2014 ACC Basketball [Closed - use 2015 thread instead] (3 Viewers)

[The Commish]

:X if UNC somehow sneaks into the E8 here.

Very interesting last decade:

Last 10 years in the NCAAt:

K: 18-9 with 1 national championship, 0 additional final 4s, 1 additional elite 8, 3 losses in round of 64

Roy: 28-6 with 2 national championships, plus 1 additional final 4, 3 additional elite 8s - 0 losses in round of 64

Last 5 years in the NCAAT

K: 11-4 with 1 Title, 1 Elite 8, 3 losses in R64 and 0 missed tournaments

Roy: 7-3 with 0 titles, 2 E8, 0 losses in R64 and 1 missed tournament

Funny how that works. Going back 10 years also ignores Duke's F4 and Roy's first tournament.

No doubt this hasn't been K's best decade in comparison to the previous 2. But it still is a pretty solid decade. I think this was one of Coach K's worst coaching jobs. I think the last 10 years has been a mix of underachieving and overachieving and using a single elimination tournament yields to mixed results.

Funny how what works? He went back 10 years, you went back 5. Typically, the more data you have the better the picture

 

[TLEF316]

Yep, Duke just didn't have a true PG which hurt us. And while 2010 made due with Scheyer, it sure helped having Zoubek in the middle, and upperclassman Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and Lance Thomas.

I'm not sure any coach could have made up for Duke's deficiencies this year. Its a shame too, because Parker is such an amazing talent.

Duke's roster had flaws but this year was a result of coaching. Bad defensive scheme, dumb rotation decisions and too much isolation offense.

They had more than enough talent to make a run. K dropped the ball in a major way

 

[Archer]

NO, I agree it was coach's worst year in a loooong time. But I still think there was very little chance of them winning 5 or 6 straight games because of the deficiencies at PG and not having a big man. Sure on any given day they could should 50% from 3 and beat anyone in the country. But the holes were undeniable and the way I see it, they weren't going to get past the elite 8 anyway. So we lost 2 games before we should have, but not really that shocked.

 

[sporthenry]

Yep, Duke just didn't have a true PG which hurt us. And while 2010 made due with Scheyer, it sure helped having Zoubek in the middle, and upperclassman Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and Lance Thomas.

I'm not sure any coach could have made up for Duke's deficiencies this year. Its a shame too, because Parker is such an amazing talent.

Quinn Cook and TT should be more than adequate at PG especially against Wake and Mercer. Not to mention, the team is the 4th most offensive efficient team in the KenPom era (ignoring the new rule changes which did increase offense a little). And when you have 3 NBA level wings on the offensive end, you shouldn't need an elite PG.

For whatever reason, they didn't figure out how to close a game offensively. Maybe that falls on Coach K or maybe not.

But in no way was the defense excusable. It was the definition of insanity. Both in individual games and over the season. Why didn't Duke sag and protect the paint more? Why didn't Marshall Plumlee play/play more in the Mercer game? Box Score has him at 3 minutes but I don't remember him playing. DeCoursey just went right over Amile and Parker in the post. In a year with the rule changes, why did Duke not play zone? Or for as good as Duke was offensively, why didn't they push the pace more? What happened to the preseason intentions of trying to press and play fast?

Nobody can convince me that with the level of talent on the roster that this was just a case of the wrong pieces to the puzzle. Sure, they might not have fit perfectly but for a coach like K, he should get them to fit better than they did.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

Weren't Quinn Cook and Tyler Thornton both top ranked recruits?

 

[sporthenry]

Weren't Quinn Cook and Tyler Thornton both top ranked recruits?

Ignoring that all rankings aren't created equal, Thornton was around 100 IIRC. Cook was in the 30/40 range. Maybe not Irving, but on the college level, especially for a junior and senior, that is more than enough.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

Weren't Quinn Cook and Tyler Thornton both top ranked recruits?

Ignoring that all rankings aren't created equal, Thornton was around 100 IIRC. Cook was in the 30/40 range. Maybe not Irving, but on the college level, especially for a junior and senior, that is more than enough.

