Each Monday before the polls come out (hopefully), we'll be giving a quick sketch of how the ACC currently stands, as well as the top 5 games of the week (and the worst game of the week)
ACC Power Rankings
1. Duke - Duke fans have to be rejoicing. After 2 convincing wins 20 point wins over ACC opponents, they have the luxury of enjoying UNC struggles. Kyle Singler appears to have broken out of his slump, and the Plumlee brothers are providing the best low precense Coach K has had since Shelden Williams left town.
2. Clemson- Don't mess with Clemson in Littlejohn. Last year Clemson embarrassed Duke on their home floor, winning 74-47 and prompting Coach K to call a timeout with 3 seconds left in order to let his players soak in the humiliation. This year they built an early 20 point lead on UNC before coasting to an easy 83-64 lead. Duke's coming back this weekend however, so we'll get to see just how far this homecourt advantage goes.
3. UVA - The Caveliers can't really belong this high can they? The standings say yes, the eye test says no. For now they go here with an asterisk since we can't put the only unbeaten team in the conference lower than 3, especially since they beat the team below them by 7 last week. Tony Bennett has been great for the Cavs, and Sylven Landesberg has been sensational recently.
4. Georgia Tech - Paul Hewitt has to be wondering how he can get his guys to focus for longer than 20 seconds at a time. Beat a top notch Duke team, lose to a UVA team without nearly the amount of talent the Jackets have stockpiled. Build a huge lead in the Dean Dome, almost blow it in the second half. This team appears to be bi-polar. Which way they turn probably depends on how Derrick Favors develops. If he plays like a lottery pick the rest of the way, GT will challenge for the conference with Duke and Clemson (and maybe UNC). If he continues to be average, Tech will probably continue dropping games it should win.
5. Maryland - As per usual in recent years, it took being written off by writers around the ACC to get Maryland playing well again. After an uninspiring start to the season, Maryland appears to be heating up, with recent wins over FSU and BC, and a heartbreaking loss at Wake Forest where the Terps had 2 shots for the win in the final 10 seconds but couldn't convert.
6. Florida State- According to kenpom.com, FSU is the 5th most efficient defensive team in the country, allowing their opponents only 84.9 points per possession. They are however only the 105th most efficient offensive team in the country. That pretty much sums up this team. If they can manage to get points on the board at all they're tough to beat, because they're allowing less than 60 points per game and only NC State has managed to score 80 on them. But when the shots aren't falling they're eminently beatable.
7. Wake Forest- After 3 overtime wins in their past 4 games (and one 1 point loss) Wake gave Duke a pounding last night. Twice sending Duke big men flying to the floor hard on drives (and causing Kyle Singler to be so shaken up he airballed a foul shot that looked like it was aimed for a camera man rather than the hoop. This is a big physical tough team that will be a factor in the ACC race this year.
8. Virginia Tech - Vtech has a lot of wins and not a lot of losses. The question is... does that really matter? They've played 3 good teams. They went 0-3. They've played 4 decent teams (Georgia, Penn State, Seton Hall, Miami) and went 4-0. They've played 9 bad teams and went 9-0. They appear to be a solid team that wins the games they should win, loses games they shouldn't win, and will be right on the tournament bubble come March. They probably need a win against a top tier team to get in, but their relatively light schedule (which only has them playing Duke, UNC, Clemson and Gtech once each) may get them enough wins even if they don't beat a good team all season.
9. UNC- So what happened here? North Carolina appears to be lacking a star player, somebody who can take over when the game is on the line and will his team to victory on nights when things aren't working. If Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, or Tyler Hansbrough was on this team, a loss to College of Charleston would not happen. Its not a matter of talent persay,but of a star mentality, having a guy who decides that he is going to go win a game. The Heels have a group of supremely talented role players at the moment, and while that still makes them probably one of the top 25 teams in the country and maybe one of the top 15 by the end of the year, right now they have plenty of issues to work out.
