christmas weekend review

"Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out...."

You may already know what that picture means - it means we are in for an ACC Roundtable session.  One in which most of our knights followed the lead of brave Sir Robin, so there will only be three responses to round up in this session.  Four if you count me.  (Lesson: never try to get people to do things within about ten days of Christmas.)  Our participants:

BC Interruption
Blogger So Dear (Wake Forest)
Duke Hoop Blog

Only one of them (the BC folks) actually printed their responses, so that means I get to paraphrase the others.  And I'll take a shot at speaking for the other ACC teams, too.  Here are the questions we asked:

1. How did the season go, relative to expectations? For bowl teams, are you ahead or behind the slot you thought you'd be at the beginning of the year? For non-bowl teams, is the season indicative of a trend or simply a bump in the road?

Obviously, UVA wildly exceeded expectations, and I'd wager we're the only team that can say so, outside of maybe Clemson.  Tech going to a better bowl than even they thought they deserved doesn't count.  Just about everyone else in the ACC felt they underachieved, or at best, ended up where they thought they should.  BC Interruption points out that BC's win totals over the past few years have been 11-9-8-7-4, which is a disturbing spiral.

2. It looks as though this will be the first offseason since about 2005 or so in the ACC that sees no head coaching changes. For each of your head coaches, on a scale of -10 to 10 with 10 being "we're building him a statue as soon as he retires, which we hope is never," and -10 being "when they build the space elevator to the moon, we're tossing that loser inside and locking the door," how badly do you want to fire or keep your coach?

People are pretty happy with their coaches.  Caveat: No response from Maryland this time.  The BC guys want to include the athletic director in the space elevator, which is understandable for a guy with way too itchy a trigger finger on Jeff Jagodzinski and not nearly enough of one on Al Skinner.

3. Besides head coach if you're way on the negative side in question 2, what one change do you want to see on your team for next year?

This turned out sort of like a Christmas wish list, so it ended up being an apropos question.  Duke wants to pick a quarterback and stick with him, which kind of sounds like a pretty good idea to me, considering.  Wake wants a killer instinct; also very understandable, with close losses this season that could have swung Wake into the "exceeded expectations so hard" category had they been wins.  BC would like an offensive coordinator.  And as for me, I want what we're already getting: an extra year of experience and confidence.  As the team gets into the swing of things with Mike London and gets some experience under their belts, games like the NC State game - where we mysteriously forget how to do things - will become scarcer and scarcer.

4. How do you feel about eventually going to a nine-game ACC schedule, if the ACC does indeed go that route?

You know my feelings. I'd be all over it.  Other bloggers agree it makes sense, too.  (To some degree, most of us ACC bloggers, whether they answered these questions or not, have in the past reacted to a nine-game schedule in the general range from "it's inevitable so fine" to "it's necessary and proper."  There's little resistance to the idea.)

The amusing part was this: Wake says "great, fewer games against Liberty and The Citadel" and Duke says "great, fewer games against Stanford and Alabama."  Someone's going to be disappointed.  I suspect it'll be the Wake camp, truthfully speaking.  I don't see UVA canceling its instate I-AA games against William & Mary and Richmond and whatnot.

5. Who do you want in your division, when they finally join the league: Pitt or Syracuse?

By a 2-1 vote, the bloggers want Syracuse in the Coastal and Pitt in the Atlantic; also by a 2-1 vote, they prefer to have Syracuse in their own division.  I agree most with BSD's point: Pitt fitting with the Atlantic teams (Maryland, Wake, FSU, Clemson, BC, NC State) "just makes more sense."  As does Syracuse with the Coastal teams, though BC is the dissenter here, wanting to play Syracuse every year.  (That might happen regardless - it's more than plausible that if Syracuse joins our division, the cross-division rivalries, which currently have BC playing VT, would shuffle so that BC plays Cuse and VT plays Pitt.)

6. What was your team's best single play of the season? Which single play would you change the outcome of if you could?

You know my thoughts on the subject.  As for the worst, let's see if we can reverse that 3rd-and-23 conversion by Southern Miss and then see if that game can be won.

BC and Wake picked plays by those they considered their best and most dynamic players; in BC's case, a pick-six by Luke Kuechly (who'd look awfully good in Honolulu blue and silver if he goes to the NFL) against Jacory Harris and Miami, and for Wake, "anything by Chris Givens."  DHB went with a sack against FIU that sealed Duke's only win against a bowl team.

Missed field goals plague the memories of fellow bloggers; BCI wants another try at the one that cost them the Duke game, and DHB wants the ones that lost Duke the Richmond game.  BSD says, pick anything that happened at the end of the Clemson or Syracuse games, continuing a theme of lamenting Wake's inability to close out a win.

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OK, I guess it's time to address the two elephants in the room.  Don't worry, they'll be leaving soon; playing time is hard to find for elephants in living rooms.  Merry Christmas, Virginia basketball, Santa brought you coal in the form of two scholarship departures by KT Harrell and James Johnson.

Both of these are surprising and pretty frustrating decisions.  Playing time is cited as the reason.  In Harrell's case, Sammy Zeglinski and Malcolm Brogdon were starting to eat into his minutes.  Harrell's time dwindled from 30+ minutes in each of the first four games to 4 and 7 in the last two, and his shooting this year has been unbelievably bad.  Johnson had not played since the Longwood game and was the last man in the rotation, if he left the bench at all.  Mike Scott and Assane Sene get most of the big-man minutes, with Akil Mitchell third and Darion Atkins starting to worm his way in.

But please don't take that paragraph as a rationalization; losing these two players is a major detriment.  Here again is the list of players getting most of the playing time over Harrell and Johnson: Zeglinski, Brogdon, Scott, Sene, Mitchell.  And what do three of these players have in common?  They're frickin' seniors.  As in, not in the plans next year.  When Billy Baron left, it seemed understandable, as he was the first of six players in the same class to leave.  If you're getting beat out by every one of your classmates, you might be looking at the same thing for the next four years.  Brogdon is a freshman, sure, but not Zeglinski.

My original thought was that losing Harrell would be a much bigger loss, because we've seen what he can do and it's pretty good, when his shot is falling.  Johnson was a much more unknown quantity.  But his decision is more baffling; the guy is so patient with his development that he asks the coaches for a redshirt year, and then eleven games into his first season after taking the redshirt off, he bolts for lack of playing time?  Did he think he'd come out of his redshirt year ready for 20 minutes a game, even with two seniors playing his position?  Next year, Johnson would have been one of the primary options in the frontcourt. 

Harrell could have at least been a vital depth player, but there's at least a prism through which his decision takes on a level of understandability: if he wants to make a career of basketball, or at least make a living for a few years with his skills, his best chance to do so is as a primary scorer for a mid-major team, if he can't be a primary scorer for a high-major one.  But Johnson had as good a chance as anyone on this team to be a starter next year; he, Mitchell, and Atkins were the only returning big men and of the three, Johnson is the only one with the ability to play center.  And none so far have shown a real scoring aptitude.

So we'll have to hope Mitchell and/or Atkins develop one - or that Mike Tobey and Evan Nolte (and Nolte is more of a threeish four than a fiveish four) come in readier for the grind than Johnson did.  Paul Jesperson's redshirt will come off tonight, and I expect he'll get a lot of look tonight and Friday since we're playing two of the worst teams in the nation.  Jesperson is supposed to be a real sharpshooter but his other skills are a mystery right now.  Meanwhile, we're going to be digging out of a scholarship hole for quite a little while.  Right now we have nine guys on scholarship, and ten next year.  In the 2013 recruiting class, which will get filled up hopefully between now and next August or so, there's room for four, but I won't predict they'll all be filled because that would leave room in 2014 for only one other player beside B.J. Stith. 

Other possibilities to answer as time goes on:  Will Brandan Stith commit for 2013 now?  Maybe.  Will Bennett look into transfer options?  Maybe.  With only ten guys on scholarship for next season, it would be ideal to find a graduate student who can play right away next year and fill in some of those depth holes that otherwise we'll be depending on freshmen for.

With now only nine scholarship players, let's hope and pray for good health in the next three or four months.  It would be terrible to see injuries combine with attrition to derail what should be a pretty outstanding season.

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Two last things.....