Right. So better than what 95% or more of the teams recruit. Not exactly fair to be yapping about lacking point guards in the same hour as bragging about 2015 recruits.

 

[Archer]

Cook was a good and at time excellent shooter, but not a good distributor. No one is going to call Thorton a high level division one player. He gave all he had, but his talent and physical limitations were obvious. Cook I think still has potential to end up a good player, but he needs to grow up too. Having Tyus run the show next year allows him to move over to shooting guard, which is really where he belongs IMO.

 

[Archer]

Right. So better than what 95% or more of the teams recruit. Not exactly fair to be yapping about lacking point guards in the same hour as bragging about 2015 recruits.

So do you think Thorton and Cook at 95% better than most PGs in the NCAA tournament this year??? And I am posting some good recruiting news for fellow Duke fans after a disappointing weekend. Only you would call it bragging, trying to make something out of nothing. It gets old man, it really does.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

Right. So better than what 95% or more of the teams recruit. Not exactly fair to be yapping about lacking point guards in the same hour as bragging about 2015 recruits.

So do you think Thorton and Cook at 95% better than most PGs in the NCAA tournament this year??? And I am posting some good recruiting news for fellow Duke fans after a disappointing weekend. Only you would call it bragging, trying to make something out of nothing. It gets old man, it really does.

Oh give it a rest. You've had 12 usernames in this thread over the years telling us how many banners Duke was going to hang every time one of these kids commits to Duke. Then they show up and aren't elite and now you claim they aren't any good. Did K miss in his evaluation? Not coach them well? Sorry but I'm not buying lack of talent. Hell I think Cook is a pretty good player and made some pretty big shots for Duke this year.

If you want Duke only responses then start a Duke thread. Not sure what else to tell you.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Yeah, I remember K treating the ACCT as any other championship. He definitely puts an emphasis on it and I think I remember his comments from a few years ago pretty much saying that he wants his players to be able to celebrate and cut the nets down which is much easier in the ACCT than in a regional final or the championship game.

I used to want to lose in the ACCT to rest the players but now think its a bit overrated. Tournament success seems highly correlated with conference tournament results and the players have 4-5 days off to rest, and as a 1 seed, you essential get a scrimmage to open up.

Not really sure I agree about the refs. Differential for Duke, at least in the last 5 or so years hasn't been great in conference. And as much as Duke tries to play high pressure defense, I don't think they use their hands nearly as much as others.

I think some of it is just familiarity with players, coaches, sets, etc. When you play a team for the 3rd time in the season and you've played the coach for multiple years, there are very few secrets. Maybe K is just good at tweaking his sets or setting his defense.

Just seems like come tournament time, K runs out there the same sets, defense, etc. and makes no adjustments. Meanwhile, you have teams throwing junk defenses at Duke or killing Duke off the dribble and he won't change. And most of these teams like Lehigh only have one player so you take away McCollum and it might end differently.

Good points and really, it's a small sample size so it's probably mainly just random.

 

[TLEF316]

Right. So better than what 95% or more of the teams recruit. Not exactly fair to be yapping about lacking point guards in the same hour as bragging about 2015 recruits.

So do you think Thorton and Cook at 95% better than most PGs in the NCAA tournament this year???

That's not the same thing. No Cook is not the best PG in the country (he'd have to be in order to be in the top 5% of the tournament) but he's far from a slouch. The kid won titles at DeMatha, Oak Hill and for the US national team (starting over the likes of Marques Teague). Thornton is INCREDIBLY limited but 95% of the teams in the country would sign to have him as their backup in a heartbeat. He's vocal, protects the ball, is tough and can knock down open J's. He commits dumb fouls all day long and can't penetrate to save his life, but he would have been more than serviceable in a much more limited role. That role should have been ~10 MPG spelling cook at the PG spot.

The problem is that you A) Can't play both of them at the same time and B) can't play Thornton at the same time as Hairston. K did both for very long stretches at times this year, which was totally inexcusable. Total lunacy.

