2007-2008 ACC and NCAA Basketball Preview

Besides Christmas and Wedding Season, college basketball's five-month slate of games is my favorite time of the year. On any night throughout the winter, there is a compelling college basketball game somewhere on some channel or radio station. It might not involve your #1 team, or favorite conference, or a national power, or even - hell - a team you've actually heard of, but it's always great theater. In some gym in America, two teams comprised of college basketball players are giving their all to get a win for their university.
And therein lies the beauty of college basketball: Every game means something. It might not have ramifications on the national title race or NCAA seedings, but to the players and fans, every game matters. When an NBA team hits a buzzer beater in a meaningless February game, the players celebrate for a bit and then walk to the locker room. When a college player hits a buzzer beater in a "meaningless" February game, his teammates mob him, as does half of the student body. The school will be abuzz the next morning, as everyone, sports fans and non, will know what had happened the night before. On the other hand, the atmosphere at the school on the wrong end of the buzzer beater will be more subdued than usual. That game might not mean something to the rest of the country, but it means plenty to those two schools.
Yeah, the first Duke/UNC game this year won't determine who wins the ACC or who gets seeded where in the NCAA Tournament, but it will still be a huge game with a ton of ramifications for everyone involved. The game counts. Even in a year that doesn't provide much on-court success, fans can turn back to that one game and become happy. Wake Forest didn't beat St. Joe's in the 2004 NCAA Tournament, but Wake fans can always relive the Deacs' epic double-overtime victory over North Carolina earlier that year in Chapel Hill. College basketball games are stand-alone events, and it's easy to get caught up in the fun of those events even if you're not an alma mater of that school. This is why I'll watch a game between Creighton and Southern Illinois this year. I have no connection to either (other than when I mock The Wolfman for putting SIU in his Elite Eight one year), but I know that they play quality ball and will likely put forth an entertaining effort for 40 minutes.
As great as those types of game are, I'd rather watch the ACC, of course. Even though the league brass has attempted to destroy the fun of the conference through expansion, the ACC is still the pearl of college basketball. This coming season will likely be a down year for the conference, but that won't change the fact that the Atlantic Coast Conference is still the gold standard by which all other conferences are measured. Yes, even with Virginia Tech.
So, sit back and enjoy the upcoming season. I'll be right here complaining about Wake Forest's defense, ripping on ACC officiating and writing daily odes to my favorite of all sports broadcasters, Dick Vitale. And it will be a whole lotta fun.

ACC Predictions

1) North Carolina
If you want an idea of how bad it could get in the ACC this season, consider that Ty Lawson was voted as a first team preseason All-ACC selection. Lawson had a fine freshman season running the point for Carolina, and I'm sure he will improve greatly this year. But he didn't even make honorable mention All-ACC in 2007 and was only the fourth-highest vote getter on the freshman team.
Graduation and early departures have left the ACC pretty threadbare in terms of proven producers. Ten of the highest 17 scorers in the league won't be back this year.
UNC has the best player, best team and (of late) the best coach. I'm thinking it could be Carolina by a mile this season in the ACC, with a bunch of mediocre teams fighting it out for a .500 record (sort of like in 2000, when Duke went 15-1, Maryland finished 11-5 and the rest of the teams finished with between four and nine conference wins. Of course, expansion dilutes the schedule a bit, so it's easier to finish with a .500 record. Have I ever mentioned how much I absolutely loathe expansion?)
Don't be fooled by the Heels' struggle against Davidson. The Cats are good enough to get an at-large bid this year, and were good enough last year to give Maryland a serious scare in the first-round of the NCAA Tournament. (My memory is hazy of that game, as I was tuning in sporadically while at work, but I seem to remember that Davidson was up most of the game and would have won had they not gone ice cold in the second half. There might have been some dubious officiating mixed in there too.)

