Quick Recap


The ACC played the equivalent of BeanBoozled this past week. There were some bites that made you extremely happy with your decision-making: Duke took care of business against Kansas (without Darryn Peterson), Clemson going 2-0 in Charleston, and Virginia taking down a solid Northwestern team. There were some that didn't exactly get the job done, but could've been worse: Wake Forest losing by 1 point after leading late against Texas Tech, Virginia not being able to shoot in a 7 point loss against Butler, and Louisville finding a way to beat a better than expected Cincy team while not having even their B-game on offense. But of course there were the ones you just wanted to avoid: whatever the weeks Boston College and Pitt just have would qualify as that.

Rankings

18: Boston College (3-4) 1-2 last week; Previous ranking (18)

Why: Boston College is currently the only team in the ACC outside of the KenPom top 100 (119 as of this writing), and it might not be getting better. After an 11 point win over Hampton, they dropped back to back games against Davidson and Tulane. The problems have been clear for Earl Grant's team this year: they simply can't put the ball in the basket. They're 301st in Effective FG%, shooting 45.8%. They're shooting 25% from 3 and it's all taking away from the fact that they're tracking that they're right now 62nd in Adjusted Defense, tracking at a number that would be their third best rating on that side of the ball since 2011.

17: Pitt (4-3) 1-2 last week; Previous ranking (14)

Why: This season has gotten ugly quickly for Jeff Capel's team. Joining Boston College as one of the only teams in the league with three losses, they took them in the worst way. After taking out some aggression on Bucknell, they couldn't find anything against UCF. But the loss you couldn't have came on Sunday as they lost at home to Quinnipiac in a game where they only led for 3:46 of game time. The biggest issue has come due to something you wouldn't expect out of a Jeff Capel team, his guards. Per Evan Miya, out of eight two-man pairings that have a negative adjusted team efficiency margin (minimum 40 possessions), you'll find one of Damarco Minor or Omari Witherspoon in six of them. A lineup with all three of Minor, Witherspoon, and Brandin Cummings has an efficiency margin of -17.9. That can't sustain if Capel wants to keep his job.

16: Cal (5-1) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (16)

Why: Only beating Presbyterian by 10 is going to keep you from moving up, even with a 24 point win over Sacramento State. The trio of Dai Dai Ames, John Camden, and Justin Pippen are fun +59 when on the court together, but were a -12 against Kansas State, their only real competition up to this point. That can't be the case for them going into a matchup against UCLA.

15: Stanford (4-1) 1-1 last week; Previous ranking (15)

Why: There was a phenomenal piece by Joey Dwyer about Ebuka Okorie, who is currently 5th national in scoring averaging 23.8 points a game. What scares me about this Cardinal team, which might not pop up until they run into Louisville on January 2nd, is this defense might be sneaky bad. They have an Effective FG% of 53.3% on the year while letting teams shoot 36.5% from 3 (284th nationally) and 52.5% from 2. They play at a pretty fun tempo, which seemingly maybe let teams start snowballing on them but between being an excellent defensive rebounding team so far and really only having dead-ball turnovers be when they lose it (instead of blocks and steals) allows them to get set.

14: Georgia Tech (4-1) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (17)

Why: Solely moving up because I can't reward people that lost and GT won their two games. I want to believe this defense is real, as opposing teams outside of UGA not being able to break 7- points against them. But two things stop you about this team. 1) the fact that there's a caveat. The Bulldogs dropped 92 on them but maybe they're just going to be one of the best offenses in the country as they've scored 90+ in five out of their seven games. 2) The average KP rank of GT's opponents is 285.6. They knew what they were doing with this schedule trying to get a brand new team acclimated to each other, but it's hard to believe in what's real heading into a Friday game against a DePaul team that they can't afford to lose to.

13: Notre Dame (4-2) 1-0 last week; Previous ranking (12)

Why: A reminder that the Monday games aren't going to factor into this writing. By the time I send this in, I won't have had time to watch them all and there needs to be even an attempt at being fair here. That being said, they're getting dropped. A fun lineup note: their three-man lineup of Sir Mohammed, Garrett Sundra, and Carson Towt sneaky finds itself 7th in the ACC (minimum 50 possessions) and ahead of some surprising pairings like the Boozer twins + Pat Ngongba. The one question I have for them moving forward, do they end up having a Markus Burton problem? He's an excellent talent but the shot selection has continued to deteriorate and on a team with actual help, getting him a better shot diet helps everyone.

