 percent from the floor. Freshman Jonathan Isaac has ramped up his play recently. After finishing with 16 points and 10 rebounds, Isaac now has posted three consecutive double-doubles. After navigating that front-loaded conference slate, the Seminoles will probably only face two more ranked opponents when they meet Notre Dame and Duke in return games on the road in February. So even though Florida State now hits the road for three straight contests, they are primed to contend for the league regular season title.

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With approximately one-third of conference play now in the books, it’s time to take a closer look inside the ACC numbers. This is the first edition of our weekly look at the current ACC standings with a focus on which teams are playing better or worse than their records may indicate. We will also delve into some advanced metrics to find a few interesting notes on teams, statistics and trends. Finally, we will forecast how the final ACC standings may look given current efficiency margins, and what that may mean for teams’ postseason aspirations.

Note: All numbers are current for games played through Wednesday, January 18.

Current StandingsWith a sample size of games this small, any one-game extreme performance can really impact the season numbers. This means that some of what we see in the table above is the result of two ACC blowouts — North Carolina’s 51-point rout of N.C. State, and Duke‘s 53-point beating of Georgia Tech. The Tar Heels are currently leading the league in both offensive and defensive efficiency, mostly because of their incredible dominance on the boards. North Carolina’s 44.0 percent offensive rebounding rate in ACC play is even higher than its nation-leading mark for all games (42.7%). Florida State and Notre Dame have achieved great starts (both are 5-1) despite facing two of the three toughest league slates to this point. At the other end of the ledger is Clemson, which has only managed a single win over Wake Forest while playing the toughest conference schedule. The Tigers’ actual performance margin, however, is better than the three squads ahead of them in the standings, so maybe they are not struggling as much as it appears.

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