Before the season kicked off, the best teams in the ACC were supposed to be Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, and Virginia. “Not so fast, my friend,” said Florida State. They established themselves as a contender with their 13 point win on the road against Louisville on Saturday. The win knocked Louisville out of the unbeaten ranks in conference play, leaving just Duke and UVA. More importantly, it means that the ACC now has four teams with the potential to make deep runs in March: Duke, Virginia, Louisville, and Florida State.
Duke has been cruising the whole season (save the SFA game), ascending to second in the AP Poll. It’s been clear throughout that Louisville has what it takes, even though they’re in the midst of a minor offensive slump. As mentioned above, FSU showed everybody what they can do this weekend, and Virginia finally put the pieces together in a whopping of Virginia Tech. That said, let’s see how the ACC stacks up after the first weekend of conference play.
Tier 1
1. Duke Blue Devils
They dropped 95 on the road against Miami. They’re third in AdjD on KenPom and fifth in AdjO. Duke is looking more and more scary by the minute.
2. Virginia Cavaliers
It might be surprising to some to see the Hoos here after what Florida State was able to do but Virginia turned in just as good of a performance in their own matchup. It was a complete game for the Hoos, a team which seems to have cast away their prior shooting woes. The defense was outstanding yet again for a team that’s finally coming together.
3. Florida State Seminoles
The Seminoles were on fire from deep against Louisville, shooting 47.8%, and 55.2% from the field. It was a great performance from a resurgent team. Like Tony Bennett, it seems like Leonard Hamilton is putting all the pieces together.
4. Louisville Cardinals
There’s little to choose from between #s 2-4. But it seems like Louisville is going downhill while the other two are going uphill. They’ve lost three out of five, and have not looked like themselves on the offensive end. It doesn’t make sense, because they have so many weapons, but the Cardinals are in an offensive slump (at least compared to the way they were).
Tier 2
5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Notre Dame has a strong duo in T.J. Gibbs and John Mooney. Both played outstanding in their win over Syracuse, and Prentiss Hubb has been a revelation for the Irish thus far. Right now, they’re the most complete team outside of the top four.
6. North Carolina State Wolfpack
Losing to Clemson was bad, yes, but NC State has shown flashes at times, hence the sixth spot. If they can pull together they could emerge out of the mire and have a decent record in the ACC.
7. North Carolina Tar Heels
I know, I know. They just let Georgia Tech score 96 points in the Dean Dome. Carolina’s at seven because they have more potential upside than any other team in the pack. They have a couple good players that could turn it around. Honestly, it’s a crapshoot from 5-15. Everybody’s so close and there’s really not much distinction. That said, Carolina has Roy Williams and Cole Anthony will be back at some point. So… Yeah, a light at the end of the tunnel.
8. Syracuse Orange
After a shaky start to the season, it appears that Jim Boeheim has worked some magic on the offensive end of the ball, even if the defense hasn’t quite caught up. They’ve crossed the 70 point threshold in each of their last six games. Now comes the hard part; stopping the other team from scoring more than them.
9. Miami Hurricanes
There’s no shame in the blowout loss to Duke, and Miami had won five in a row prior to that. But defense remains a problem. Ranking 223rd in AdjD on KenPom ain’t gonna cut it, even though they’re a pretty impressive 17th on the other side of the ball.
10. Clemson Tigers
Unlike some of the teams ahead of them, Clemson doesn’t have something to cling to. They’re an average team all around. They knocked off NC State in a rare offensive explosion, but most likely, they’ll finish middle of the pack.
11. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Georgia Tech is Tier 2… By a thread. It was an impressive showing at Carolina, but in the end, they’ve been way too inconsistent from the very beginning to justify a higher ranking.
Tier 3
12. Virginia Tech Hokies
We’ve reached the depths. There’s a long way out for most of these teams, some of which traditionally suck, and others (Virginia Tech), who just suck this year. They live and die by the three this year, and it was clear against Virginia that if they don’t go in it’s a very painful death.
13. Wake Forest Demon Deacons
Maybe I was a little unfair to Wake last week. They had just knocked off a ranked opponent, and this week followed it up with an ACC road win. Wake’s not a good team by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe they can claw their way out of the pit using some momentum from their last three games.
14. Boston College Eagles
Nobody expected BC to beat Duke last week, so the subsequent bashing came as a surprise to nobody. Good defense has to be their calling card to make anything happen in conference play.
15. Pittsburgh Panthers
Pitt was finally starting to look like a good team for once. Oh well. Losing to Wake was bad. Just bad.