12: Miami (5-1) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (13)

Why: Thursday against BYU is going to be an absolutely fascinating game for the Hurricanes. Just like Notre Dame, Miami has a sneaky combo of Dante Allen, Timothy Malovec, and Malik Reneau that finds itself 5th in the ACC. Early noise sure, but I think that lends itself to the best of what Miami can be. It gives them good length, Malovec and Allen can stretch the floor while Reneau can erase things defensively.

11: Syracuse (4-1) 1-0 last week; Previous ranking (10)

Why: Only one game against Monmouth, a five point win, wont be enough to move you up. The elephant in the room is that Donnie Freeman is in a boot and going to miss the Players Era Festival. Hopefully that's not going to be a long term injury, but Adrian Autry is going to have to get creative without what has been far and away his best player. They haven't been a great 3-point shooting team this year so far and that's going to have to tick up a bit without him to open up some space down low given William Kyle's skillset is limited. Don't forget how talented Sadiq White is, maybe this is what can unlock him.

10: FSU (4-1) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (11)

Why: A team that plays at a blistering pace and shooting the ball well? I don't want to get too ahead of myself but that game on December 2nd might be first to 100. The 'Noles have one more tune up game against Cal St. Bakersfield before heading over to Tampa to take on Texas A&M who has struggled, to put it kindly, against high major competition. A lot of focus is put on Rob McCray V who tied for 3rd nationally in assists per game, but one guy that probably need sa bit more recognition is Lamar Jones. The St. Bonaventure transfer is having a career year, scoring almost 18 points while shooting 42.5% from deep. He's been one of the better portal pickups in the entire league.

9: Wake Forest (4-2) 1-1 last week; Previous ranking (9)

Why: I could just keep mostly the same thing from last week. A crushing close loss against Texas Tech that would've been wonderful on the resume really hurt and you thought that was going to beat them twice as they trailed for almost 33 minutes of their next day game against Memphis, who as a side note has looked a lot better than their record indicated. But through some adjustments and late game heroics by Myles Colvin, Wake escaped a tarnished resume in Baha Mar. One lineup combo I want to see if they experiment with a little more of putting all three of Juke Harris, Mekhi Mason, and Colvin together on the court. Mason has been a good defender and rebounder to help offset his shot not going down. If you can surround him with Juke and Colvin, who have been the engines for Wake offensively, things might get a bit easier for him both behind the arc and driving. That trio was a +7 in the almost eight minutes they spent on the court together in the second half against Michigan after only sparingly being used prior to that.

8: Virginia (5-1) 1-1 last week; Previous ranking (5)

Why: The Northwestern win helps everyone, no way around that. But the Butler game was the one that showed a lot of the warts of this team. 20 fouls from UVA in this game wont get it done, it was a tough watch seeing them trying to defend. It was also their second straight game shooting sub 30% from deep. Now you don't want to say these are going to be issues all year. This is a team that looks to have an extremely high ceiling. Just a little bit of a wake up call in a ballroom because why are we doing that still? A get right game at home against Queens might be what the doctor ordered.

7: Virginia Tech (5-0) 1-0 last week; Previous ranking (7)

Why: Not going to get yelled at, so VT will stay where they are even with them not exactly having a tough schedule up until this point. I'm honestly curious if we know much about this team until conference play. They get a Colorado State team that just lost to Denver, South Carolina who might not get a win inside the top 200 until conference play, and George Mason who might just be fine? But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the job Mike Young has done so far. He's had a rough go of it the last few years but seeing him with actual talent is something he deserves.

6: SMU (6-0) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (6)

Why: When you have a triple-double with steals, you're going to get some notoriety. B.J. Edwards was named ACC Player of the Week by the media after dropping 24 points, 13 assists, and 10 steals against Arkansas State, notching the second ever ACC triple-double with steals. I still have some scar tissue with this team from last year, we'll see in two weeks against Vanderbilt. But this team reminds me a lot of the UGA football teams under Mark Richt funny enough. There is a lot of individual talent between Edwards, Samet Yigitoglu, Boopie Miller, and Jaron Pierre. Can they put it together in the biggest games and will coaching be enough to get them over the hump when they play teams with equal athleticism?