10. NC State- The Wolfpack have been surprisingly frisky of late. If it weren't for the ridiculous talent gap, it would have been tempting to place them above UNC. They followed up a heartbreaker to Florida (All you need to see here) with a letdown game against UVA before shocking FSU and almost coming back from a huge deficit against Clemson. They get Duke wednesday night, a team they've played tough the past few years at home.
11. Miami- Joins Virginia tech in the "Lotsa wins, lotsa fluff" category, but is ranked lower due to a head to head loss and a 1-3 record in the ACC that somehow includes a loss to Boston College. Their last 2 losses haven't even been close, as they hit the road to Virginia twice last week and got handed double digit defeats each time. BC is next and if they're swept there, we'll have no choice but to move them to 12th next week.
12. Boston College- They somehow found a way to beat Miami last month. Thats about all the good there is to say about BC right now. They managed 9 non-conference wins, but only 2 of those (against a disappointing Michigan team, and a bipolar South Carolina team) are even worth mention here. This team is in no danger of joining the worst ACC teams list from this weekend, but it clearly is the worst team in the ACC right now.
Top 5 games this week
5. Duke@ NC State- NC State has played Duke tough at home lately, despite its recent struggles. Will that continue here?
4.NC State@ Maryland 1/23 6:00- 2 teams that have been playing well lately.
3. Clemson@Georgia Tech 1/19 7:00- 2 of the most athletic teams in the country, this game doubles as an audition to determine Duke's main competition in the conference race
2.Wake Forest@ North Carolina 1/20 7:00- One of these teams is probably going to have a chance to make a push to be part of the conference race. Its unlikely that they both will. This game is something of an elimination game in that sense.
1. Duke@Clemson 1/26 9:00 - Last year Duke went down to Clemson and got taken apart, prompting Jon Scheyer's move to point guard. This year Scheyer's been one of the best point men in the country, but how will that survive in Little John Coliseum?
And the worst game of the week:
1. Virginia Tech- NCCU: Why is VT playing a completely meaningless game in the middle of January? Presumably to further pad their already cupcake laden schedule. Why would anyone watch? I have no idea.
Showing posts with label Roy Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roy Williams. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
5 Best/Worst ACC Teams of the Past Decade
There have been a deluge of "Decade lists" all over the internet over the past several weeks. As such we make no claim to be original as we provide you two more. However this is a first in the sense that each weekend as the season moves on we will be giving you some historical rankings, a look back at the past of the ACC. It will hopefully give context when somebody makes the claim that a current team is "historic" in some sense or another if we know who precisely they are competing against for that designation.
Some requirements for the "best of" list
5 Best ACC Teams of the Past Decade
Honorable Mention: Georgia Tech 2004, UNC 2008
5. Maryland 2002- The best of Gary Williams teams at Maryland, this group showed what his brand of underdog toughness looked like when it was backed by NBA level talent. This team dropped only 4 games all season, sweeping through the ACC regular season with their only loss occurring in Cameron Indoor Stadium to a Duke team equally loaded with NBA talent. After a disappointing loss in the ACC Tournament, they swept through the NCAAs winning all their games by 8 points or more. Lonnie Baxter and Juan Dixon both scored more than 25 points in the elite eight to offset a huge scoring performance by Caron Butler of UConn and they then beat a formidable Kansas team in the semifinal. However their performance is somewhat diminished by the fact that they faced by far the weakest finals opponent of the decade when they played Indiana, who was unranked in the AP poll going into the tournament before catching fire and knocking out excellent Duke and Florida teams on the way to the finals.
4. Duke 2004- Absolutely JJ Redick's best team, although this team belonged to the veteran point guard who it seemed had been at Duke forever, Chris Duhon, and the athletic freshman from London, Luol Deng. With a starting lineup of Duhon, Redick, Daniel Ewing, Deng, and Shelden Williams this Duke team featured 3 future lottery picks, 6 future NBA players, 2 national defensive players of the year, and the ACC's #2 all time scorer. It was a conglomeration of talent that seemed to get better throughout the season before falling short to a loaded UConn team featuring Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in the final 4.
