With another week of college basketball came another week of uncertainty atop the Big Ten standings. #17 Michigan started its week off in spectacular fashion with a win at #23 Ohio State, but the Wolverines could not stick with it as they were upset at home by #16 Wisconsin on Sunday. #15 Michigan State also had a strong start to its week by soundly defeating Northwestern on Thursday. The Spartans, however, could not take advantage of an early Michigan loss on Sunday afternoon, as they were surprised in East Lansing by an upstart Nebraska squad. Michigan and Michigan State remain tied atop the conference standings with 10-3 records and the two schools will meet this coming Sunday in Ann Arbor for what will be a monumentally important game to determine the conference’s regular season champion. While no team was able to rise to the occasion in the Big Ten, the Big East was a different story. #9 Creighton regained its stronghold on the conference lead Sunday when the Bluejays completed their season sweep of #14 Villanova with another resounding victory. With the start of conference tournaments now less than a month away, more regular season league races will continue to take shape in the coming weeks. The quick n’ dirty analysis of this week’s poll is after the jump.

Quick n’ dirty analysis.

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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 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. Fayetteville Observer: Great piece from Bret Strelow with a transcript from a conference call of ACC coaches discussing the Marcus Smart situation. Always good for a quote, Jeff Bzdelik mentioned “Twitter muscle,” noting “there are a lot of unhappy people out there.” Mike Krzyzewski had a lot to say and was the only coach to provide an example of something concrete that’s been done to try and avoid situations like these (in the 1980s, Duke put opposing fans in the 75 seats closest to the bench instead of students). Duke is a special circumstance though because many of its students are right on the court level. It was nice to see Jim Boeheim stick up for Smart (and generally, it feels like people are doing a good job with the post-kneejerk reactions on the incident).
2. Charlottesville Daily Progress: A lot of disappointed articles have been written about Virginia’s Akil Mitchell this year, as his numbers have dropped significantly from last season. But what hasn’t been getting enough love outside of local media and blogs is attention to his defense. Mitchell consistently draws the opponents’ best large wing/high post players, and he locked down Evan Smotrycz in Virginia’s too-close-for-comfort win against Maryland Monday night.
3. Macon Telegraph: Even in the slow-tempo ACC, Georgia Tech‘s current offense just isn’t cutting it. The good news is that Robert Carter is back. The bad news is that the team still relies on Chris Bolden (who is making a truly abysmal 28.7 percent of his twos this season) as a scoring option. But the Yellow Jackets need Trae Golden healthy to even be competitive in most conference games.
4. John Gasaway: Tuesday Truths is back! That means another head-scratching look at the ACC’s tempo and wondering just how Syracuse has averaged 55 possessions per game. That’s ridiculously slow. What’s also becoming clear is that Syracuse is playing with fire right now. The Orange have slipped well below Virginia and Duke in efficiency margin (+0.17 compared with +0.22 and +0.21, respectively), and they still have road games against Pittsburgh, Duke, Virginia and a dangerous Florida State team that may be truly desperate for a resume win. Syracuse could easily go 1-3 in those games, and I’d be surprised if it didn’t lose at least two of them. Long story short: Don’t wrap up the regular season ACC title just yet.
5. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Speaking of Pittsburgh–Syracuse later tonight, Paul Zeise had a chat about the Panthers. Other than someone calling the Orange uptempo (see above), there’s a lot of good stuff here. Remember, in Pittsburgh’s recent slide, Lamar Patterson and Talib Zanna have not been playing at 100 percent. It’s also interesting that despite the injuries, Zeise likes Pittsburgh’s match-up with Syracuse. Clearly, the Panthers have to play better than they did against Virginia Tech last weekend, but that game may have been a worst case scenario (unhealthy trap game). Read the rest of this entry »

There are still tons of great ACC match-ups left to be played this season with roughly a month to go until the end of the regular season. Pittsburgh and Syracuse will square off again, continuing the old Big East rivalry in their new home. Duke and North Carolina, the best rivalry in college sports (sorry, Michigan-Ohio State football), will be at the forefront of the nation’s basketball consciousness twice more this season. And following the epic Duke/Syracuse meeting in New York on February 1, the nation gets to enjoy a rematch in Cameron Indoor on the 22nd of this month. However, most should probably go ahead and mark March 1 on their calendar now. That’ll be the day the conference championship will be decided.