Look, we all know how great K has been. But he did an absolutely abysmal job this year. Embarrassingly bad in terms of adjustments. He wasted this team and has probably run Semi Ojeleye (who would have been a tremendous role player as an upperclassmen) out the door because of his bizarre insistence on playing Hairston (who wouldn't even be the best offensive player in my Sunday morning league and was useless on defense with the new charge/block guidelines)

Other absolutely absurd decisions by K this year....

-Thornton on ANDREW freaking WIGGINS down the stretch against KU

-Letting Dawkins get posterized by Grant 3 straight trips in OT against Cuse while Plumlee, Ojeleye (230 lbs with a 40+ inch vertical) and even Hairston picked their noses on the bench

-And then there were several other occasions where Duke went into an offensive drought and K decided to put in Thornton.

So many bad losses and several other games that easily could have been. Just beyond horrible. The incoming freshman class could be amazing, but if K doesn't get it back together mentally (and he'll have to so without his most capable assistant, as Capel is almost certainly moving on) it could be another long season.

 

[sporthenry]

Cook was a good and at time excellent shooter, but not a good distributor. No one is going to call Thorton a high level division one player. He gave all he had, but his talent and physical limitations were obvious. Cook I think still has potential to end up a good player, but he needs to grow up too. Having Tyus run the show next year allows him to move over to shooting guard, which is really where he belongs IMO.

Nobody on Mercer is a high level division one player. It seems like you want NBA level talent 1-5 for Duke every year which just isn't realistic.

Quinn Cook was 3rd team All ACC last year. This year he has had his ups and downs and gets a little out of control but he is still good enough.

 

[Archer]

I agree K was horrible this year. But Cook is not the kind of PG I want running a Duke team. Passing it around the perimeter while running the weave, that gets old and easy to defend. It also leads to a lot of perimeter shooting. Would anyone argue Duke didn't rely too much on the 3? You need passing PGs who know how to get the ball to post and wing players in the right spots. Remember the turnovers when Thornton simply tried to feed Parker down low? Or passes that went out of bounds? I remember those plays, and they hurt a team that was poor defensively. Every possession was important to this team, and too many were passes around the perimeter and 3 point attempts.

 

[sporthenry]

Good thing UNC doesn't have McDonald

 

[TLEF316]

Could that clock have started any later? Game should be over

 

[Grady Wilson]

The turning point in the game was when Paige, for whatever reason, took a rushed 3 when they were up by 8 and Iowa State came back down and hit a 3 to cut it to give. I don't know what Paige was thinking. Carolina had ALL of the momentum at that point. This loss stings bad.

 

[fantasycurse42]

ACC was not good this season... Don't know what to think about Virginia, but their level of competition was not very high.

Glad this UNC season is over, McDonald is gone, & we can start getting ready for next year.

Really hope McAdoo and Paige are back next season.

 

[Premier]

Football conference.

August is sadly still quite a while away.

 

[Tango]

Could that clock have started any later? Game should be over

It started 2-3 seconds late on Iowa St's inbounds too; with the game tied. Odd...

 

[Grady Wilson]

ACC was not good this season... Don't know what to think about Virginia, but their level of competition was not very high.

Glad this UNC season is over, McDonald is gone, & we can start getting ready for next year.

Really hope McAdoo and Paige are back next season.

Well, I'm not glad the season is over.... I'm really bummed because they had this game won and choked.

 

[deep vacuum]

Reports are Buzz Williams to VT. Holy crap. That's a really good hire for them.

I went to high school with Brent (Buzz) and we played on the hoops team. To be honest, I'm going to be surprised if he took the Va Tech job. Last I heard was he loved it at Marquette and he does a lot of charity work up there. He also makes very good money there. I'll have to ask some of my buddies if he has hinted to them he would take the job.

Did he play piano in your band too?

Quite an intro there on CBS.