-- One, with spring sports less than 60 days away, it's time for news about them to start moving in; one of those news items is that the SEC baseball tournament is expanding by two teams and one day.  It used to be eight teams like the ACC's; now it will have ten.  Partly this is in response to the upcoming expansion of the conference; the natural question would be, will the ACC follow suit, since we too are expanding?  And I doubt it.  The difference between the SEC and ACC is that the ACC's bottom teams are off a cliff.  You can't make any kind of a good case for including a 9th and 10th team when those teams last year were 11-19 and 7-22 in conference play.  Besides, the SEC is adding two baseball teams; we are adding just one (Syracuse has no team), and whereas Texas A&M will strengthen SEC baseball, Pitt will weaken our conference.  So don't expect to see the ACC baseball tournament expand.  It'd be awfully hard on the pitching arms, anyway.

-- Now for a rant against terrible, terrible journalism.  There is an article making the rounds that Clemson will lose $185,000 on their Orange Bowl trip.  That's fine and dandy, but in their breakdown of revenues and expenses incurred by Clemson on this trip, the article neglects to mention the following facts:

- The ACC will distribute more than just Orange Bowl money.
- The ACC pays expenses for bowl teams, from the combined bowl money pot, over and above a team's slice of the bowl pie.
- The ACC picks up the tab for unsold seats as long as the school reaches 8,000.
- Which Clemson has.

How it works is like this: The ACC collects all the bowl payout money, which this year adds up to a little over $40 million.  It then uses that money to 1) give to bowl-bound teams to cover their expenses and 2) absorb unsold tickets for the schools if they fail to reach their quota but exceed 8,000.  Whatever's left over is split 12 ways and handed to the schools.

BCS teams get - hey - $1.7 million for their expenses.  Which is awfully similar to the $1.75 million cited by the article.  Putting two and two together we come to the conclusion that the article-writer completely failed to mention the rest of the money that Clemson gets.  It's obvious what happened: he assumed the ACC expense allowance was the only bowl money there was, and ignored everything else.  A little simple math uncovers the deception: he even writes -

What about the $18 million payout the bowl game guarantees the participants? That money goes to the ACC and is equally distributed to member institutions.

OK, so it's equally distributed - so $1.75 million times 12 is $21 million - so that means that $3 million total came from the seven other bowls?

At best this is slipshod bullshit.  At worst, if I may be allowed to climb the grassy knoll for a second, the writer knows and doesn't care because he's trying to present the bowls as an evil corporate racket that stands between you and your precious playoff, you poor innocent exploited football fan that only wants a nice bracket like in basketball and are prevented from having such by assholes in suits.  I would say that we are reaching - or have reached - the point where us bloggers are doing journalism better than the journalists, except that's kind of insulting to the fans who don't blog because I'm just a guy with opinions, same as anyone.  Here's a thread from your basic everyday message board that does it better than the journalists, for petesake.  I think the math is a little off, but not much - I calculate that each ACC team will pocket roughly $2.3 million from just the bowl season.  Not a bad bit of change.

Oh, and hell - even if it was true that Clemson ended up paying out $185,000 to go to the Orange Bowl, how is that even a bad deal?  Teams routinely pay more than twice that for fluffy pancake games like Idaho and Toledo and William & Mary and whatnot.  Are you telling me, Mr. Terrible Journalist, that I have to pay $400,000 to bring Idaho into town but only $185,000 to go to the Orange Bowl?  Where do I sign up to get exploited like that?

preseason acc roundtable

Would you rather have a square one? No, round'll be fine.

After far too long a hiatus, the ACC Roundtable returns. Goody, because I like this stuff. BC Interruption hosts this season's kickoff roundtable, so, look for an entertaining roundup in that corner of the internet by the end of the week.  An initiation for the unfamiliar: one host blog fires off a list of questions, the rest of us answer, and a roundup is posted by the host later in such a way as to entertain and beguile.  Let's begin this therapy session:

1. Most ACC programs are hitting the snooze button for the first two weeks of the season before hosting four preseason top 25 programs in week 3 -- #1 Oklahoma, #18 Ohio State, #23 Auburn and #24 West Virginia. How's week 3 in the ACC go down? Can the conference win a majority of those four high-profile games on Sept. 17?

Miami is going to get crushed.  So is Maryland, probably.  Either team winning would be a pretty big upset, despite Ohio State having personnel issues of its own.  Clemson and FSU are in better shape; probably 50/50 games for both teams unless I'm underrating Oklahoma, which is possible because everyone seems to think they're a major-league national title competitor.  But the game's in Tallahassee, so.

Anyway, no, I definitely do not think the ACC goes 3-1.  2-2 is the realistic best-case scenario, I think.  0-4 is more likely than 3-1, and yes that would suck for the conference so Clemson and FSU and the rest of those guys better get on their horses.

2. What's the one game on the schedule that your respective fan bases have circled on this year's sched? (Conference-wide bloggers -- what are the handful of can't miss games on the regular season sched?).

Spoken like a fan of a team without a set end-of-year rivalry game.  (OK, that was mean.)  The answer is obviously Tech and not the Atlanta version, but I also think a lot of Virginia fans - myself included - are secretly looking forward to the Duke game, on account of having lost to them entirely too much recently.  Beating Duke would let us breathe a sigh of relief that the football program is at least out of the doldrums and headed for bluer skies.

3. Name one ACC program that's not Florida State or Virginia Tech that has a legitimate shot at winning this year's ACC football title. Your ACC's football champion dark horse is:

North Carolina.  They have questions to answer in the passing game on both sides of the ball and a new head coach, but they have no excuses not to be able to run the ball at will against just about anyone.  If Bryn Renner is halfway decent and the secondary isn't a toxic disaster zone, they stand a good chance.

Plus, I'll throw a shameless suck-up bone to the hosts and say that if Boston College plays defense like they did last year and the offense is even slightly mediocre, they'll make a case too.  But the Eagles have a much tougher row to hoe on their schedule.

4. It's been an offseason to forget with major NCAA infractions / investigations into the North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Miami programs. Can the conference as a whole move forward from this whole mess? How do you expect this all to shake out?

Well, GT got the instant car-wash instead of the anal probe and came out little the worse for wear as far as their future ability to compete goes.  UNC's hearing is October 28, too late to have any effect on this season other than the distraction aspect; the NCAA doesn't hand down punishments til like six weeks afterwards, minimum, which means December when the Heels have already accepted a bowl invite.  Awkward timing, really, because I expect the NCAA to ban them from postseason competition for perhaps one season and they'll probably have to announce that after UNC has already accepted a bowl invite.  I don't think anything for this year, but they'll probably have to go into 2012 knowing they can't have their bowl game swag bags.

Miami....whooph.  After what UNC went through last season I can't imagine Miami will get to use most of those 12 or 13 players for a huge chunk of the season, if not all of it.  That's just for starters.  I don't know where the NCAA stands on its investigation but I would hazard a bet that their Notice of Allegations drops sometime during the season.  NOAs detail everything - like, every five dollar Happy Meal an athlete takes or every two minute phone call from Bruce Pearl or every fifteen minute stretching session over the limit - so this NOA is going to cost us a national forest somewhere.  So that's going to be a media orgy right there.  Given the pace of NCAA procedures - the school gets ages to gin up a response, for example - there won't be a hearing until at least next summer, I figure. 

But the punishment?  People talk death penalty and I don't think Miami will get that, but in this case it's fair to at least include it in the discussion.  The NCAA might have to get creative.  Something people don't always remember is that the NCAA only banned SMU for one season (1987) and for 1988, banned them from playing home games.  (It was SMU that decided not to play the 1988 season either.)  In this day and age where TV bans are impractical, scheduling is halfway to impossible and back because games are agreed upon five years in advance, and revenue is king and lord, the death penalty carries tricky implications.  Forcing a team to play all road games does not.  The NCAA might keep this bit of ammo handy.

I've also argued that the ACC needs to study the implications of giving Miami the boot, and I'm sticking with my guns on that one.

5. You can also add conference realignment rumors to the 2011 offseason to forget. With A&M set to divorce the Big 12 and move to the SEC, rumors swirl about a 14th program coming from the ACC. Now's the time to pledge your allegiance to John Swofford and the ACC. Or don't. Either way, tell us what you think the endgame is for the next round of conference musical chairs.

I suppose there are those who'd call me an ostrich for this, but the ACC is in much better shape than some of our brother conferences.  Namely the Big 12 with its uneasy love-hate relationship with Texas and the teetering conglomeration that is the Big East, which I think will last only about as long it takes to sign a disappointing TV deal that doesn't live up to their expectations.