2) Clemson
I'm good at two things, and guessing the annual ACC Basketball Sleeper is the other. This year, hesitantly, I'm throwing my sizable weight (149 lbs, dripping wet) behind the Tigers. It's easy to forget that Oliver Purnell's squad began last year at 17-0. This was partially because those wins came against a weak non-conference schedule, but mainly due to the fact that Clemson finished the year just on a 3-10 drought before catching some steam in the NIT.
It'd be simple to say that Clemson's start was a mirage and they just weren't that good, but I'm not so sure. Clearly the Tigers weren't 17-0 good, but I don't think they were 3-10 bad either. After their win-streak ended at Maryland, Clemson laid a whuppin' on a good Boston College squad to advance to 18-1 on the season heading into Durham.
That was the infamous "clock game" when Clemson made a furious last-second comeback, only to get screwed by the officials when they gave Duke extra time for a last possession. The Dukies took advantage, winning on a layup by David McClure as time expired.
Clemson lost a heartbreaker, but showed they were the real deal with their battle against Duke. But then the wheels fell off. After going up by 16 points before the under-eight timeout at home against UVA, Clemson completely fell apart, getting outscored 19-2 in the final 8:37. The game had been so over, so much so that I turned it off and didn't even flip back to see what was going on until I got a text about the game. UVA had seemingly given up, Clemson's fans were going nuts and then, quick as can be, everything changed. After that loss, there was no doubt Clemson would slip into a tailspin. They never recovered.
This year, Clemson is only one of two ACC schools to return over 80% of their scoring and rebounding (N.C. State is the other) The non-conference slate is a little more difficult this year (Purdue, DePaul, Alabama), but don't be surprised to see Clemson with another gaudy record when they welcome North Carolina into Death Valley in a nationally televised game on January 6. (Of course, I've definitely just jinxed Clemson into a 3-13 ACC record after advertising my good run of ACC sleeper picks.)

3) Virginia
Quick: Who won the ACC's regular season title last year? Unless you went to Virginia and/or are related to Dave Leitao, you probably don't remember the UVA tied for the top spot with UNC. (I sure didn't, even though the Hoos were my sleeper pick in the preseason.) It won't be easy for Leitao & Co. to repeat their success after the departures of J.R. Reynolds and Jason Cain (one of those glue-guys who teams always seem to miss more than expected), but in a down-year for the conference, UVA should start planning for a repeat trip back to the Big Dance.
Sean Singletary is my favorite player to watch in the conference. I would have picked him for ACC Player of the Year, but the Carolina-love is so unabashed in ACC country that the only way Tyler Hansbrough won't win is if it's revealed that he is actually Michael Vick.

4) N.C. State
I ranked the teams before the season began and, unlike Bill Simmons and Election Day exit pollsters, won't alter my predictions based on the early returns. I mention this because Wolfpack freshman J.J. Hickson went 12-12 from the floor in his college debut, dropping 31 against William and Mary. I don't care if he was playing Joseph and Mary; that's pretty damn good.
Anyway, State is everyone's "sleeper" this year. They were picked third by the writers (narrowly behind Duke) and were ranked nationally in the preseason by the Associated Press. (They might have been ranked in the coach's poll too, but I pay about as much attention to the coach's poll as I do to the NHL.) Everyone is expecting big things because: 1) The team adds a Top 20 recruiting class to the team that lost the fewest points and rebounds in the ACC and 2) Sidney Lowe is no longer a rookie coach.
In every NCSU preview, the 'Pack's impressive ACC Tournament run (when they went to the Finals as a #10 seed) is mentioned by the fourth paragraph. While it's undeniable that State was hot in March, it's probably more important to remember that the reason they had to go through Duke (#7 seed), UVA (#2) and Virginia Tech (#) is because the Wolfpack were, again, a ten seed. They earned that spot due to a thoroughly unimpressive 5-11 ACC campaign. Their non-conference wins were equally weak. In short, N.C. State seems to be like a college basketball version of Tim Thomas; turning a hot postseason into unrealistic expectations for the future.
But, if Hickson is the real deal, State could easily fulfill everyone's expectation. I've always liked Gavin Grant as a player as well. He is due for a big season. (Looking at his 2006/07 stats, I don't know what surprised me more: That Grant had 137 assists (tops in the ACC for a non-PG) or that he turned the ball over 151 times.)