3. UNC 2005- A team that finally fulfilled its potential after a few years of teasing Tar Heels fans, this team featured 4 high NBA draft picks in Sean May, Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants, and Marvin Williams. After an early embarrassing loss to Santa Clara without Felton, this team spent the rest of the season reestablishing Roy Williams reputation as one of the best coaches in the business. They won a loaded ACC that featured 3 Top 5 ranked teams in the final rankings, with their only losses coming on the home floors of the other 2 top ranked teams (Duke and Wake). They then swept through the NCAAs before engaging in a classic final with an extremely popular and talented Illinois team in what many consider the best final of the decade (although the edge here goes to Memphis-Kansas).
2. UNC 2009- Stop me if this sounds familiar, after a few years of not quite making it behind a quick point guard, NBA quality shooting guard, and big physical center, UNC broke through and won a title for Roy Williams, getting contributions from an athletic freshman big man along the way. In this case the talent on hand was arguably even better, with Tyler Hansbrough finishing as the all time leading scorer in the ACC, Ty Lawson becoming arguably the most feared player by defenders in the country, and Wayne Ellington, Deon Thompson and Danny Green providing multiple other NBA level options. The Heels dropped a few games in the ACC, but it mostly appeared to be due to boredom. They swept a solid Duke squad, winning the ACC regular season in the process, lost a game to Florida State in the ACC tournament, and then swept through the NCAAs without being seriously threatened along the way.
1. Duke 2001 - What makes this Duke team stand out from the rest? The sheer amount of talent on board. They had 5 guys who went on to consistently start in the NBA (4 of them are still starting for teams in the NBA, with the 5th being Jason Williams, who was considered the best of the bunch before his motorcycle accident). They had 2 National players of the year, including Shane Battier who was also a 3 time National Defensive player of the year. They had a future NBA all star in the post in Carlos Boozer, a physical wing player in Nate James who knew how to win, a budding star in Mike Dunleavy who peaked at just the right time in the national championship game, and most of all, 2 stars who refused to let Duke lose that season in Battier and Williams. The best talent of any ACC team this decade + a hall of fame coach = a National Championship for the best team of the past decade in the ACC.
And for the 5 worst teams of the decade:
Honorable Mention: Clemson 2000, NC State 2009
5. NC State 2008- There is no way this team should have been on this list. Before the season started Gavin Grant was boldly predicting a final 4 and "no more than 4 losses" This was a team coming off a hopeful 2007 season, with budding stars Brandon Costner and Ben McCauley, and seasoned veterans like Grant that had added a blue chip freshman in JJ Hickson. Yet Chemistry issues caused the team to fall apart. After dropping some easy games early (New Orleans), they came together for a while, beating a tough Davidson team, before chemistry issues caused them to implode completely as they lost their last 9 games of the season to end up with a losing 15-16 record. While its true that other teams not listed here may be worst, this team deserves special recognition for a complete waste of talent.
4. Miami 2007- For a team with some considerable talent (Jack McClinton, Denis Clemente, Dwayne Collins) this Miami team ended up being very bad indeed. They finished 4-12 in a mediocre ACC with only 2 wins over an erratic Maryland team to claim to their credit. They lost early to bad teams (Buffalo, Cleveland State, Binghampton) and by a lot to good teams (UNC 105-UM 64). It was a forgettable year for a team with more talent than they showed.
3. Florida State 2001 - Now here was a team without talent. Their best player, Delvon Arrington (who?), didn't even average 12 points a game. They only managed 9 wins on the season, and 4 wins in ACC play (mostly due to a team that we will cover in a second). There really isn't much good to be said about this team, other than the fact that it was better than #2 on the list.
2. Clemson 2001- Despite winning 12 games on the season, this Clemson team (and the 2000 team that was arguably just as bad) checks in here because it was somehow swept by the abysmal Florida State team above. That doesn't need or deserve any further explanation.