I don't expect the SEC to take any ACC teams, for two reasons: I believe the rumors about there being a bloc of SEC teams voting down any expansion from their respective states, which rules out FSU, Clemson, GT, and Miami.  And I don't think the remaining teams (VT mostly, but also NC State) would be willing to go.  VT likes the academic association with the ACC (and so, importantly, does the Va. legislature, which kicked up the original hissy fit to get VT in the club in the first place.)  NC State, I can't see them leaving their Triangle brethren behind just to fill a numbers game.  So I think the SEC's 14th team will also be from outside the footprint - think Mizzou or West Virginia - and the ACC will be intact.  Even if not, the ACC shouldn't have much trouble bringing Syracuse aboard if a team gets poached, and we just keep going on as before.

I don't think there's an "endgame" per se, since I don't believe in the 4x16 model of superconferences.  That'd require conferences to bring on teams they don't want and wouldn't really help the per-team revenue numbers.  People who say things like that also say things like Cincinnati will end up in the Big Ten and ECU in the ACC, which is basically retarded and proof positive they pulled that shit right out of their hairy colon.

So yes, I think UVA's just fine in the ACC, with no reason to panic and try and bolt anywhere.  In the second shameless plug in a row for an archive post, I'll tell you why UVA would fare very badly in the Big Ten (the usual non-ACC suggestion for UVA's end location.)  The Cliff Notes version is that our recruiting would be in shambles since we wouldn't really recruit any better in Big Ten territory like Ohio and Chicago, but all those guys - particularly Michigan and Ohio State - would be raiding the state of Virginia like it had a Free Cookies sign.  Texas A&M is going to learn this lesson the hard way in five years.

6. Last one, and recycled from last year. a) What do you expect out of your team, b) What kind of season would keep you content and happy, c) What kind of season would be a disappointment?

UVA is at that special place where there's no point getting greedy about what bowl we go to, but eligibility itself is possible, even plausible.  The schedule allows it.  The rebuilding procedure half demands it, especially given next year's extremely demanding schedule that puts both TCU and Penn State on the slate.  That big bold line between bowl eligibility and not bowl eligibility looms large, and it's the season's only goal.  Six wins good, five wins bad.

ACC roundtable, postseason

Welcome to ACC-oholics Anonymous, where we have a problem. The problem is ACC sports. We have no interest in a cure. This week's host is BC Interruption, at which a roundup can be found on Friday. P.S.: Sorry to jerk you out of basketball and back into football for a bit, but you know how addictions are.

1. Virginia Tech and Florida State seemed to acquit the ACC Championship Game well this year, turning in an entertaining 44-33 game in front of a crowd of 72,379 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. Assess the success of the ACC Championship Game in Charlotte in year one. How much of the success can be attributed to the host city, and how much can be attributed to the matchup? A little of A, a little of B?

A little of B, but a lot of A. It's time the ACC stopped trying to be something it's not and can never be: a Florida-centric conference. Some might complain of too much Tobacco Road influence by having it in Charlotte, but facts are facts: there's a geographical and population center of the league, and that's probably in North Carolina somewhere. Charlotte is a day trip for the vast majority of the conference. True story: When UVA went to what used to be called the Tire Bowl in Charlotte, against Pitt, I was visiting relatives in Atlanta. My brother and I drove to Charlotte for the game and were back in time for dinner. That's how you get people to go to your game.

2. Would you like to see Charlotte become the permanent home of the ACC Football Championship? Or would you be in favor of some alternate Championship Game format? (continuing to rotate the location, move to campus a la the Pac 12, etc.) Explain.

Charlotte. Forever. Period. No debate about this. Let's continue the discussion from above. Here is something else I will not debate because it's true and people who believe otherwise are delusional: Fans will not make multiple trips for postseason football. They're happy to make one. Beyond that you're asking too much. Why was the 2007 game in Jacksonville so embarassingly empty? Because people viewed that as basically another bowl game, which they couldn't afford to go to. It's right after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. People have already used up or otherwise budgeted their vacation time and their paychecks. Flights and motel rooms are expensive. Family demands to be seen. Gifts must be exchanged. People can't drop what they're doing and book it off to Florida - but they can convince themselves to take a day trip. Florida is a full-fledged vacation. Charlotte is doable for the vast majority of ACC fans. (Sorry, BC, you're ages from everything, but nobody held a gun to your head and made you join.)

On-campus games would solve this too, but I have my suspicions the Pac-10 (12) went this way because they couldn't come up with a suitable solution in time. They're a little more geographically spread out. Besides, the ACC is Parityville and I'd hate for a tiebreaker to determine which team gets home-field advantage, which is a big deal.

3. On to the ACC's 2010 slate of bowl games. How happy are you with your program's bowl placement? Did your team's bowl destination exceed or fall short of preseason expectations? (No, I didn't forget about you, Wake and Virginia. You can speak to general season results relative to preseason expectations here).

Gee, thanks for the consolation question. I dunno. "Preseason expectations" implies we had some kind of generally accepted win/loss number below which the season would be a failure. 4-8 doesn't register on any pass/fail metric. Some things (the offense, Miami game) were better than expected, some things (the defense, Duke game) were worse. I don't see the point in bothering to evaluate the season based on expectations. Better to ignore expectations and evaluate what happened rather than what should have happened, because there's a new coaching regime and nothing "should" have happened.

4. Looking at the conference's bowl schedule as a whole, how many games do you have the conference winning? Is this the year the conference has a breakout year come bowl season?

I don't see any games where the conference is outmatched, so that's a plus. I think we're looking at about a .500 year for the conference, because there are a lot of toss-ups (GT/AFA, Clem/USF, BC/UNR, Miami/ND, FSU/USC-East.) UNC and Maryland got very friendly draws. I don't see a breakout year, but the conference won't embarrass itself.

5. Clearly, there are many factors other than on-field performance that go into bowl selections (travel rep, ticket sales, travel distances). Pretend for a moment that the ACC placed teams in our conference's bowl games 1-9 based solely on their on-field performance this season (you can rank 1-9 anyway you see fit). Holding our bowl opponents fixed, how does your answer to question 4 change? Does the ACC then win more or less bowl games this year?
Eh, ok, let's see. That would line them up like this:

Orange: VT vs. Stanford (same)
ex-Peach: FSU vs. South Carolina (same)
ex-Tangerine: NC State vs. West Virginia (same)
Sun: Maryland vs. Notre Dame (actual: Miami)
ex-Tire: Miami vs. South Florida (actual: Clemson)
Music City: UNC vs. Tennessee (same)
Independence: BC vs. Air Force (actual: Georgia Tech)
Military: Clemson vs. ECU (actual: Maryland)
Hunger: GT vs. Nevada (actual: Boston College)

Sun: Chances go down; Maryland's record is better than Miami but I think Miami's the better team, despite UVA's results against the two.
ex-Tire: Chances up: Miami would win a rematch against USF.
Independence: Chances up: BC has a defense.
Military: Chances same: ECU isn't so hot.
Hunger: Chances down: GT would get murdered.

Two up, two down, one the same. No change for the ACC.

6. Last one. The home of the ACC Champion has been the redheaded step child of BCS bowls the past few seasons. The Orange Bowl has been awarded either the Big East champ or a BCS at-large leftover the past few seasons and the casual fan has responded with some of the lowest TV ratings in BCS bowl history. Did the Hokies/ACC dodge a bullet not drawing an 8-4 Big East champ UConn in the Orange Bowl? Or would you have rather have had the Hokies face an easier opponent to improve on the ACC's 2-10 record in BCS bowls?

Fuck that, I'd rather have the Hokies playing the New England Patriots to improve their chances of getting their asses kicked. An improved ACC record in the BCS is simply the consolation prize for a Hokies win.

ACC roundtable, basketball-style

Another meeting of ACC-oholics Anonymous is upon us, hosted this time by Riddick & Reynolds, of NC State persuasion. Basketball season is underway, which means basketball questions are at hand:

1. Every football season, we bloggers and pundits preach the importance of the league to perform well out of conference to improve the league's image. Basketball certainly has a much better reputation historically, but do you think the ACC has some work to do before league play starts to get back to being viewed as the NCAA's standard-bearer for the sport? Could a dominant or lackluster performance in November and December significantly help or hurt the ACC's reputation or are most folks' opinions about ACC basketball pretty set?

"Back"? I wasn't aware anything had changed. It's going to take some pretty colossal years of failure for the ACC to relinquish its status as the dean of college hoops. At least three of our freshmen specifically cited the ACC as one of their reasons for coming to UVA. Everyone wants that ACC offer. The ACC is to college basketball as the Yankees are to baseball: they might underperform for a year or two, but they're still the standard of excellence.

2. We've all seen our teams at least once now. Have you seen anything in the limited action thus far that is cause for concern or cause for greater optimism than where your opinion stood just a couple of weeks ago?