5) Duke
The loss of Josh McRoberts hurts. Not because of his production, but because he was the only Dukie that any opposing coach even bothered to pay close attention to defensively. Without McRoberts drawing attention, defenses can play the perimeter more and force Greg Paulus into his customary turnovers.

6) Maryland
Winning the National Championship was the best thing that ever happened to Maryland. It was also the worst. Since winning the 2002 title, Gary Williams seems to have lost his passion for the game. That same fire that helped Gary become one of the best coaches in the nation has been extinguished. After years of playing the "nobody believes in us/we're the underdog" card to his teams, Gary can't pull that anymore.
Since arriving at Maryland, Gary and his staff thrived on finding those types of players to recruit (Juan Dixon being the poster child). After the title, recruiting dropped off terribly, perhaps because the Terps expected the best players to come to them, instead of them going to find the best players for their system. This was undoubtedly due, in part, to the departures of Williams' long-time assistants Dave Dickerson and Jimmy Patsos, who were the main recruiters for the program. But I don't know if Gary has "it" anymore. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he retired in the next two or three years. Five years ago, I would have said he was a lifer, no doubt.
This year, I have a hard time seeing Maryland being anything but a mediocre team that flirts with the bubble all conference season. Greivis Vasquez has a nice game, but I think he's starting to believe his own hype too much (aided by Kobe Bryant's praise after facing Vasquez in an Olympic qualifying game). He also has a low basketball IQ, something that is noticeable every time I watch the Terps play. A few nights ago, in Maryland's narrow win over Northeastern, Vasquez (a prolific, and poor, three-point shooter) took a terrible shot from beyond the arc with the game tied, 32 seconds on the shot clock and James Gist mistmatched underneath the hoop. Of course, it went in, which will give Vasquez an excuse to take a similar shot next time down the court. (I call this Trent Strickland Syndrome.) Later, with under 15 seconds left in the game, Vazquez moronically fouled a Northeastern player on a potentially game-tying three point attempt. Luckily for the Terps, the players missed one of the FTs. Maryland made two foul shots after that, and Northeastern had a chance to tie with a three, but Gary instructed his players to foul, continuing a trend I've seen this season of teams fouling when up three late in the game.
I (and many, many other people) have been yelling about this for years; wondering why coaches were letting opposing teams get off a game-tying shot when they could put them on the line for a much-more-improbably "made free throw/missed-on-purpose free throw/tip-in" combo. Unfortunately, this seems to be one of those "be careful what you wish for" situations, because it makes the endings of games a lot less fun. Oh well.
Anyway, it's never good to put stock in early-season results, but struggling at home against Northeastern doesn't bode well for Gary Williams. On the bright side, maybe he can start telling his team that nobody believes in them again.

7) Boston College
Jared Dudley was the worst ACC Player of the Year in the past 30 years. The honor had belonged to Chris Carrawell (who wasn't even the best player on Duke the year he won), but Dudley wins out based on the disappearing act he'd put together in big games. That has nothing to do with BC's upcoming season, as they'll miss Dudley and Sean Marshall tons, I was just saying. Anyway, Tyrus Rice is good enough to keep BC in the middle of the ACC pack.