Tony Bennett’s Cavaliers can claim the ACC if they keep rolling and take Syracuse at home (virginiasports.com)

Syracuse is currently sitting atop the conference with a perfect 10-0 record following their defeat of Clemson on Sunday night. Virginia, following another impressive performance in knocking off Georgia Tech on Saturday, sits at a very impressive 10-1. The two teams are going to square off on Virginia’s home turf in Charlottesville on the first of March, and this game will determine who takes the ACC. Crazy things can and may happen, but in looking at the relevant teams at the top of the conference standings and their respective schedules remaining, the road for these two teams seems destined to collide at John Paul Jones Arena with a title on the line.

Syracuse’s toughest games remaining (outside of the bout with the Cavaliers) are at Pittsburgh and at Duke. While a rematch with Pitt (Syracuse won the first meeting in 59-54 January 18) would appear to be a tough test for the undefeated Orange, it’s hard to project Pitt will overtake the nation’s number one team after struggling to defeat the ACC’s worst in Virginia Tech over the weekend in double overtime at home. That leaves the Duke game as the lone true test for Syracuse prior to meeting Virginia, and even if Duke responds with a win in a frenzied Cameron Indoor Stadium, that would merely move the Orange into a tie with Virginia with a conference loss apiece prior to meeting head-to-head.

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When Tony Bennett began his tenure as Virginia‘s coach, the Cavaliers were the slow team in a fast conference. In his first season, they ranked 317th out of 347 teams in possessions per game, and have only gotten slower since. The ACC was the ninth-fastest league that year, making a 16-15 Virginia team even more of an outlier, but the Cavaliers finished 5-11 in the ACC. Fast forward four years: Bennett’s team finds itself at 10-1 in ACC play and controlling its own destiny for a conference title by staying true to the methodical offense and stifling defense that has become a family trademark.

Tony Bennett Is Working His Magic In Charlottesville

In fact, when asked about the walk-it-up tempo employed by his team in a 60-possession win at Georgia Tech on Saturday, he quickly mentioned his father, Dick Bennett. Tony Bennett played for his father at Wisconsin–Green Bay and then coached under him at Wisconsin and Washington State. The younger Bennett learned well the lessons of his father, considered by his peers a master tactician. Sports Illustrated‘s Luke Winn wrote the primer on the defensive style at the heart of both Bennetts’ success. When the elder Bennett went to the Pac-10 in 2003, his son said Saturday, he found himself as the coach of the slow team in a fast conference. But then Ben Howland came to UCLA, among others, and the league’s pace slowed toward Bennett’s preferred crawl. A similar transition has moved to the ACC, where Virginia isn’t even the slowest team anymore. Miami is the slowest team in America; both Clemson and Syracuse rank among the most methodical 10 teams in the country; and the ACC has fewer possessions per game than any other conference. Virginia is a relatively quick 338th in tempo, but much more importantly to Bennett, his team ranks third in defensive efficiency.

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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. Hampton Roads Daily Press: Here’s a good look at three of the most efficient guards in the ACC: London Perrantes, James Robinson, and Tyler Ennis. Ennis and Robinson may best Ty Lawson’s assist-to-turnover ratio (although neither can touch his other offensive numbers), and it’s even more impressive when you remember that all three are freshmen and Ennis is the only one likely to leave school sooner rather than later. Their teams also currently reside in the top three in the conference standings (though Duke is hot on their trail).
2. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Jamel Artis is going to be really good in a couple of years for Pittsburgh. Injuries are never good, but they always open the door for different players to see more time. Artis has been soaking up some of Durand Johnson’s leftover minutes, and he made the most of his newfound playing time in the team’s loss to Virginia. Like many other young players in the league (think: a young Ian Miller at Florida State), Artis is mostly held back by his defense. Once that comes around, he could become one of Pittsburgh’s top options in a hurry.
3. Washington Post: Let’s just say that after a disappointing performance against North Carolina — especially in the first half — I think Mark Turgeon may have gotten a little too optimistic that all of his yelling was paying off. Now, playing in Chapel Hill is no easy feat, and it’s easy to make the Bzdelikian argument that it would have been a totally different game if North Carolina hadn’t started with an 11-0 lead. But Maryland gave up that lead. And it gave up another run to close the first half. Those flat stretches offensively are what Turgeon needs to find a way to avoid. Maybe yelling will be the answer. Maybe a healthy Seth Allen will. But there’s still a lot of work to do.
4. Duke Basketball Report: Barry Jacobs does a good job dismantling a context-less stat from a Virginia broadcast that the Cavaliers are 32-2 when holding opponents under 50 points with Tony Bennett at the helm. The ACC as a whole this season is 30-3. The one bit of context that makes the statistic more meaningful is that Virginia usually plays with an abnormally slow tempo (meaning an opponent scoring 50 against the Cavaliers likely played better than an opponent failing to reach 50 against the Tar Heels).
5. SBNation: Great story from SBNation on Kendall Marshall‘s NBA resurrection. Marshall looked like he might be destined for Europe just a couple of months ago, but now he’s starting at point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers. What remains to be seen is how he can improve his defense (which will be the determining factor on a team not coached by Mike D’Antoni). But all facets of his game weren’t clicking in Phoenix, and James Herbert points to a change of attitude from the former North Carolina guard.