Nah. Not being 2-0 by this point would have been cause for worry, but anyone who upgrades their expectations based on a win over USC-Upstart - uh, Upstate - is either delusional or inconceivably pessimistic.

I will say that the play from the point guards, Jontel Evans and Billy Baron, has been a pleasant surprise, and Mike Scott has shown the hoped-for willingness to take charge. Baron's shooting has provided a real spark. But the shooting looked good early last year, too, and dove off a cliff come January.

3. Give me your preseason votes for: POY, COY, ROY. Explain.

ROY: Harrison Barnes, because he'll get lots of minutes, a giant heap of NBA hype, and doesn't have the pressure of Kyrie Irving running the point at Duke. And he wears the correct uniform.

COY: Steve Donahue at BC, for outperforming the 10th-place finish his team was saddled with by the preseason media rankings. BC has a senior-laden team and some quality players. I don't know what the hell they'll do next year, but this year they should be better than 10th.

POY: Kyle Singler, for being more or less as good as any player in the conference and for wearing the correct uniform. Malcolm Delaney will get votes, but the tiebreaker goes to the Dookie.

4. Which stands the greater probability of reoccurring this season: Duke winning the national title or Carolina returning to the NIT?

No way Carolina goes to the NIT again.

5. I can't speak to the attendance figures for most of the other schools in the league, but State's opening matchup against Tennessee Tech was nowhere near a sellout. There were quite a few empty seats in the Dean Dome for the game against Lipscomb, as well. As television and internet technology continue to advance, consumers are starting to get better entertainment value for the dollar staying home rather than paying for tickets to attend the games themselves. In the coming years, how will ADs--struggling to balance very tight budgets--continue to move tickets and put butts in the seats without slashing ticket prices drastically?

Put good teams on the court. And have them play against good teams.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the teams not located in major metropolitan areas try to bring their product to the fans in the big city. Schedule a home-and-home against a West Coast team the way UVA's often done, but find an NBA arena to play in. On a Saturday night after football season ends, say. There's precedent in UVA's game against MSU in Richmond some years back, although better arena management will be obviously be required so as to avoid any further basketball-on-ice episodes. UVA could play in DC, the NC schools could play in Charlotte. Certain schools won't be able to take advantage of the gimmick, but this is now a standard football tactic; can basketball be far behind?

6. Which team will be the big surprise this season, either exceeding expectations greatly or falling well short of them?

Boston College will do a lot better than 10th, and Georgia Tech was voted 9th but they are going to suck a lot more than that. By losing to Kennesaw State(!) - no, check that: by getting blown out by Kennesaw State(!!), they've already started.

ACC roundtable: midseason

Time for another edition of the ACC Roundtable, the #1 gathering of college football blogs anywhere. Your host this week is From The Rumble Seat, which works out even better than usual because FTRS has four writers and therefore a case of multiple personality disorder. They can answer their own questions and yet be surprised at the answers. And speaking of answers....

1. Half the regular season is now kaput. Has your team exceeded, met, or fell short of your preseason predictions?

Met, I guess. Really, 2-3 shouldn't surprise anyone. Early games exceeded expectations, causing them to be raised a bit too high for the following ones. Honestly, if you'd have told me in August UVA'd be 2-3 after five games, I'd have said, "Well, duh."

2. The ACC finished the first half of the season 23-14 in out-of-conference play. If we took out the I-AA games, that'd be a lowly 12-13 record. If we took out the non-BCS squads, that'd be a 3-10 record against BCS opponents. If we further removed the Big East, we'd have ZERO wins in out of conference play and 9 losses against the SEC, Big 10, Pac 10, and Big 12... There are nine more out-of-conference games for the ACC including 6 games against BCS opponents. Is there any hope for rehabilitating the ACC's tarnished image?

Wait til bowl season. People have a way of attaching too much weight to the results of a single bowl season. A few favorable matchups there and the ACC's faceplant against good competition will be forgotten.

3. The Atlantic and Coastal divisions are knotted up at 5 wins apiece in interdivision play. Which division is better top to bottom?

At the bottom, the Atlantic is clearly better. Wake and Maryland both beat Duke, which establishes Duke as the worst team in the conference to date. Florida State looks like the best team so far, what with that housing of Miami last week. So the Atlantic is best top and bottom, but I don't think it's the best top to bottom. Pick two reasonable choices for #1 and #6 in each division, and I'll take the Coastal's #2 through #5 over the Atlantic.

4. Who is the ACC's first half of the season offensive MVP? Defensive MVP? Any comeback player of the year nominees or predictions for ACC Rookie of the Year?

I'm actually more impressed by Chris Thompson's 9-odd yards per carry, leading FSU in yardage despite being third in carries, than with the obvious choice of Russell Wilson and his 17 touchdowns. But MVP means "most valuable," not "best." NC State has surrounded Wilson with a cast of questionable talent, so their unexpectedly impressive start is all Russell. He's the choice.

On the other hand, NC State might be doing even better if not for Jayron Hosley of VT. Hosley's interceptions have paved the path of salvation for the Hokies after their loss to James Madison, which I don't know if you heard about that but the Hokies lost to James Madison. Hosley is your defensive MVP so far, edging out BC's Luke Kuechly and his 71 (!) tackles so far.

As for comeback player of the year, yes I'm going the homer route. I'm contractually obligated to at some point. Keith Payne spent three and a half years slipping further and further into Al Groh's doghouse, mostly through his own fault. Then he left it through the back door, quitting the team early in 2009. When Mike London was hired, Payne wanted back, and jumped through every hoop required of him. Who's your ACC touchdown leader? Keith Payne.

5. What games are still circled on the schedule as must win games for your fan base and program?

I'm choking on the very words, but VT isn't an attainable goal just yet. During a rebuilding project you've got to see forward progress, and you've got to get the easy ones under your belt. That means EMU and Duke at a minimum. Maryland will be seen as winnable and nobody wants to lose that one at home. And it's hard to say whether or not UNC is out of reach at the moment, but there's a streak to protect.

6. Let's say your university invented a device capable of transporting one individual from your program's past. And then the machine would collapse into itself due to the sheer greatness of said individual. What one player from your long and storied history would you cherrypick to instantly upgrade your team?

This team is in desperate need of an offensive line. I'd go get a scrambling quarterback like Aaron Brooks or Marques Hagans to alleviate some of the problems caused by the fact that Marc Verica's pocket sense is lousy, but instead I think we'll get a bulldozing tackle who could block for both the pass and the run reasonably well - that'd be top-five NFL pick D'Brickashaw Ferguson - and then, because that's just one lineman out of five, I'll borrow another important piece of scientific progress.....


Boink.

7. Now that you've seen ~29% of the scheduled ACC games, who will be in the 2010 ACC Championship Game?

Florida State and Virginia Tech, because that is what will piss me off the most.

ACC roundtable: ACCoholics anonymous

This week it's less of a roundtable and more of a support group, and your AA host this week is GT blog extraordinaire From The Rumble Seat. Me, I suppose you could say I have a problem, but who needs treatment? On with the questions.

1. Enough with the MVP's and the National Title Talk... What ACC teams are going to be bowl eligible by November? Who will be left out in the cold?

Well, despite the massive collective thud these teams produced on Saturday, I have a hard time believing Miami, GT, VT, and FSU aren't bowl-worthy. Clemson is good enough. BC is probably good enough.

On the flip side, forget about Duke, and despite 2-0 starts, I'm not sold on Wake, NC State, or Maryland yet. UNC - at this point, Lindsey Lohan on amphetamines would be more predictable than UNC's season. Forget it, I'm not making any calls on that one.

That leaves UVA, which needs six more wins to get there. VMI, EMU, and Duke should provide three. Now given the respectable performance and near-win in the Coliseum and the crippling flaws exposed in other conference teams on UVA's schedule, should it really be that far-fetched to claim that among FSU, GT, UNC, Miami, Maryland, BC, and VT, there are three wins in there somewhere? I don't think that's crazy. If you do, don't forget to give me my ups in November when UVA is bowl-eligible like I said they would be.

2. What team performance (or lack thereof) this weekend shocked you the most? What individual's performance impressed/depressed you the most?

VT is the obvious answer. I think that's a given. Second-most: definitely GT. Kansas did look like ass-and-a-half in losing to NDSU, but then again it's Kansas and Mangino isn't in Kansas anymore, and looking like ass-and-a-half has kind of been what Kansas football used to hang its hat on. FSU isn't the first team to get spanked into Sunday in Norman, OK, but when did Kansas become a house of horrors?