5: NC State (4-1)

Why: An off week before heading to Maui means you'll just stay idle in the rankings. The game on Monday against VCU was something we needed to see, how do you address adversity and a team that's not just going to lie down when you get up on them as the Rams would not go away. The positives of this team are clear, they have a plan for what they want to do on defense. So much so Will Wade pushed back a bit on the "open" threes they were letting people shoot. They're an excellent team inside the arc, and they make their shots in general. My question to them is what happens when people come back down to earth? Heading into Maui, Darrion Williams is shooting 61.9% on threes on 21 attempts, so over five attempts a game. Tre Holloman is at 50%, which would also be a career-high for him by a large margin. Will Wade has had one team in his career shoot higher than 35.2% from deep (2024), which isn't even a bad clip! But it's really hard for me to expect this team, and how it's constructed, to shoot over 41% for an entire year. So how they adjust when that eventually comes down is going to be important to me.

4: Clemson (6-1) 2-0 last week; Previous ranking (8)

Why: Playing, and beating, good competition is always going to be rewarded. While West Virginia beat up on Pitt, it was nice to see them out physical the Mountaineers and then do it again against Georgia, avenging another ACC team. One guy that deserves a little more of the spotlight is RJ Godfrey. The pairing with Justin Porter is Clemson's best per Evan Miya, and he's in the best three-man, four-man, and five-man lineup. He's been an excellent pairing with Nick Davidson, which has been much needed as the pairing of Davidson with Carter Welling has been more than just clunky. That's a good problem to have as it's going to force Clemson into having a large body on the court at all times, giving teams without any front court depth a ton of headaches.

3: Louisville (5-0) 1-0 last week; Previous ranking (3)

Why: I mentioned in the quick recap that Louisville didn't have their best game against Cincy. Well they slogged to the tune of 1.07 points per possession while going 9-for-18 on layups. That's just not going to be good enough. What is encouraging is I thought that was one of Louisville's better defensive performances, making like awful for Day Day Thomas, Shon Abeam, and Kerr Kriisa. They've been one of the teams carrying the load for the ACC this far, they're allowed to have a game that they don't look unstoppable, so games against Eastern Michigan and NJIT are welcomed for them. Buy Sananda Fru stock while you can.

2: North Carolina (5-0) 1-0 last week; Previous ranking (2)

Why: The game against Navy was awkward, but I do like what I've seen out of the Tar Heels so far. They want to play fast but they're more than fine slowing things down on occasion when they don't have the perfect shot. It does look like Luka Bogavac has started to really find his role on this team. What's worried me about this team is the continuous slow starts. We saw them fight back from being down at the half against Kansas, absolutely blitzing them out of half, but it does create an uneasy feeling if you do it again and again. Going into the Fort Myers' Tip off where they'll get a warm-up against St. Bonaventure before getting the marquee matchup in Michigan State, you'd like them to get off to better starts.

1: Duke (7-0) 1-0 last week; Previous ranking (1)

Why: A lot of teams like to say that they have depth, and largely it's just something you have to say. You can't just throw out, "yeah we only really trust 7 guys right now." But depth is a clear strength of this Duke team. Cameron Boozer is the guy, but they have legitimately nine guys that are real contributor and five that I think if they just went out there and beat you single-handedly any night you just nod your head a bit. The issue other teams are going to have with them is the fact that I don't think they're a complete team just yet. There is still a ton of tinkering happening by Scheyer and this could be a team that by February we're asking, "well how don't thy win the title?"

Player of the Week: Myles Colvin (Wake Forest)

Colvin was my media vote this week and I'm sticking to it. You are watching the Steve Forbes effect with a guard yet again with Colvin. He's coming off a weekend where he averaged 19 points on 52% shooting from the floor and 41.6% from deep, with 3.5 rebounds per game against a top 25 team in Texas Tech and Memphis. Obviously no shot was bigger than the final three against the Tigers, but he consistently made winning plays across both games and you can see the confidence budding for him. It's not just the shooting, he's looking much more comfortable putting the ball on the floor and driving. He's never going to be a combo guard, but if he can create with more than just being more athletic than everyone else on the court, he's going to make for an excellent player.

CAWB of the Week: Isaac Carr (Wake Forest)

Yes, yes, two Wake players here. But I think highlighting someone like Carr is part of what makes college basketball something we care about so much. Shout out to Wake Creatives for capturing just how Steve Forbes wanted to make sure every detail was accounted for given the fact they weren't playing in a tradition gym, and what a pass Carr delivers for the win.