1. If you thought that the legal issues around the Mike Rice case were ending soon, yesterday’s announcement that three more players are planning on filing additional lawsuits would argue otherwise. Rice, who is already facing a lawsuit from Derrick Randall, is now potential facing lawsuits from Dane Miller, Robert Lumpkins, and Jerome Seagears. While the four potential lawsuits might seem like a lot there is still the potential for many more players, assistants, and other staff members to join in so there might be a lot more to this nightmare for Rice.
2. Louisville’s defense of its national title has been much tougher than expected due to a variety of issues that we have discussed in this space multiple times. Now they will have to play without Wayne Blackshear, who will be out for at least tonight’s game against Houston due to a concussion. The timing of the injury is particularly unfortunate for Blackshear as he was just reinserted into the starting lineup. Although the one game absence might not seem like a big deal we have not seen a timetable for Blackshear’s return and as we all know the recovery from a concussion can be variable. With all of the injuries and attrition that the Cardinals have had this year we would normally question how well-equipped they are to make a run in the NCAA Tournament, but we have seen Rick Pitino pull off enough miracles in March to know better than to doubt him.
3. One of the things that we have often wondered about some of the best sixth men is why their coaches do not just start them. Ken Pomeroy took it one step further and looked at which sixth men play the most and which starters play the least. Although we can understand some of the rationale for why certain players start or come off the bench we are having a hard time explaining some of these splits unless the coach is trying to give a senior player the benefit of starting, but we cannot see how that would not end up being more embarrassing if that starter ends up on the bench most of the game.
4. We held off on linking to John Gasaway’s Tuesday Truths until this point in the season because we felt that it was simply too early in the season to link to the earlier version, but now that we are done with football season it seems like a good time to take a look. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this analysis it looks at how team’s do on offense and defense in a per-possession basis in conference play. One of the more interesting findings from this week’s edition is just how well Virginia is performing compared to the rest of the ACC. We still are not sold on the Cavaliers, but numbers like this suggest that they might be better than we have been giving them credit for being.
5. We mentioned Harvard earlier this week in reference to the loss of Kenyatta Smith for the season, but for the most part they have stayed out of the national spotlight this season due to their mediocre schedule and the fact that they did not win any big non-conference games. Still they should be a tough out in March and hence a big national story when the NCAA Tournament rolls around. With that in min Charles Pierce took a look at the Crimson and while there is not anything particularly groundbreaking in it there are few people who write about anything as well as Pierce so it is worth a read.

Another weekend down means another RTC Podcast. In this week’s edition, the guys were pleased to welcome Sports Illustrated columnist and all-around good guy, Luke Winn, who regaled us with stories about some of his favorite pieces over the past few years, a couple of teams that he believes might be overlooked according to the national polls, and his favorite graphic that he’s created in the always-entertaining and informative Power Rankings column. Aside from Luke’s visit, we also found time to run down what was a simply ridiculous weekend of college basketball — Super Saturday, instead — and examine the week’s most compelling upcoming games. As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) hosts the proceedings.

Make sure to subscribe to the podcast/podblast on iTunes so that you’ll get all of the episodes immediately downloaded to your listening device.

• 0:00-5:51 – Arizona Loses In More Ways Than One
• 5:51-12:34 – Duke-Syracuse Lives Up To The Hype
• 12:34-20:42 – Slew of Other Top 10s Fall (And in OK St’s Case Fall Again)
• 20:42-33:05 – Rush The Takes: Luke Winn
• 33:05-37:32 – Kentucky Takes a Tumble in the Ranks
• 37:32-41:55 – Randy Overrating Cincinnati???
• 41:55-47:08 – Ohio State And Wisconsin – Someone Technically Won
• 47:08-51:06 – Virginia Leaps Ahead of Pitt in ACC Power Rankings
• 51:06-58:47 – Week Preview

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.