1. UNC 2002 - How in the world does one of the flagship programs in college basketball, which had 2 of the teams in the other rankings, produce the worst ACC team of this decade? I have no idea. I hadn't planned on putting UNC here, I was going to rank them somewhere but I assumed that it couldn't really have been that bad. I was wrong. 8-20 overall, tied for last in the league with (you guessed it) Florida State and Clemson. (The early years of this decade were not kind to those 2 schools). Their only ACC wins were against FSU, GTech and Clemson. They lost to Hampton. They lost to Davidson (non Steph Curry edition). They lost to College of Charleston (yes history does repeat itself). In fact they lost to a lot of people. Except for a crazy stretch in the middle of the season where they won 5 of 6, there was absolutely nothing good about this season. Losing by a combined 66 points in their 3 meetings with Duke that season, including 2 in a row to end their season, capped off what was the worst ACC season of the decade completely appropriately.
Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!
Some requirements for the "best of" list
- The team must have won the ACC regular season that year or lost to another team on this list. We will not be rewarding teams who coasted through the regular season then turned it on for a few games straight at the end here
- The team must have won a national championship or have come close. That's a standard that most conferences couldn't handle, but the ACC has had enough post-season success over the past decade that this doesn't really even need to be a rule. But teams like Duke's 2006 edition that ran threw the regular season but came up short in the postseason won't cut it here
- The team must be competitive with other teams on this list. In 2007 UVA and UNC tied for the regular season championship at 11-5. Neither of those teams ended up in the Final 4, but even if they had its fairly obvious that they could not compare to ACC champs from other eras. Last year's ACC for instance, with a loaded UNC team as well as strong Duke, Clemson and Wake squads, probably had 4 and maybe 5 teams that could have won the ACC in 2007. Success matters, but so does quality of competition that year.
5 Best ACC Teams of the Past Decade
Honorable Mention: Georgia Tech 2004, UNC 2008
5. Maryland 2002- The best of Gary Williams teams at Maryland, this group showed what his brand of underdog toughness looked like when it was backed by NBA level talent. This team dropped only 4 games all season, sweeping through the ACC regular season with their only loss occurring in Cameron Indoor Stadium to a Duke team equally loaded with NBA talent. After a disappointing loss in the ACC Tournament, they swept through the NCAAs winning all their games by 8 points or more. Lonnie Baxter and Juan Dixon both scored more than 25 points in the elite eight to offset a huge scoring performance by Caron Butler of UConn and they then beat a formidable Kansas team in the semifinal. However their performance is somewhat diminished by the fact that they faced by far the weakest finals opponent of the decade when they played Indiana, who was unranked in the AP poll going into the tournament before catching fire and knocking out excellent Duke and Florida teams on the way to the finals.
4. Duke 2004- Absolutely JJ Redick's best team, although this team belonged to the veteran point guard who it seemed had been at Duke forever, Chris Duhon, and the athletic freshman from London, Luol Deng. With a starting lineup of Duhon, Redick, Daniel Ewing, Deng, and Shelden Williams this Duke team featured 3 future lottery picks, 6 future NBA players, 2 national defensive players of the year, and the ACC's #2 all time scorer. It was a conglomeration of talent that seemed to get better throughout the season before falling short to a loaded UConn team featuring Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in the final 4.
3. UNC 2005- A team that finally fulfilled its potential after a few years of teasing Tar Heels fans, this team featured 4 high NBA draft picks in Sean May, Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants, and Marvin Williams. After an early embarrassing loss to Santa Clara without Felton, this team spent the rest of the season reestablishing Roy Williams reputation as one of the best coaches in the business. They won a loaded ACC that featured 3 Top 5 ranked teams in the final rankings, with their only losses coming on the home floors of the other 2 top ranked teams (Duke and Wake). They then swept through the NCAAs before engaging in a classic final with an extremely popular and talented Illinois team in what many consider the best final of the decade (although the edge here goes to Memphis-Kansas).