8) Wake Forest
Wake has been picked 11th or 12th in the ACC by nearly every publication (I've yet to see one where they are ranked higher) for a number of reasons:
a) Their most productive player in 2007, Kyle Visser, graduated.
b) The rest of the roster is young and, relatively, unproven.
c) This year's recruiting class was solid, if unspectacular.
d) Skip Prosser's death forced Dino Gaudio into the head coaching position.
These are all very legitimate points and seem to suggest that Wake will likely be one of the two worst teams in the ACC for the third consecutive season (man, that's depressing to write). HOWEVA, if I may, I'd like to put on my beret and fake mustache and pretend that I'm Jamie from Mythbusters.
a) Losing Visser might not hurt as much as expected. Yeah, he led the Deacs in scoring and rebounding, but it's not like he was a dominating presence in the middle. Too often, Visser would disappear for long stretches of time, even as Wake's young backcourt would try too hard to run the offense through him. (It was the exact opposite of what the Deacs would do when Eric Williams was there. The problem was, Williams was good enough to run the offense through. Visser was not.) Without Visser serving as a crutch, Ish Smith will be able to spread the ball around the floor a little more and, with a little luck, will find a favorite target in Jamie Skeen, L.D. Williams or James Johnson.
b) See above. (I'm going to miss Anthony Gurley though. The would-be sophomore transferred to UMass, where he will not become the next Dr. J or Marcus Camby.)
c) Wake's new freshman didn't get much ink when they signed, but Gary Clark, Jeff Teague and James Johnson were all Top 150 players according to Rivals.com. I'm not sure how Gaudio will use Clark - he played the point in high school - but it couldn't hurt to have two ball-handlers on the floor in him and Smith.
d) Don't underestimate the power of inspiration. Prosser's tragic death will have a profound effect on this year's Wake Forest basketball team.

9) Georgia Tech
The Yellow Jackets will struggle this season after the departures of Javaris Crittenton and Thaddeus Young following their freshman seasons. Neither was a surprise, but they're crippling to Paul Hewitt nonetheless.
Lost in all the hype over how the NBA's age-minimum pushes the best high school seniors into college basketball as opposed to sitting at the end of NBA benches is that the rule might actually make it harderfor college coaches to recruit and plan for the future. Only two or three players in a given year are definite "one and done" guys. OJ Mayo, Michael Beasley and Derrick Rose seem to be those guys this season, just as Oden and Durant were last season. They're the obvious ones. It's easy to plan for their departures, because it's all but certain that they will.
It's the fringe guys like Crittenton and Young that make it difficult for college coaches. Sure, it's no secret that these types of players would like to leave for the riches of the NBA after their freshman year, but many get to college and either aren't that great or realize they need more seasoning (or a thinner draft) before making themselves eligible. Keith Bogans, Brandon Rush, Ronnie Brewer and even Tyler Hansbrough are recent examples of players who were assumed to be one/done that stayed for longer than they probably initially hoped.
But what happens when the players perform well, don't damage their stock too much, listen to some possibly-dubious advice and enter the draft? The coach and team get screwed, that's what. When Paul Hewitt was doing his recruiting for this year's class in the summer of '06, how could he possibly lure any blue-chip point guard or small forward to Atlanta while Young and Crittenton were about to enter the program? It's not like Hewitt can say, "hey, don't worry about them, they'll be gone by the time you'll get there."
For starters, Hewitt might not even be in a living room to make that sell because he doesn't know how many available scholarships he's going to have. While he was certainly aware of the potential of his two star recruits going pro, he can't assume it and offer scholarships that aren't there. Secondly, when Hewitt was pitching to this year's class, Crittenton and Young hadn't even set foot on the court yet. (Remember, the recruiting for freshman in the 2008 class took place this summer, so Hewitt's current class was recruited back in mid-'06.) In short, Hewitt knew he had two stars on the way, but had no idea whether they'd be as good as advertised. As a result, he was completely hamstrung by the very guys who were helping him make the NCAA Tournament.
So what is the real benefit of getting one/done candidates to come to your school? For Tim Floyd at USC, is O.J. Mayo really worth the trouble? On one hand, big-time recruits can help make a school a destination (think Beasley at K-State). But if it comes at the cost of hamstringing future recruiting (like with Crittenton and Young), I'm not so sure it helps, especially for established programs. (The exceptions are the Durants and Odens of the world, but those guy are very few and very far between.)
Back to Mayo for a second: How can anybody possibly have faith in him? He's so narcissistic that he makes the characters on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia look like the nuns at the Missionaries of Charity. It's always a pretty big red flag when a player chooses a college based on his own marketability rather than a desire to grow as a basketball player. Off the top of my head, I can think of three guys who were one/done, went to a seemingly random school and had reputed attitude problems: Two were lottery picks and are now out of the NBA (Rodney White and DaJuan Wagner) and the other is dead (Eddie Griffin).
There are others, I'm sure (Felipe Lopez comes to mind, but I don't remember him having any attitude problems, just a not-being-very-good problem), and in some of these cases you can make the argument that a player going to a non-established program might be noble if said player wants to resurrect that program. But even if you buy that, isn't such a move still ultimately a selfish one? I want to be the one who brings USC back to national stature. I want to be the savior of the program. Frankly, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting that. If Felipe Lopez, a native New Yorker, can get on the cover of Sports Illustrated before even playing a game and then bring St. John's back to power, that's a no-brainer. It just seems like these types of guys usually believe that their basketball education is complete by the time they set foot on campus and that the college game is merely a stepping-stone on the way to NBA stardom. They'd be better-served to look at the careers of all the successful players to make the high school-to-NBA jump and realize that, with very few exceptions, almost all took two years to get acclimated to the game.
Mayo is going to be a cancer at USC. He's only there for himself, will be happy to put up 30 in a losing effort and will only care about where his name is on people's draft boards, not what USC does in March or in the future. Mayo got a bunch of press for putting up 32 in his college debut. What's most important though is that he did so only after heaving up 27 shots (!). Oh, and his team lost. I have yet to see O.J. Mayo play a live game, but I feel comfortable predicting that he'll be a DaJuan Wagner-type bust in the NBA.
By the way, for a well-respected academic university and clean sports program, Georgia Tech sure does see a little of one/done guys. Stephon Marbury, Chris Bosh, Dion Glover and the two last year have all done it in the past 11 years. That seems like a lot; even Memphis can't boast that many boltures. (I know it's not a word, but I like it.)