Most impressive performance: how about the motivational efforts of JMU coach Mickey Matthews, who reportedly asked his players before the game how many of them had been on a recruiting trip to Virginia Tech. Think those players aren't about ready to chuck a tank through a brick wall for that guy right now? After that speech, he could probably tell 'em they'd grow wings if they jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and they'd believe it. Sometimes there's a letdown effect after a big win, but I don't think I'd want to be JMU's next opponent.

Depressing: definitely Miami's Jacory Harris and his four INTs. That Harris, someone who's always impressed me as one of the ACC's more dangerous quarterbacks, would throw four INTs is surprising - that Ohio State would be on the other end of them depresses the Michigan fan in me.

3. The ACC is fifth out of the Big 6 conferences in terms of out of conference winning percentage. Is this a function of a difficult out of conference schedule or are we legitimately the 2nd worst conference in the BCS?

I don't buy the schedule thing. Neither Kansas nor JMU was supposed to contribute mightily to the strength of schedule. If there's a BCS conference without "East" in its name that the ACC could make a case to be better than, it's the Big 12, but let's wait til Kansas and Oklahoma are sufficiently deep in the conference's rearview mirror before we do that. Unless your definition of a better conference is one which isn't a threat to disintegrate.

4. James Madison's victory was the 13th I-AA victory over an ACC squad since 1984 (out of 160 total games). It was also the 5th I-AA victory over a I-A opponent in 2010. Is it really worth scheduling I-AA opponents to start the season particularly I-AA juggernauts like App. State, James Madison, or Villanova?

I've never liked the idea. Truth be told, I'd take App State or JMU against your average WAC or Sun Belt team any day. Easy. They're decent teams. But the I-AA label means everyone gets to point and laugh when you lose to them. Let me illustrate:

- Loss to Wyoming =

- Loss to JMU or William & Mary:

So you see.

The point of scheduling these supposed patsies in I-AA is to get a win. Get wins, fans get off your back, give you more money, etc. etc. The problem is that it's a high-risk, low-reward proposition. As we've seen with App State and JMU, you're playing with fire, especially if you're one of the big boys. If you're gonna schedule I-AA, you should find the worst band of schmucks you can find. Presbyterian was a good choice. You should also schedule a local team. If UVA must play a I-AA team each year (and I wish they wouldn't) at least they play Virginia schools. Drums up a bit more interest, though again that can backfire on your alums since there's no way there's a Hokie in the entire state that doesn't know a JMU alum somewhere.

If you're not gonna play someone local and/or crappy (preferably "and") then you're better off just calling to find out if New Mexico State or ULM have any open dates. Just as likely to get a win and way less stigma if you lose.

5. Have your expectations for the 2010 season or your team's place in the ACC changed after Week 2's round of games?

Oh, shit yeah. I mean, if you didn't figure that out by me calling for a bowl game for UVA earlier. Technically UVA is part of the ACC pantshitting show, having done their part to contribute to the conference's loss column in LA, but you wouldn't find a soul who actually thinks that. It was supposed to be 52-7 again, not 17-14. Meanwhile the rest of the conference is showing the world precisely how to beat them (or actively sabotaging their own season a la UNC) and the result is that I don't know exactly where UVA falls in the pecking order but it ain't last anymore.

6. What's a bigger mismatch: You vs. Ralph Friedgen in a competitive eating matchup or the Iron Dukes versus Nick Saban on Saturday?

I won a pie-eating contest one time. Got the trophy and everything. As long as it's a speed contest and not a volume contest, then I can take that ol' pretender. So we'll go with Duke, which will keep the game within 35 only if Alabama gets lazy.

ACC roundtable roundup: preseason 2010

NC Stater J. Curle of Riddick & Reynolds (formerly YANCSSB) did that. Badass. Better yet, there are 12 English knnnnnnn-niggits at the table, which is totally not a coincidence. Closest thing we have to an official logo.

The return of football means the return of the ACC Roundtable! Still the best conference-affiliated confederation of bloggers in the entire blogoverse. I took the liberty of posing some questions to this electronic meeting of the minds, and as usual, they didn't disappoint. The blogs participating in this edition:

ACC Blogger (ACC in general - formerly On The B.Rink)
BC Interruption (Boston College)
Tomahawk Nation (Florida State)
From the Rumble Seat (Georgia Tech)
Testudo Times (Maryland)
Riddick & Reynolds (NC State)
Gobbler Country (Virginia Tech)
The Key Play (Virginia Tech - formerly College Game Balls)
Blogger So Dear (Wake Forest)

And I'll interject my own take on the subjects as we go. And speaking of go.....

1. At UVA we have made wholesale changes to everything this past offseason: the coaching staff, the offense, the defense, the uniforms, even the color of the equipment shed. What change or changes on your own team are you most looking forward to watching play out on the field this season?

This fell mostly into two camps: a change on the coaching staff and a change in personnel on the field.

On the "coaching" side of things, ACC Blogger is looking forward to seeing what a new staff can do at Florida State, as is Tomahawk Nation who more bluntly wants to see "a real coaching staff" in action. R&R and FTRS at NC State and GT are both looking forward to new defensive coordinators - Jon Tenuta and Al Groh, in two of the more interesting twists of fate.

BSD expects Wake's freshman crop to play a big role, and the VT bloggers are split between looking for improvement from the O-line and a bigger role for Tyrod Taylor. And the return of Mark Herzlich has BCI fired up.

But the best answer comes from Testudo Times - when asked what changed for Maryland, Ben's answer boils down to, "nothing, and I'm pissed." I would be too, if I were Maryland.

As for me, I confess to be most interested in seeing the uniforms in action. Be honest, the change to the 4-3 will often be largely transparent. I like the idea of seeing which uniform combo we'll see each week and still keep a strong Virginia identity, as opposed to, say, Oregon.

2. Who is the next ACC coach to get fired, and when? And if you think that's your own coach, who would you like to see replace him?

The bloggers are just about evenly split here, and for good reason. Three coaches dominate the discussion: 4 votes for Tom O'Brien, 3 for Ralph Friedgen (including from Testudo Times), and 2 for the suddenly embattled Butch Davis, who really needs to look into day care for the kids. Davis is seen as a wild card in this discussion, because that could happen tomorrow or December or never and have nothing to do with on-field results.

TT is in fact ready to push Ralph's ass through the door today, and grease the frame if he has to. James Franklin, too. The whole circus needs to leave town as far as Ben's concerned. Dream candidates for replacement: Jim Harbaugh from Stanford, or, a very realistic and kinda scary choice, Al Golden.

3. How excited are you about your team’s out-of-conference lineup this year? How would you grade your program overall when it comes to scheduling OOC games?

Overall, folks are pretty happy with how things stand here. At least individually. The conference guy, hard-grading Brandon at ACC Blogger, calls it only average on the whole. And the big dissenter is Tomahawk Nation, who says, and I quote: "The schedule is stupid. All FSU needs is Florida and 3 cupcakes and it wouldn't ever hear a peep about poor scheduling in the media."

J. Curle used the opportunity to go soapboxing:

If I may hop up on my soapbox for a sec, my beef with football out-of-conference schedules has always been the gap between when the games are scheduled and when they’re actually played. ... When State originally scheduled a series with Tennessee (that will finally manifest itself as a one-game deal in 2012 in Atlanta), Phil Fulmer was the coach at UT and Chuck Amato was the coach at State. It’s quite possible both schools will have gone through TWO coaching hires each before the game is played! We need to eliminate scheduling games a decade down the road when possible.

As for UVA, the admin has done a decent job in the past, but they're slipping. Two I-AA programs in one year is terrible, though at least they're instate programs**. This year's OOC lineup stinks to high heaven. And scheduling a home-and-home with UTSA - what the hell? But the upcoming home-and-homes with Penn State and UCLA are excellent. That's the kind of thing we need more of, not VMI.

**This, by the way, is something BCI has a legit concern about:

The one issue with BC's future schedule is that local, Northeast I-AA program keep shuttering their doors. With both Northeastern and Hofstra cancelling their football programs, BC is left with fewer teams to play from college football's lower division (hence playing Weber State, an FCS program located 2,400 miles from Chestnut Hill). Assuming that an annual I-AA game is an inevitability, this trend makes it harder for BC to bring in local teams that will bring a big group of fans to Alumni Stadium.

Boston U. isn't an option either. It's a shame we're at the point where a I-AA game really does seem like an inevitability.

4. What one player on your schedule (not in the ACC overall – your team’s schedule only, and it doesn’t have to be ACC) are you most worried will cause you pain and grief this year?