2. UNC 2009- Stop me if this sounds familiar, after a few years of not quite making it behind a quick point guard, NBA quality shooting guard, and big physical center, UNC broke through and won a title for Roy Williams, getting contributions from an athletic freshman big man along the way. In this case the talent on hand was arguably even better, with Tyler Hansbrough finishing as the all time leading scorer in the ACC, Ty Lawson becoming arguably the most feared player by defenders in the country, and Wayne Ellington, Deon Thompson and Danny Green providing multiple other NBA level options. The Heels dropped a few games in the ACC, but it mostly appeared to be due to boredom. They swept a solid Duke squad, winning the ACC regular season in the process, lost a game to Florida State in the ACC tournament, and then swept through the NCAAs without being seriously threatened along the way.
1. Duke 2001 - What makes this Duke team stand out from the rest? The sheer amount of talent on board. They had 5 guys who went on to consistently start in the NBA (4 of them are still starting for teams in the NBA, with the 5th being Jason Williams, who was considered the best of the bunch before his motorcycle accident). They had 2 National players of the year, including Shane Battier who was also a 3 time National Defensive player of the year. They had a future NBA all star in the post in Carlos Boozer, a physical wing player in Nate James who knew how to win, a budding star in Mike Dunleavy who peaked at just the right time in the national championship game, and most of all, 2 stars who refused to let Duke lose that season in Battier and Williams. The best talent of any ACC team this decade + a hall of fame coach = a National Championship for the best team of the past decade in the ACC.
And for the 5 worst teams of the decade:
Honorable Mention: Clemson 2000, NC State 2009
5. NC State 2008- There is no way this team should have been on this list. Before the season started Gavin Grant was boldly predicting a final 4 and "no more than 4 losses" This was a team coming off a hopeful 2007 season, with budding stars Brandon Costner and Ben McCauley, and seasoned veterans like Grant that had added a blue chip freshman in JJ Hickson. Yet Chemistry issues caused the team to fall apart. After dropping some easy games early (New Orleans), they came together for a while, beating a tough Davidson team, before chemistry issues caused them to implode completely as they lost their last 9 games of the season to end up with a losing 15-16 record. While its true that other teams not listed here may be worst, this team deserves special recognition for a complete waste of talent.
4. Miami 2007- For a team with some considerable talent (Jack McClinton, Denis Clemente, Dwayne Collins) this Miami team ended up being very bad indeed. They finished 4-12 in a mediocre ACC with only 2 wins over an erratic Maryland team to claim to their credit. They lost early to bad teams (Buffalo, Cleveland State, Binghampton) and by a lot to good teams (UNC 105-UM 64). It was a forgettable year for a team with more talent than they showed.
3. Florida State 2001 - Now here was a team without talent. Their best player, Delvon Arrington (who?), didn't even average 12 points a game. They only managed 9 wins on the season, and 4 wins in ACC play (mostly due to a team that we will cover in a second). There really isn't much good to be said about this team, other than the fact that it was better than #2 on the list.
2. Clemson 2001- Despite winning 12 games on the season, this Clemson team (and the 2000 team that was arguably just as bad) checks in here because it was somehow swept by the abysmal Florida State team above. That doesn't need or deserve any further explanation.
1. UNC 2002 - How in the world does one of the flagship programs in college basketball, which had 2 of the teams in the other rankings, produce the worst ACC team of this decade? I have no idea. I hadn't planned on putting UNC here, I was going to rank them somewhere but I assumed that it couldn't really have been that bad. I was wrong. 8-20 overall, tied for last in the league with (you guessed it) Florida State and Clemson. (The early years of this decade were not kind to those 2 schools). Their only ACC wins were against FSU, GTech and Clemson. They lost to Hampton. They lost to Davidson (non Steph Curry edition). They lost to College of Charleston (yes history does repeat itself). In fact they lost to a lot of people. Except for a crazy stretch in the middle of the season where they won 5 of 6, there was absolutely nothing good about this season. Losing by a combined 66 points in their 3 meetings with Duke that season, including 2 in a row to end their season, capped off what was the worst ACC season of the decade completely appropriately.
Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!
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