I work at MU. Had season tickets for several years. First of all I'm a big fan of Williams. Very good recruiter with but with some questionable in game coaching. Players rotated in and out like a hockey team wave. Enjoy watching his future teams try to inbound a sidelines pass. Williams did put MU back on the BB map. Had several player issues that don't typically go over well with a Jesuit University. He should sign Malek Harris who he recruited to MU that is a highly ranked juco who was never going to play for MU due to issues Harris created while playing for his high school team. He was actually removed from his high school team the last two seasons. Should help VT in the future.

Williams was treated like roalty while at MU. Very highly paid, private MU jet tomake visiting recruits easier durining the in-season grind. Players stayed at 5 star hotels. Loved that BB was top dog at MU sharing the spotlight with no one. He was among the highest paid D1 BB coaches that was always asking MU to provide him with more. Never seemed enough with him.

The coach I saw this year seemed VERY different from the one that I enjoyed watching the past five years. Very strange coaching decisions this year. Didn't take criticism well this year at all. It was always someone elses fault. He won a power struggle with the recently departed AD and seemed to believe that he was bigger than MU. I don't think that sat well with many within the MU community.Wonderful character, good representative for your school but is certainly a weird dude. Reminds me a lot of a typical thirteen year old girl always looking for a perceived slight when there isn't one.

Complained about the new Big East being a downgrade from the old Big East and that he wanted to compete at a higher level. New Bifg East is a downgrade when you lose UConn, Louisville, Syracuse, Notre Dame and others but it still ranked 3rd or 4th best BB conferance top to bottom of all BB leagues this year, including the ACC which is very top heavy. According to this site http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2014/conferencerpi the ACC had three teams with lower RPI's than DePaul. The new Big East also had two very highly ranked recruiting classes AFTER the old Big East was breaking up.

His faith is a very big part of who he is. Played well at little MU. We'll have to see how that plays out at a state school where everything is public record. Loved having him while he was at MU but very OK with him departing after the past few seasons.

Rumor I'm hearing is that is was more mutual than anything else. MU had certain expectations including player conduct, parameters for recruiting, admission standards and handling of disciplinary issues. Williams refused to accept the conditions so it was time to part ways.

Thanks for the info. I had heard he didn't get along with the new AD. As far as his coaching decisions and bringing in waves of new players that stems a little from our high school coach. If a player screwed up, we were yanked out of the game and in the dog house until coach was ready to put us back in. I understand at some point players need to be off the court, but there were times if we committed a foul or one turnover we were taken out. Sounds like that's what Brent was doing this year.

The past couple of years I have been curious about the academic and off the court issues with some of his players. I will say Brent was a very sore loser and loved to talk trash when we won. He's completely different from his dad. I wish I still kept in touch with his dad because I would get more of the inside scoop. Man, I remember when he and I would play pick up games and when I'd score I call him Big Head Brent just to get in his head. lol

Good read on Williams for anyone interested.

http://painttouches.com/2014/03/23/greska-pulling-the-curtain-on-buzz-williams/

 

[fantasycurse42]

ACC was not good this season... Don't know what to think about Virginia, but their level of competition was not very high.

Glad this UNC season is over, McDonald is gone, & we can start getting ready for next year.

Really hope McAdoo and Paige are back next season.

Well, I'm not glad the season is over.... I'm really bummed because they had this game won and choked.

I'm bummed too, but lets be honest, this team wasn't good enough to win it all.When they lost to Kansas and Marshall, Zeller, & Henson left I was really bummed bc that was a team that could've won it all.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

4 thoughts:

1) In an up and down season I would have pegged them for a S16 loss, so they got close to that. I was surprised that they really looked like the better team for most of the game. I thought Iowa State would look better and although they lost Niang, losing Johnson hurt the Heels a decent amount.

2) I hate to be that guy but I thought the officiating in general was pretty poor and mostly seemed to go against UNC. Probably 9-10 poor calls and only 1-2 went UNC's way. Just very uneven on aggression vs. touch foul calls.