Ryan Williams of the Hokies is the most popular answer, and mine too. Other choices:

Robert Quinn (R&R, who might not have to worry about this if the UNC scandal hits worst-case.)
Kellen Moore of Boise State (both Hokies made this selection, as did ACC Blogger.)
Ricky Dobbs of Navy and West Virginia's Noel Devine, two running backs on Maryland's schedule.
Allen "I kill alligators with shovels" Bailey at Miami, FSU's nemesis.
Georgia Dawg A.J. Green, a slot receiver that FTRS fears will exploit the "Grohfense."

5. Conversely, provide us a little bulletin board material. Which team on your calendar are you absolutely positive that not only will you stomp their guts to China, but you’ll gain the warmest, fuzziest feeling of immense satisfaction out of doing it?

Against all protocols of decorum and good manners, no fewer than three bloggers answered "UVA" when this question was put to them, in full view of and with no consideration for the dignity of the host. This calls for justice. I glare sternly in their direction and bang my gavel. I expected this from the Hokies (in fact, I'd be disappointed if they didn't) but the BCers apparently are still pissed about Brad Butler. The Key Play, a blog of VT persuasions, took the directive to "provide us a little bulletin board material" literally and stuck in the William & Mary knife.

Everyone else is kind of picking on each other. Wake blogger BSD "loves beating Maryland" (at least somebody knows what the host likes to hear), and Tomahawk Nation thinks Wake is toast. If crab cakes and football are what Maryland does, beating Clemson is what Maryland football does. The GT boys have Miami on their radar and use the same kind of wording they normally use for UGA, so you know it's serious. And you just know NC Stater R&R is salivating at the thought of a UNC team in severe disarray.

6. It's been a loony offseason in the conference membership department, but the ACC sat out this round. Do you think the ACC is set at 12 teams for the long term? If not, which team(s) is/are most likely to be added, and which would you like to see?

Two major consensuses (consensi?) dominate the discussion here: one, the ACC won't do anything until its hand is forced by either the Big Ten, SEC, or both; and two, the "blue hairs on tobacco road," as Gobbler Country calls them, will drive the talk. (GC also wants to add West Virginia for the specific purpose of pissing them off, which wouldn't be a bad idea if I didn't kind of agree with the bluehairs when it comes to WVU.)

It's also interesting how much this question ended up playing to the stereotypes. The new blood (that is, the VTers) are all for proactive expansion, while the old guard (with the exception of Testudo Times) generally prefer to stay put. The northerners at Maryland specifically want northern-ish schools. BCI was practically the only one to mention Notre Dame. Tomahawk Nation, representing a football school, doesn't see any candidates that "the Carolina schools would accept due to academics that I'd want for Sports."

The full list of schools, with # of votes and a star next to the ones I'd choose if the ACC absolutely had to expand:

Syracuse (6)*
Pittsburgh (4)*
Connecticut (3)
Rutgers (2)
Notre Dame (2)
West Virginia (2)

About the only surprise here is the general lack of support for Rutgers. Fine by me. I'd also note that both VT blogs included Syracuse, which seems......ironic. I mean, we could have had Syracuse, though technically VT wouldn't have enjoyed the fruits of that particular choice.

7. Standard question for the finish: a) What do you expect out of your team, b) What kind of season would keep you content and happy, c) What kind of season would be a disappointment?

We'll go blog-by-blog here:

ACC Blogger: "I expect three 10+ win teams and six teams in the final top 25 – and I’d be disappointed with much less with all the talent stockpiled in the ACC."

BCI: "I would say a 9-3 season or better will keep me content. Anything less is probably a disappointment."

TN: "Against a schedule like that of Boston College I'd expect 10-2, but against FSU's schedule I'd expect somewhere in the range of 7-5 to 9-3. If FSU is healthy and goes 7-5 or 6-6 I'll be very disappointed."

FTRS: "I expect Tech to win 8-9 football games and beat Georgia. A great season would include a 10+ win season, a win over Georgia, and a bowl win. A disappointment would be less than 8 wins, a West Coast bowl, and/or losing to Georgia again."

TT: "5-7 seems pretty reasonable. At least 8-4, with one big name upset [would make me happy.] [Disappointing would be] any season which is in that limbo area of 5-7 to 7-5. It's not good enough to revitalize the fanbase and program, but it's not bad enough to get Friedgen and Franklin fired for good, either. That's the worst possible outcome for next year."

R&R: "A bowl appearance of any kind [would keep me happy.] Our schedule is brutal. Five or fewer wins [would disappoint.]

GC and TKP: Unanimous in wanting 10 wins and an ACC title for VT - the only bloggers for whom it's ACC title or bust.

BSD: "I expect growth and improvement throughout the year. I touched on this above, but I just want the guys to stay positive, get better and have something to hang their hat on at the end of the year, whether it is a strong finish, a big upset over a good team, or god willing, a bowl game. As long as they do that, I'll be happy. Conversely, if the team gets down on themselves, regresses, there are a lot of injuries, fighting amongst the team, questionable coaching decisions or a complete collapse ending in 4 straight blowouts, well then I'd be disappointed."

And that's it. Or, to coin a phrase: That's all, folks! Look for the Richmond game preview tomorrow. It's basically football season, officially. So close I can smell it.

basketball roundtable: tournament edition

In honor of the upcoming ACC tournament, Clark at the very descriptively named ACC & SEC Blog put together a little roundtable. You know the format by now - compilation will occur at the aforementioned site either late this week or early next.

1. The national perception is that the ACC is down this year. Duke has been in the top 10 all year, but no one else has come close. Does the conference deserve this reputation? Why or Why not?

Yup. And it's not just because UNC isn't one of the top teams. Obviously it's a down year when the ACC loses the Challenge for the first time in history, for starters, but there also just isn't that lineup of dominant players the league usually has. Normally you're happy to take anyone with an ACC tourney bye and pit them against all but the best of the best in any league, but that's not doable this year. VT is a flawed team and probably no more than an 8 or 9 seed in the tournament if they go, and they have an ACC tourney bye. Says something.

2. Does Duke have what it takes to make a run to a National Championship? Why or Why not?

I don't think Duke is the best team in the country, but they're definitely good enough to get to the Final Four and hang with the top dogs, and once there, you can't ever count out Coach K.

3. We know Duke and Maryland are in, but who else gets in from the ACC? Will we see any surprises on Selection Sunday?

FSU is in, and probably two of the three following: Wake, Clemson, VT. Clemson is in the weakest position because they never beat either VT or Wake, and their one really shiny spot on the resume is a narrow escape over Butler at home, which may not help. I think a first-round upset loss to NC State would bounce them, and they may also need to beat FSU after that. The winner of Wake-VT guarantees themselves a spot; the loser will be anxiously watching the selection show. It's helped that so far there haven't been any mid-majors stealing a spot they shouldn't have (Wright State, for example) so there's room on the bubble. I think ultimately it's a five-bid year for the ACC.

4. What is the biggest surprise of the season (good or bad)?

I definitely did not see Maryland sitting atop the ACC standings tied with Duke.

5. A couple of teams have had disappointing seasons. Whose seat is the hottest?

There's no other answer here but Paul Hewitt. A couple coaches might be looking over their shoulders (BC's Al Skinner, NC State's Sidney Lowe) but Hewitt has consistently proven himself to be the one coach in the ACC able to squeeze NIT seasons out of NCAA talent.

6. Who is your player and coach of the year? Why?

Can't argue with the selection of Greaseball Greivis as the ACC POY. He's too much of a complete player not to get it, and there's nobody else in the ACC that can make that claim, Malcolm Delaney's immature bellyaching notwithstanding.

And as much as I hate to give the Twerps a sweep of these awards, Gary Williams has to be the COY. We're long past the point where you're allowed to give it to Kryz....uh, Coach K, although if you ever do anymore, it might as well be now. But Maryland is the team that outpaced expectations the most.

ACC NLOID roundtable

GT blog extraordinaire From The Rumble Seat is hosting a Signing Day roundtable. This would sound like the sort of thing that you'd expect to see on Signing Day actual, but I have my own plans for that already which heavily involve the exact same thing I did last year, because that was a fun one to write. Think of it like getting to open one of your presents on Christmas Eve at the gathering with one side of the family.

1. Who is your prized prospect?

Easy. Assuming Morgan Moses is last year's recruit and figuring it's not even a guarantee he'll ever suit up for UVA, the top guy for 2010 is Parade All-American K.P. Parks, one of only three on that list to choose an ACC team. Parks gets lost in the shuffle when it comes to the ratings because he's short, slow-ish on the sprint, and committed last February even before the dust had quite settled on the '09 crop. But his game and his skills are eerily reminiscent of Mike Hart, Michigan's career rushing leader, and so are his high school stats. Parks is in a lot of record books for his high school exploits:

- State of North Carolina career rushing record with 10,895 yards.
- Third in national history in that category. Second? Mike Hart.
- National record for games of 100 yards or more with 55.
- National record for carries in a career.
- 158 touchdowns is second on North Carolina's all time list.