10) Florida State
FSU is the winner of the "ACC team that I can't name a single player on" award. In retrospect, I should have remembered Isaiah Swann, but I'm afraid of anyone that has three consecutive vowels in their first name.

11) Miami
Jack McClinton is all set to become the guy on the All-ACC team that nobody has seen play.

12) Virginia Tech
I've been buying the ACC Basketball Handbook since 1992, when I used to sneak it in my mom's shopping cart at Giant. I don't read it cover to cover, I usually leave it out on the coffee table and get to most of the articles and previews over the first couple of weeks of the season. Even with the quickness of the internet, the Handbook is still a go-to guide for schedules, stats and records. (I also love the headline: Two Timer Tyler Hansbrough.)
Anyway (sorry, got off on a little tangent there), on the seventh of the eight pages devoted to each team, that school's is listed and is accompanied by headshots of each player. Almost every team has at least one or two players not pictured (usually walk-ons), which means that there is an average of 11 to 14 players pictured for each team. UNC, Wake Forest, Virginia, Georgia Tech and Duke all have more than 12 players pictured. Virginia Tech has eight. And that's why I'm picking them to finish last in the ACC.

Player of the Year
Tyler Hansbrough - North Carolina

Freshman of the Year
J.J. Hickson - North Carolina State

Coach of the Year
Dino Gaudio - Wake Forest

First Team All-ACC
G - Sean Singletary - Virginia
G - Tyrese Rice - Boston College
F - Tyler Hansbrough - North Carolina
F - Brandon Costner - North Carolina State
F - Gavin Grant - North Carolina State