3) I understand the call at the end of the game but the problem is that you're assuming in situations like that the player will just be oblivious to the time. I'm sure Britt saw the 1.6, saw it stay that way or looked up again and saw 1.3 or something and knew he could get to midcourt. If he looks up that second time and sees .6 or something, he stops and calls timeout. So you're really punishing the team for clock error. Seems like there should be a better way.

4) Rough season but looking forward to next year. Thought Roy did a really, really good job coaching this season, which I don't think many would have expected.

 

[Grady Wilson]

ACC was not good this season... Don't know what to think about Virginia, but their level of competition was not very high.

Glad this UNC season is over, McDonald is gone, & we can start getting ready for next year.

Really hope McAdoo and Paige are back next season.

Well, I'm not glad the season is over.... I'm really bummed because they had this game won and choked.

I'm bummed too, but lets be honest, this team wasn't good enough to win it all.When they lost to Kansas and Marshall, Zeller, & Henson left I was really bummed bc that was a team that could've won it all.

I never had expectations for them winning it all, but I'm always bummed when they play their last game of the year. Last year didn't hurt as bad because Kansas was the better team, but tonight I thought they were better than Iowa State. Now, next year, the bar is raised. I'm not saying they should win it all, but they should definitely be better than this year.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

ACC was not good this season... Don't know what to think about Virginia, but their level of competition was not very high.

Glad this UNC season is over, McDonald is gone, & we can start getting ready for next year.

Really hope McAdoo and Paige are back next season.

Well, I'm not glad the season is over.... I'm really bummed because they had this game won and choked.

I'm bummed too, but lets be honest, this team wasn't good enough to win it all.When they lost to Kansas and Marshall, Zeller, & Henson left I was really bummed bc that was a team that could've won it all.

I never had expectations for them winning it all, but I'm always bummed when they play their last game of the year. Last year didn't hurt as bad because Kansas was the better team, but tonight I thought they were better than Iowa State. Now, next year, the bar is raised. I'm not saying they should win it all, but they should definitely be better than this year.

Agreed. Minus injuries or moronic behavior like PJ, it should be a team with a decent chance at the Final Four.

 

[Popinski]

Yep, Duke just didn't have a true PG which hurt us. And while 2010 made due with Scheyer, it sure helped having Zoubek in the middle, and upperclassman Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and Lance Thomas.

I'm not sure any coach could have made up for Duke's deficiencies this year. Its a shame too, because Parker is such an amazing talent.

Quinn Cook and TT should be more than adequate at PG especially against Wake and Mercer. Not to mention, the team is the 4th most offensive efficient team in the KenPom era (ignoring the new rule changes which did increase offense a little). And when you have 3 NBA level wings on the offensive end, you shouldn't need an elite PG.

For whatever reason, they didn't figure out how to close a game offensively. Maybe that falls on Coach K or maybe not.

But in no way was the defense excusable. It was the definition of insanity. Both in individual games and over the season. Why didn't Duke sag and protect the paint more? Why didn't Marshall Plumlee play/play more in the Mercer game? Box Score has him at 3 minutes but I don't remember him playing. DeCoursey just went right over Amile and Parker in the post. In a year with the rule changes, why did Duke not play zone? Or for as good as Duke was offensively, why didn't they push the pace more? What happened to the preseason intentions of trying to press and play fast?

Nobody can convince me that with the level of talent on the roster that this was just a case of the wrong pieces to the puzzle. Sure, they might not have fit perfectly but for a coach like K, he should get them to fit better than they did.

Another one was K going to and having success with the platoon system early in January, and then inexplicably never coming back to it. Particularly when your star player clearly has conditioning issues.

But the most significant of those you mention was his insistence on the overplay on defense. It didn't lead to nearly enough turnovers to compensate for the fact that it inevitably led to a heavy reliance on defensive rotations that Parker, and to a lesser extent Hood and Jefferson, were not good at; and created easy lanes to crash the offensive boards against a team without much size.

 

[Popinski]

First time in 35 years - 1979 - that Kansas, Duke and UNC all missed the Sweet Sixteen.