Not bad for someone who routinely got pulled in the second half of games on account of his team being state-champion caliber and usually having a six-touchdown lead by then.

2. How does your fanbase react to recruiting? Or do they just want to see results no matter the star count?

At the risk of insulting my readership, UVA fans have a tendency to wildly overrate the talent being brought in, especially if the player is coming from instate. Lots of players get the Pat White excuse, which is that Pat White was a two-star and turned out awesome. Recently people have been getting overly excited about Jake McGee for two reasons:

- The last lightly-recruited quarterback we converted into a tight end was Heath Miller.
- The last quarterback that Richmond Collegiate spit out was Russell Wilson and we were stupid for not offering him.

Never mind the highly outlierish qualities of these players or the complete lack of offers outside of Princeton and Richmond despite the fact that the whole ACC evaluated him.

The other theme is "why do we constantly get our ass kicked by VT for instate players?" This I can't call into question. It leads to a general overrating of the importance of certain aspects of recruiting, like "if we offer more instate players, then later years' instate players will see we care about Virginia's players and decide to come here," which is bunk. But the premise is a bullseye: we can't keep losing the instate battles and expect to be successful.

3. Who is the next Calvin Johnson or Philip Rivers in this year's crop of ACC recruits?

I assume this means we're looking at skill players for this question, since Johnson and Rivers imply not only awesomeness as a player but high-profile awesomeness, so the answer: Parks, obviously. Anyone else got any Parade All-American skill players coming? No, you don't.

The pickings are actually kind of slim in the ACC when it comes to skill players this year. But also, I think, watch out for De'Joshua Johnson at FSU and Eduardo Clements at Miami. Both had a long list of big-time offers and Clements also has, for whatever reason, a name that just rings like a star at Miami.

4. Have any recent coaching changes affected your team's recruiting class (eg Kiffin to USC)?

Er, besides our own?

We've only pilfered one recruit from another school that had a coaching change (Mike Rocco decommitted from Louisville just this week) and that had way more to do with our own coaching change than Louisville's.

5. Who do you all think have assembled the strongest recruiting class, taking into account not just rankings but the needs each one has filled?

I honestly have no desire to go team-by-team and figure out what they all needed. Let me put it this way: most everyone has gem or two and at least half the teams have a fairly strong class up top. Only one team can really claim to have players from top to bottom that were coveted by a lot of other good teams: Florida State. Even the players on the bottom of their list (star-wise) had a strong set of offers from other good programs.

6. How do you all see ACC schools competing with schools in the SEC and Big 12 for recruits?

Badly in general, but I don't really care: UVA doesn't really go head-to-head with the SEC and Big 12. If you guys further south lose all your battles with the Auburns and Floridas of the world, so much the better for us. Just about the only SEC school whose recruiting footprint overlaps much with ours and that we go head-to-head with every year is South Carolina, and we regularly win those battles. It's the Big East and Big Ten we worry about.

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.

ACC roundballtable

A couple ACC games have already been played, but the unofficial official kickoff to the conference season is this weekend, as all 12 teams have a game to get things started. To celebrate, some idiot decided it would be a good idea to host the first basketball-themed roundtable of the season, so, below are the questions. Also below are the knights of the ACC roundtable who have already spit out their answers; go see what the rest of the ACC has to say.

Testudo Times
On the B-Rink
BC Interruption

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?

As I've postulated as a prerequisite to the notion that UVA will be improved in conference play this year, the ACC is, on the whole, less talented than it was last year. It is a bit of a down year. And the Big Ten, on the other hand, is looking better than it has in the past. It was bound to happen eventually; it still took a down year for the ACC and an up year for the Big Ten for the Big Ten to even squeak out a 6-5 win in the Challenge. And even then, a couple of the ACC's losses could have swung the other way with just a little bit of luck. Just one of them things - statisticians will tell you the law of averages is bunk, but at the same time you can't expect this thing to go on forever and the ACC not to drop one here and there. Besides, this is a fun event, and how much longer would the Big Ten have wanted to play ball if they didn't get a win once in a while?

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?

Up to this point, Jon Scheyer is the only player in the ACC's top five in both points and assists and plays for the league's highest-ranked team; he seems a natural choice. Forget it. The one player I'd rather have on my team above any other right now is UNC's Ed Davis. He and Wake's Al-Farouq Aminu are both averaging a double-double, but Aminu is shooting under .500 while Davis's shooting percentage is a whopping .631. Amazing even for a forward. Davis also contributes three blocks a game. Think about it: that's six points a game the other team doesn't get. And 63% shooting! He's not a liability from the line, either, so you can't just hack him. Keep going on that pace and Scheyer might eventually be named POTY anyway, but he won't deserve it.

With GT's Derrick Favors averaging 12 and 9, there's really not much of a race for Freshman of the Year. Just so he has some competition to beat, C.J. Harris of Wake, Jordan Williams of Maryland, and Michael Snaer of Florida State are making some solid contributions. There aren't any John Wall types in the ACC this year - perhaps a big reason why it's a bit of a down year - but Favors stands well above the competition and barring injury has this thing on lockdown.

Too early to name a coach just yet, but I'll tell you right now it'll be GT's Paul Hewitt if the media's prediction of 4th place comes even remotely close to true, after that 2-14 season last year.

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

I've gone over this pretty extensively, of course: Make the postseason. Even if it's the CBI. And improve over 11th place and 4 wins.

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

This looks like a slow year for the ACC, Madness-wise. Duke and UNC are the locks. I'll also put Wake, FSU, and Clemson in. Maryland, bubble team, but they're going to have to make a major showing and probably knock someone else out. That's....pretty much it. Five teams. Six, if all the pieces fall into place, but here's thinking they won't. Four would not surprise either: Clemson and FSU in particular do not inspire the kind of confidence I'd need to give any kind of guarantee.

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?

Best game of the decade?



Yeah.

As for the do-over, it's my question so I get to answer twice. I'm doing this because really these two games are brothers, in that some dipshit whose job it was to arrange and schedule these games made a major-league mistake. And they were both in 2001.

First is the 2001 tournament game against Gonzaga - an opponent we never should have been set up with. Gonzaga had already made an Elite Eight run and then a Sweet Sixteen run as a 10 seed twice, meaning they had knocked off two 7s, two 2s, and a 6, two years running. Did anyone on the committee stop to think it might be a good idea to seed them higher instead of lower? Noooooooo. At least, not til the year after they'd beaten us. Instead of excitement as should be the case entering the tourney as a nice high seed, I remember a distinct feeling of dread over the Grounds: not only were we stuck with giant-killing Gonzaga, we were the cursed 5 seed playing a 12 seed. Doom. And hell, we came that damn close to winning it anyway. 13th-seeded Indiana State would have awaited us, meaning a likely Sweet Sixteen date with Michigan State. But we got our crack at the Spartans the next season in the ACC-Big Ten Challeng.....

.....and then had it taken away because some dipshit decided to put the game in the larger Richmond Coliseum on the same day as a later hockey game. With the ice prepared and ready to go, the rink was simply covered up and the floor placed over top. Predictably, the day was warm and humid, the ice melted, and the floor was sopping wet from condensation. It wasn't basketball. Pete Gillen called it Bambi on ice. The players couldn't run - at best they jogged, flatfooted so as not to stick their heel out and slip. Nobody leaped for a rebound, lest they slam to the ground upon landing. The fan in me wanted to keep going, because our team was doing a better job of figuring out how to score under the insane conditions. The decent human being in me, who I keep trying to strangle, knew they should have called that game three minutes after it started. I want that game back, on a basketball court this time. And I want it in U-Hall where we'd have enjoyed a proper home court advantage.

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?

From the selfish perspective, here's how it looks: We're 11-11 against the expansion teams. But more important is this stat: 8-13. That's our record in games against old-guard teams that we only played once in the seasons since expansion. In other words, the teams we would have played twice but didn't, because those games were replaced with ones against expansion teams. Clearly, it's been a help.

Even more importantly, we're 2-1 in the ACC tournament against the expansion teams. One of those wins was in the 2006 tournament, where we played 10th seeded VT as the 7th seed. No expansion means we would have gone straight to playing UNC, where we lost. Instead, we got an extra win, which was probably the difference between the low-seed NIT invite we got, and staying home.

