roundballtable roundup

I guess four responses plus mine is enough. The blogs that took the plunge on last week's ACC roundtable:

Testudo Times
BC Interruption
On the B-Rink
ACC Sports Journal
little ol' me

Time to see what the bloggers think as the season kicks off:

1. The ACC failed to win the ACC/Big Ten Challenge for the first time ever. Let’s panic a bit: Why did this happen?

The bloggers have been reading the Hitchhiker's Guide, because the general theme is "Don't Panic." Jim Young at the ACC Sports Journal was the only one of any of us to rightly point out that part of the problem is that Georgia Tech, which is also known as "20th-ranked Georgia Tech" didn't play.

2. The obvious question that needs to be asked: Who is your Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, and Freshman of the Year?
POTY: It's all about Tobacco Road. Three votes for Jon Scheyer and one for his teammate Nolan Smith. I had to be different and go with Ed Davis.

COTY: We're all over the map here. Two for Leonard Hamilton, one for Coach K, and one halfhearted vote for Uncle Fester and another half-prediction for Paul Hewitt.

FOTY: Derrick Favors running away, but the ACCSJ goes against the tide and picks C.J. Harris, and further points out that Harris has four FOTW awards already so it's not that crazy.

3. The other obvious question: What are your expectations for your own team?

Only three team-specific blogs here, and I'm one of them, and none of them are especially optimistic. Testudo Times has Maryland going 8-8 and to the NIT, which actually just about echoes most of the other bloggy opinions. I'm thinking lofty with the CBI for UVA, and BC Interruption doesn't even expect to be able to watch their Eagles after the ACC tournament is over.

4. The other other obvious question: Which teams are going dancing?

Apparently having a crappy team makes you more pessimistic about the ACC in general. The team-specific blogs are in general not as high on the ACC's chances as the ACC-overall bloggers are: B-Rink and ACCSJ each think it'll be a record year for the ACC with eight, or possibly nine, bids. Eight or nine - whew. It's generally against roundtable protocol to editorialize on other folks' answers, but man, it's hard to argue that expansion has hurt or diluted the ACC if that many teams are going dancing.

Here's how the teams shake out, in the bloggers' estimations:

Duh: UNC and Duke

Pretty safe: FSU and Clemson

Probably, but no guarantees: GT and Wake

Bubblicious: Miami, VT, Maryland

No: UVA, NC State, BC

5. The decade in basketball isn’t quite over yet, at least not the way I reckon it. But it’s still not too early for reminiscing. What was your team’s Game of the Decade? And what one game would you like to have a do-over for?

Blog by blog here:

Testudo Times:
Loves: National championship win over Indiana
Wants back: That one time when Duke beat them after being down 10 with a minute to go.

BC Interruption:
Loves: 85-78 win over #1 UNC, last year
Wants back: 60-59 loss to Villanova in the Sweet Sixteen

On the B-Rink, who is not, despite these selections, a Clemson fan:
Loves: Clemson's 78-74 win over Duke in the '08 ACC tournament
Wants back: That one time the wonderful Dookie timekeepers gave the Blue Devils a little home cooking and "forgot" to start the clock as Clemson hit a game-tying bucket, giving Duke a couple extra seconds to hit the winning layup that shouldn't have happened.

ACCSJ:
Loves: Duke-Maryland Final Four game in 2001
Wants back: Clemson's choke job from this year's ACC/Big Ten Challenge

FOV:
Loves: Sean Singletary
Wants back: Gonzaga, and the ice rink game

6. Is your team, and the ACC in general, better or worse off because of the expansion from the Big East? Basketball perspective only, never mind football’s championship game or any of that division stuff. Old-guard teams, what do you think of the difference between pre- and post-expansion ACC? Ex-Big-Easters, the Big East is still a pretty beefy hoops conference and (almost) rivals the ACC for hoops supremacy; is your basketball team better off here or are you having some buyers’ remorse?

The vote is 3-2 in favor of expansion. BCI is happy not to be lost in the Big East shuffle that happened when that conference ballooned to sixteen teams. OTBR figures the expansion teams have been just as competitive, if not more so, than the old guard, and I think the result has been to increase the number of tournament bids the ACC gets.

On the other hand, JY at the ACC SJ doesn't like the loss of the round-robin and the expanded ACC tournament, and TT goes harrumph harrumph get off my lawn, but accepts that kids these days just like playing on other people's lawns and acknowledges it really doesn't affect his weekly checkers game on the porch.

7. The SEC divides its conference into the same divisions in basketball as it does in football. Should the ACC do the same?

Nobody likes this idea, let's just pretend it never came up.