 

[Grady Wilson]

Overall, even with the ups and downs, I am not too bummed about the season. I certainly wouldn't call this season a disappointment. I do have expectations for next year's team to win the ACC because of who they have coming in and who they have returning. I have it on pretty safe sources that Paige and McAdoo won't declare for the draft. I know it should be a no brainer for them to return, but you know how kids are these days. I can't wait to see Paige next year because I think he's going to be up there for POTY awards. Anxious to see the development of Meeks, Johnson, and I really think Tokoto is going to blossom next year for Carolina.

 

[Pantherz]

Huge props to Virginia this year.

ACC Regular Season Champs

ACC Tourney Champs

#1 NCAA Tourney seed

Last ACC team standing in tourney

And they are destroying Memphis right now!

 

[Hoos First]

I think UF, MSU, and maybe Louisville are the only teams that could beat us right now, but unfortunately we have to play MSU next. Will be interesting to see what the line is considering everyone is picking MSU.

 

[Premier]

I think the line for that game will be MSU -1.

Unfair for Virginia to have to play them in this round, but have to beat them sometime I suppose.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

I think UF, MSU, and maybe Louisville are the only teams that could beat us right now, but unfortunately we have to play MSU next. Will be interesting to see what the line is considering everyone is picking MSU.

Going to be a hell of a game. If you guys shoot as well as you are tonight I'm not sure anyone is going to beat you.

 

[Hoos First]

I think UF, MSU, and maybe Louisville are the only teams that could beat us right now, but unfortunately we have to play MSU next. Will be interesting to see what the line is considering everyone is picking MSU.

Going to be a hell of a game. If you guys shoot as well as you are tonight I'm not sure anyone is going to beat you.

We are shooting lights out thats for sure. I have some friends there sitting right behind the Memphis bench. Needless to say they have been giving the players hell.

ETA: Not Texas Tech hell though

 

[Hoos First]

I think the line for that game will be MSU -1.

Unfair for Virginia to have to play them in this round, but have to beat them sometime I suppose.

Yeah it sucks, would be a great Final Four game. MSU -1 huh? Figured it might be more.

 

[Spartans Rule]

I thought maybe blowing a 16-point lead against Harvard would bring some of the MSU hype under control but apparently not. They're very good, but everyone's hung up on one weekend where they played probably as well as they can possibly play.

Should be a great game, but I'd consider Virginia a slight favorite. They played better than MSU this weekend and most of the year, and they're the better defensive team no question.

 

[sporthenry]

I think the line for that game will be MSU -1.

Unfair for Virginia to have to play them in this round, but have to beat them sometime I suppose.

Yeah it sucks, would be a great Final Four game. MSU -1 huh? Figured it might be more.

Difference between a F4 and E8 game is minimal and the winner will be prohibitive favorites in the E8. Difference is that instead of having UVA play UCONN and MSU play ISU, it goes the other way around.

 

[sporthenry]

KenPom has UVA as 2-2.5 point favorites. I could see that dropping a bit b/c people love MSU but not sure that drops below a pickem.

Charlottesville is a bit quiet tonight. Hopefully it is a bit louder if they win next weekend.

 

[tdoss]

Man...I really hope UVA beats MSU.

Can't stand how everyone picked MSU to run that bracket...UVA deserves credit and is for real.

 

[tdoss]

KenPom has UVA as 2-2.5 point favorites. I could see that dropping a bit b/c people love MSU but not sure that drops below a pickem.

Charlottesville is a bit quiet tonight. Hopefully it is a bit louder if they win next weekend.

What's the line right now? I'd be surprised if Vegas has UVA as favorites.

 

[tdoss]

Ramblin - what's with that comment in the other thread about UNC and Duke fans dismissing UVA for weeks because of their unbalanced schedule?

Who was dismissing them...I don't remember those claims...and especially "weeks" of them?

Or were you saying outside of this thread or something?

 

[sporthenry]

KenPom has UVA as 2-2.5 point favorites. I could see that dropping a bit b/c people love MSU but not sure that drops below a pickem.