But has the expansion diluted ACC basketball as everyone feared?

No. It's made the ACC stronger. In the five years before expansion, the ACC earned 23 tournament bids. In 2001, there were just three teams repping the conference. In the five years since, the ACC has 27 bids, including two years with seven teams invited. I don't think that ever happened before expansion. Five of those bids have been earned by expansion teams, and they all have at least one. That's their fair share.

But this is the biggest benefit of expansion, at least from a competition standpoint: the ACC now plays three extra tournament games. And the best part is they're being played by bubble teams. The fifth and sixth seeded teams used to be placed in first-round games they were likely to lose; now they're in games they're likely to win. Those are exactly the teams that might need that little extra oomph to get into the tournament.

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

I threw this question in at the end because it popped into my head just before I hit "send" to the other bloggers and I decided I was actually curious to hear the answers. Myself I want no part of it; it would just increase the inequities of scheduling since we'd all have to play the same division teams every year, and it sucks to get into a situation where one division is consistently way stronger than the other.

combination roundtable and Q&A

I told you we'd be trying to cram as much bloggering into a tiny space as possible. Today that involves writing the ACC roundtable from work. Also, we've invited Chokie blogger Gobbler Country inside for a little Q&A session. Don't worry, he's housetrained and even wiped his feet. My answers to his questions will be linked as soon as he posts them. Which is right now. So, first: roundtable, which by the way is hosted this week by YANCSTSB, then: Q&A. Go.

1) The ACC scheduling gods really did their best this year to ensure a true "rivalry" week to conclude the season. Here in North Carolina, the two large state schools (N.C. State and Carolina) and the two smaller private schools (Duke and Wake) face off against one another. Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, Virginia and Virginia Tech all face off against in-state foes. Even the Boston College/Maryland game has a twinge of regional flavor to it, pitting the two northern-most schools of the ACC against one another. On paper, is this the best rivalry week lineup in recent memory?

I dunno, I mean, I sorta feel like it's this way every year. Problem is, there is absolutely nothing at stake outside of bragging rights. The ACCCG is already decided, and the teams in it aren't even playing ACC games this week. The coaches that are getting fired are pretty much already fired. Nobody's going BCSing except for the ACCCG winner. Hell, nobody's bowl eligibility is even at stake. By now, you're in or you're out. If these weren't rivalry games, all the down-and-out teams would be beyond caring and all the bowl teams would be just hoping to get through without an injury.

2) Clemson and Georgia Tech will face one another in the ACC title game. Do you think both teams facing out-of-conference rivals the week prior will help or hurt either team's performance in the big game, depending on the outcomes of these rivalry games?

Well, whoever wins will be pumped right up, but they both should win. I think the only real effect on the ACCCG will be potential injuries.

3) It's the tail end of the season and you know what that means: Coaching Carousel Time! I'm a firm believer in giving a coach five years to prove his worth before even considering a change...at least I *was*, until I saw how quickly Paul Johnson and Brian Kelly turned their respective programs into top-10 squads. With an ever-increasing desire from fanbases to WIN NOW, is five years still "industry standard," or can coaches legitimately be expected to show marked improvement in four years or less before finding a pink slip in their inbox? How bad would a situation have to be to fairly jettison a head coach before year five?

I think it's perfectly fair to shorten that to three or four years. By year four, you've got all your guys in place and there's absolutely no excuses about learning a new system. You should be hitting your stride. Industry standard should be four, and if after three years the program is still foundering and there appears to be no reason to expect any improvement in the next season, then dropping the axe is also fair.

4) Certainly the four-letter network likes to pimp the big rivalries--Ohio State Vs. Michigan, Texas Vs. Oklahoma, etc.--but I think the ACC has quite a few solid rivalries that never get the coverage they deserve. Where do you think your school's rivalry rates in terms of passion, prestige and what's at stake each season? What steps--beyond the obvious "win more"--could be taken to improve the visibility of your team's rivalry matchup every year?

Not very high. The combination of basically almost never having both teams be good at the same time and not having anything tangible to play for (i.e., Michigan/Ohio State lore is founded on the Rose Bowl as the every-year prize) combined to make the Virginia instate rivalry not too important in national eyes. And yes, "win more" would be a huge plus. But I think the right step has already been taken, and in 2007, it came to fruition, with the winner earning the ACCCG berth and the game on national TV. With the two teams in the same division, there's a good chance each year that the outcome of the game will have some kind of effect on the division title. That'll slowly but surely increase visibility.

5) Few rivalries in the South have as much tradition, passion and generated as much heated discussion as a good ol' fashioned barbecue debate. Here in North Carolina it's Eastern versus Lexington style, and a good many shouting matches have arisen between folks east of I-95 and those godless heathens that put ketchup and brown sugar in their "dip." No doubt similar verbal wars have been waged on behalf of your favorite barbecue, as well, so the question is this: In an all-out, Armageddon-type scenario where the righteous are separated from the unholy on the basis of what type of barbecue they bring to the judgment table, what style of barbecue are you bringing and who--among the purveyors of this style of 'cue in your state--will you select to be your Champion?

Alright, look, man. I might have gone to school in the South but I was born and raised in the North. And besides that, Virginia isn't really the barbecuing epicenter of the world anyway. You want barbecue debates, go to Alabama or something. It's not that we don't like barbecue, but damn if we don't find it a bit silly that you care that damn much. We don't really expect you to know the right way to order a coney dog or care which of the two rival establishments you get it from (and if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about or who these establishments are then you get the point), and we don't want to be pulled into a knock-down, drag-out fight over who has too much vinegar in their sauce.

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And that concludes the ACC Roundtable portion of our program. Next is the Gobbler Country Q&A. VT is blessed with some of the highest-quality blogs in the entire footballin' world and GC takes a proud place in that lineup. F4H gives as good as he takes. If only more of the fanbase could read. Anyway, my questions, his answers:

1. Is this the year Bud Foster takes a head-coaching job somewhere?

I think it is and if it doesn't happen this year it will definitely be next year. I think he's realized that if he wants to be a head coach he can't just sit around and wait for a BCS job, that he's going to have to go cut his teeth somewhere else. He expressed interest in the Memphis job after Tommy West was fired. While I don't think he'll go to Memphis, just his interest in the job signals a shift in his philosophy that I think will lead us down to him ultimately taking a job in CUSA or the MAC if a BCS team doesn't come calling.

2. Speaking of coordinators, criticism of Bryan Stinespring has been way down from last year's record highs. This isn't surprising considering VT leads all ACC non-weird-offense teams in rushing. Has Stinespring been redeemed in the eyes of the VT faithful, or are they just biding their time until Ryan Williams isn't around to save his ass?

There's a certain percentage of Virginia Tech fans that will never be happy with Stinespring unless we're racking up 500 yards per game. I don't think he's completely redeemed and like you said, once he's back to not having a special talent like Ryan Williams around the criticism will go back to being a roar instead of its current level: The muffled ramblings of the drunken proletariat who have no knowledge of football.

3. You know you won't have Al Groh to kick around any more after this year. Deep down, is there anyone you're hoping UVA doesn't hire? Is there anyone you hope they do? (Other than Stinespring?)

Yeah, I can't think of one I hope they don't hire: Bud Foster. I don't know how receptive most Wahoos are to the idea of Foster as their head coach (Editor's note: Not very), but that's my biggest fear. As for who you should hire: Jim Grobe. He can't beat us, either.

4. Ryan Williams on Saturday: 35 carries, or 40?

Hopefully we'll be up 28 by the time he gets to 25 carries and Josh Oglesby can grind out the last 20 or so.

5. If you promise to take Cody Grimm off the field, I'll let you remove one player from our defense. Who'll it be?

Ras-I Dowling. That would set Jarrett Boykin free to make plays down field and keep you guys from focusing all your attention to the running game.

6. If I get invited to a backyard jacuzzi/raccoon-hunting party to be held in the bed of an '88 Dodge Ram that hasn't left its cinderblocks in six years and hasn't been detached from the trailer in eight, is it considered a faux pas to bring a highfalutin' fancypants beer like Sam Adams?

Dawdge is fer pussies [/spits into empty RC Cola bottle]. Get yerself a Ford. And as fer that Sammell Adams... pssh. We only drink Coors in cans with camo on 'em. Or the orange and maroon Bud Light cans. And we would never hunt Steve the Raccoon an' his kin. (Editor's note: But they do eat fried turkey legs at the stadium.) Besides, don't you know oh-possum is lower in co-lest-o-rawl? I thought you were one a them educated sumbitches from that lah-dee-dah university up in Shaw-lets-vull. In other words, yes.