NCAA Basketball Preview 2014-15: ACC
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The ACC has been one of the big winners in conference realignment and a conference that was strong last year gets a powerful addition in Louisville. With blue-bloods Duke and North Carolina clashing with the likes of Syracuse and Pittsburgh , the ACC should create some fireworks this year.
Virginia stunned the conference and won the ACC regular season and tournament. After losing by 35 points to Tennessee and UW-Green Bay, Virginia went 16-2 in conference and made the Sweet 16 in the big dance as a one-seed. Virginia succeeded last year through defense, ranking just 294th in the nation in points per game to go with the nation's best scoring defense. Head coach Tony Bennett had his team overachieve at an astronomical level last season and there is no way Virginia repeats as ACC Champions. Other than Joe Harris, just about everyone from last year's roster is back, but the ACC is significantly tougher this year and Virginia will likely be a team ranked between 15-20th in the nation.
Duke and North Carolina are the traditional powerhouses in the conference and have one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. Duke had the better regular season of the two teams, but North Carolina last longer in the tournament after Duke was bounced early in the NCAA Tournament by Mercer.
Duke should have the better team in the regular season as they have incoming the top rated recruit by ESPN in the 2014 class in center Jahlil Okafor as well as the top point guard Tyus Jones. Justise Winslow and Grayson Allen should also see minutes coming off the bench for Rasheed Sulaimon and Andre Dawkins. If Amile Jefferson can play the role Ben Zubek did when Duke won the 2010 National Championship team, they have all the makings of an ACC Champion and a Final Four team.
North Carolina also has a good mix of recruits and veterans and should be a top-15 team this season. Roy Williams seems to like the versatile 6-6, 6-7ish forwards and brings in two with Theo Pinson and Justin Jackson. It might be hard for them to see minutes though with J.P. Tokoto coming back for his junior year and showing much improvement last season. Though the forwards will be key to this team they will live and die by the play of Marcus Paige. Paige averaged 17.5 points and 4.2 assists per game and typically scored 25 or 30 points when this team was firing on all cylinders, His ability should free up the floor for Nate Britt to be an efficient shooting guard and Kennedy Meeks to put all the tools together down low.
The teams that came over from the old Big East last season made a huge impact as Syracuse and Pittsburgh both made the NCAA tournament and won a game in the big dance while Notre Dame covered the spectrum in terms of roster issues. With Louisville now in the conference, conceivably all four could represent the ACC in the field of 68 this season.
Pittsburgh may have the worst team of the four as they lacked any true quality wins last season and have a weak recruiting class incoming. Couple that with Lamar Patterson and Talib Zanna no longer being with the team and Jamie Dixon's squad might miss the big dance for the second time since 2002. The good news for this team is forward Durand Johnson should be fully healthy after missing nearly all of ACC play and postseason play due to injury.
Louisville is the newcomer in the conference and bring a winning tradition. Louisville won the 2013 NCAA Tournament and won the American Athletic Conference last year before being ousted by Kentucky in the Sweet 16. Rick Pitino seems to do a great job of picking up good recruits that want to stay in the program for three or four years. He seems to have done it against with five four-star recruits according to ESPN and a three-star recruit. Louisville is losing a lot from last year with guards Russ Smith and Luke Hancock both departing, but this team should be excellent defensively and on the low block. Montrezl Harrell is back for his junior year after emerging the second half of last year. Chane Behannon being kicked off the team may have been a good thing for this team as he and Wayne Blackshear both picked up the slack. If Terry Rozier can be a backcourt force for the Cardinals, Rick Pitino should have another balanced team that can go 9-10 players deep.
Syracuse should have a solid season once again this year, but they will likely take a step back from last year. C.J, Fair, Tyler Ennis, and Jerami Grant are all now in the NBA and Syracuse's entire freshman class is made up of two recruits. Jim Boeheim is one of the best in college basketball at developing players over the course of four years and that will be key if the Orange want to be a top-25 team this year. Their triangle defense should be stout as Rakeem Christmas and DaJuan Coleman are both defensive specialists, but the offense will likely be just as suspect as last year, if not worse. Trevor Cooney has shown the ability to be able to pace an offense, but went ice cold down the stretch last season as the team lost six of their last nine games after starting 25-0. How Syracuse's season goes may hinge on freshman point guard Kaleb Joesph because the Orange could either be a fringe top-25 team or an NIT team based on his preference.
Notre Dame went 15-17 last season but should be vastly improved with the return of Jerian Grant. Grant averaged 19 points per game last season but only played 12 games last season because of academic issues. With Pat Connaughton and V.J. Beachem also returning, Notre Dame will likely be the ACC's most improved team and could be back in the NCAA Tournament.
NC State sneaked into the NCAA Tournament as a First Four team after heating up at the end of the year. NC State has been an up and down team in their three seasons under Mark Gottfried, but have went to the NCAA Tournament in all three of them. The loss of C.J. Warren and freshman forward Caleb Martin needing foot surgery could put this streak in jeopardy though. Martin was a highly touted recruit and Warren averaged nearly 25 points and seven rebounds per game last season. The Wolfpack have a nice recruiting class coming in, led by Abdul-Malik Abu. LSU transfer Ralston Turner and senior guard Desmond Lee will need to step up in the scoring department to get NC State in the tournament as it appears as though they will be on the bubble once again this season.
Both Miami and Florida State look to be getting better and appear to be bubble teams coming into the year. Florida State was solid out of conference last year, but went just 9-9 in the ACC, sending them to the NIT. Miami was a bit rough around all the edges last year going 17-16 after losing nearly every key player that allowed them to earn a two-seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. Both team have deep recruiting classes on the way and did not lose many players from last season.
Clemson has a respectable 23-13 season last year and made the NIT semifinal, but will likely not be able to duplicate that this year. K.J. McDaniels was the only player on last year's roster that averaged over 10 points per game and is now in the NBA. With no real notable recruits coming in, it will be up to the likes of Damarcus Harrison and Jordan Roper to pick up tons of minutes and points. Expect Clemson to be towards the bottom of the conference with Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech.
Three of the bottom five teams in the ACC last year have new coaches this season. Wake Forest hired Danny Manning, Virginia Tech lured in Buzz Williams, and Boston College hired former Ohio coach Jim Christian. All three will likely be in rebuilding mode this year, but if there is a team that could overachieve, it has to be Wake Forest. Manning took Tulsa from a team that was around .500 to the NCAA Tournament in two years. With all of the juniors on the roster, Wake Forest could get into the top-half of a tough ACC.
The ACC was weak last year, but should be back in full force this season. The way conference realignment has went, it would no be far fetched to see the ACC pumping eight or nine teams into the big dance consistently, much like the Big East did before last year's big breakaway.
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