Charlottesville is a bit quiet tonight. Hopefully it is a bit louder if they win next weekend.

What's the line right now? I'd be surprised if Vegas has UVA as favorites.

Looks like it opened -1 MSU. Sportsbook seems to have MSU -1.5 already.

 

[tdoss]

KenPom has UVA as 2-2.5 point favorites. I could see that dropping a bit b/c people love MSU but not sure that drops below a pickem.

Charlottesville is a bit quiet tonight. Hopefully it is a bit louder if they win next weekend.

What's the line right now? I'd be surprised if Vegas has UVA as favorites.

Looks like it opened -1 MSU. Sportsbook seems to have MSU -1.5 already.

That makes sense...even with UVA finally waking people up...there's just an overwhelming majority who have jumped all over that MSU bandwagon.

Don't get me wrong...MSU has the talent and coaching to beat just about anyone...I just don't like the disrespect. UVA was the most disrespected #1 seed this year and I don't think that's deserved.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

KenPom has UVA as 2-2.5 point favorites. I could see that dropping a bit b/c people love MSU but not sure that drops below a pickem.

Charlottesville is a bit quiet tonight. Hopefully it is a bit louder if they win next weekend.

What's the line right now? I'd be surprised if Vegas has UVA as favorites.

Looks like it opened -1 MSU. Sportsbook seems to have MSU -1.5 already.

That makes sense...even with UVA finally waking people up...there's just an overwhelming majority who have jumped all over that MSU bandwagon.

Don't get me wrong...MSU has the talent and coaching to beat just about anyone...I just don't like the disrespect. UVA was the most disrespected #1 seed this year and I don't think that's deserved.

Wichita St. didn't get much love either, although they were in a hellish bracket.

I picked UVA over MSU in my bracket, but I think it's close, obviously. UVA +1 looks like a bet to me.

TLEF's post about Duke was really good.

 

[tdoss]

KenPom has UVA as 2-2.5 point favorites. I could see that dropping a bit b/c people love MSU but not sure that drops below a pickem.

Charlottesville is a bit quiet tonight. Hopefully it is a bit louder if they win next weekend.

What's the line right now? I'd be surprised if Vegas has UVA as favorites.

Looks like it opened -1 MSU. Sportsbook seems to have MSU -1.5 already.

That makes sense...even with UVA finally waking people up...there's just an overwhelming majority who have jumped all over that MSU bandwagon.

Don't get me wrong...MSU has the talent and coaching to beat just about anyone...I just don't like the disrespect. UVA was the most disrespected #1 seed this year and I don't think that's deserved.

Wichita St. didn't get much love either, although they were in a hellish bracket.

I picked UVA over MSU in my bracket, but I think it's close, obviously. UVA +1 looks like a bet to me.

TLEF's post about Duke was really good.

WSU didn't get much love...true...but that bracket of death probably had more to do with it. However, I did see "some" experts pick WSU...didn't see any pick UVA.

UVA +1 is decent...I think it might go up though...I think it might go to 2 or 3.

 

[Worm]

I'm going to be a big Hoo fan next weekend!

I haven't been a big fan of a couple of Bennett coached Virginia teams, but I really like this team. Good luck to Hoos First and any other UVA fans out there.

 

[The Commish]

Ramblin - what's with that comment in the other thread about UNC and Duke fans dismissing UVA for weeks because of their unbalanced schedule?

Who was dismissing them...I don't remember those claims...and especially "weeks" of them?

Or were you saying outside of this thread or something?

They've gotten ZERO respect/run in the CLT area IRL. Even after winning the ACCT, they were shunned. It's sorta embarrassing given the ACC fans are suppose to be pretty basketball smart compared to other fan bases.

 

[Sammy3469]

Yep, Duke just didn't have a true PG which hurt us. And while 2010 made due with Scheyer, it sure helped having Zoubek in the middle, and upperclassman Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and Lance Thomas.

I'm not sure any coach could have made up for Duke's deficiencies this year. Its a shame too, because Parker is such an amazing talent.