National Picks

Teams I Like: Georgetown, Kansas, Marquette, George Mason
Teams I Don't Like: Memphis, Texas A&M, Duke, Indiana, USC
If Georgetown can figure out a way to keep Roy Hibbert on the court and in the thick of the action, the Hoyas could copy Maryland's recent run of a Final Four appearance followed by a National Championship the next season. Kansas, as always, has the players to contend for a title. After last year's run to the Elite Eight, Bill Self could find his Jayhawks in the Final Four despite their offseason losses. (This also has to be the year that the committee tries to get KU and UNC on the same side of the draw. It's inevitable at some point.)
I'm a little wishy-washy on Memphis. They looked very solid against UConn the other night. Derrick Rose appears to be the real deal. But I don't know if Memphis will have the experience necessary to make a deep-run in March.
Now, I don't buy the whole "postseason experience" card, especially in college sports. It might important off the court - ie, dealing with the media throng during Final Four week - but by the first TV timeout, most teams have rid themselves of the jitters and can focus on basketball. By the 12th minute of game action, I doubt players are any more nervous in a Final Four game than they would be in any other big game. Look at it this way, if Georgetown makes the Final Four this year and is in a close game with Memphis, what will matter more in the final two minutes: That Georgetown lost to Ohio State in a similar game 12 months before, or that the Hoyas were tested all winter in the Big East while Memphis beat-up on the likes of Southern Miss? (That example might not have been the best, as I just noticed that Memphis and Georgetown actually play one another in December, but I've written far too much already to think of another analogy.)
The ACC has had a representative in the Final Four in 21 of the past 27 years. In five of those 21 seasons, the ACC has had two teams playing in college basketball's last weekend. This is due, in large part, to the dominance of North Carolina and Duke (who account for 19 of the conference's 26 Final Four appearances since 1981). But don't let that diminish the role the other teams in the conference played in getting UNC and Duke (and the other four ACC teams that have recently made it to the Final Four - Maryland (x2), Georgia Tech (x2), Virginia (x2), N.C. State) that far.
Each great ACC team was battle-tested through what used to be the toughest league home/home series in the country. (Expansion - cruel, cruel expansion - has killed that.) Final Four berths won in March were earned in February, in gyms up and down the east coast.
Memphis rolled into the NCAA Tournament last season with an unblemished conference record; they barely broke a sweat in their Conference USA schedule. It's not their fault, they have to play the teams in their conference. John Calipari knows this, which is why he schedules one of the toughest non-conference slates in the country for his team. But playing early-season matchups has little effect on what happens in the NCAA Tournament.
Memphis will have the talent to cut down the nets, but will they be prepared when they get their inevitable dogfight in the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight. Will they know how to respond to an early deficit or how to be patient in the second half to wait for the right shot. Can they hold a lead against a team that can actually come back on them? And what of their much-maligned free throw shooting? Can the Tigers step up and knock them down when the game is on the line? Maybe they will bring all these things together in the Tournament, but I wouldn't count on it.

Final Four: Georgetown, North Carolina, Kansas, Michigan State
It seems that I write this every year, but it always bothers me when analysts make their Final Four picks and invariably choose some four-team combination culled from the preseason top-10 list. (We'll ignore, for the moment, that each of last year's Final Four teams were ranked in the top 8 of the AP preseason poll. That's the outlier, not the norm. Last year in college basketball, normalcy reigned. It was the exact opposite of what's going on in college football this season.)
That being said, I'm going to do the exact same thing I hate this year. (Maybe this self-loathing comes from that Redskins/Cowboys game. Ugh. I said at the beginning that the worst thing that could happen would be the 'Skins going up 7-0 and giving us hope. It happened, and all my boys and I were fooled into thinking we had a chance even though the Cowboys did exactly what we expected: Exploiting the absence of Sean Taylor. Haters will be calling for Joe Gibbs' head this week, but they're idiots. He took a banged-up Redskins team down to Big D and played 60 minutes against the best team in the NFC. It's not his fault Chris Cooley dropped that one ball or that Gregg Williams' defense can't defend on a third-and-19 or that Pierson Prieleou (he doesn't deserve the respect of me spelling his name correctly) couldn't cover Jerry Jones. Shit. Where was I.)
Anyway, after picking Michigan to make the F4 last season I figured it was time for a change.. (For what it's worth, in the preseason I did call Georgetown's run to... wherever the Final Four was played last year. I really don't want to look it up now that I've got myself all agitated.)

National Champion: Kansas
Maybe they'll duplicate Florida's feat of winning the national championship in football and basketball in the same calendar year. I'm pretty sure this is the fourth consecutive year I've picked KU to cut down the nets. My Godfather clearly taught me well.
(Update: Make that three out of four years. Looks like I picked Villanova in '05.)