Quinn Cook and TT should be more than adequate at PG especially against Wake and Mercer. Not to mention, the team is the 4th most offensive efficient team in the KenPom era (ignoring the new rule changes which did increase offense a little). And when you have 3 NBA level wings on the offensive end, you shouldn't need an elite PG.

For whatever reason, they didn't figure out how to close a game offensively. Maybe that falls on Coach K or maybe not.

But in no way was the defense excusable. It was the definition of insanity. Both in individual games and over the season. Why didn't Duke sag and protect the paint more? Why didn't Marshall Plumlee play/play more in the Mercer game? Box Score has him at 3 minutes but I don't remember him playing. DeCoursey just went right over Amile and Parker in the post. In a year with the rule changes, why did Duke not play zone? Or for as good as Duke was offensively, why didn't they push the pace more? What happened to the preseason intentions of trying to press and play fast?

Nobody can convince me that with the level of talent on the roster that this was just a case of the wrong pieces to the puzzle. Sure, they might not have fit perfectly but for a coach like K, he should get them to fit better than they did.

Another one was K going to and having success with the platoon system early in January, and then inexplicably never coming back to it. Particularly when your star player clearly has conditioning issues.

But the most significant of those you mention was his insistence on the overplay on defense. It didn't lead to nearly enough turnovers to compensate for the fact that it inevitably led to a heavy reliance on defensive rotations that Parker, and to a lesser extent Hood and Jefferson, were not good at; and created easy lanes to crash the offensive boards against a team without much size.

This

I just got done listening to Zach Lowe's podcast this week where they talk (a lot) about how the Clippers have had to shift things on guarding the pick and roll for Jordan. Well, teams consistently exploited on Jefferson's overplay and Parker's resulting hamish defense. Good teams with structured offenses exploited this pick and roll all year and K never did anything to combat it. Whether it was being dogmatic in protecting the 3-point line or something else, I don't know, but teams with point guards who can turn the corner exploited this all year long.

At the other end, Duke simply had no one that could get an open good shot in the last 5 minutes. The problem wasn't Cook/Thornton, but that Hood-Parker never meshed and seemingly wanted to play the same areas on the court in crunch time resulting in some bad bad shots. K loves the "flow" offense, but that really only works when your offensive studs have experience on what to do. Yes some of that is the result of neither Cook nor Thorton being able to run the pick and roll, but Parker and Hood never developed the kind of interplay that this team needed (and frankly I doubt they ever would. You simply don't see many teams that are really really successful when their two best players are a 3 and 4 and neither has a tremendous handle)

So yeah, K was horrible (especially on the defensive end), but I also think this team was a mishmash of good to great parts from the start and I'm not shocked the way it played out. The Vermont game early in the season turned out to be a harbinger of just what this team would be all year long.

Last thing, it doesn't matter, but I'm still not sure Cook is a 100%

 

[Rove!]

I've never seen a team at this level miss so many easy shots as Syracuse....Give Boeheim Jabari Parker and some of the guys Kentucky, Louisville and Duke get and they run the table...it seems they don't get many blue-chippers, but they almost always win their 20-plus games and the talent deficit gets exposed in the tourney. They did have Carmelo for a year, and they did run the table...

 

[MattFancy]

ACC was not good this season... Don't know what to think about Virginia, but their level of competition was not very high.

Glad this UNC season is over, McDonald is gone, & we can start getting ready for next year.

Really hope McAdoo and Paige are back next season.

I would imagine both will be back. McAdoo just isn't ready for the NBA yet. He has zero post presence and can only score when squared up with the rim and his FTs are awful (though he did manage to make 2 at the end). Paige I don't think is quite ready either. He was an after thought on this team coming into the season and put together a great year, but think he could use another year of seasoning.

So basically the core of this team will be back. I'm really looking forward to what Meeks can offer next year. He played great last night when the team needed him the most. If he can slim down a bit and put on some muscle, he could be real force next year.

If there's one thing this team needs to work on, it's free throw shooting. They have to be better than they were this year.