Breaking down the ACC Conference
By Andrew Lange
SportsMemo.com
With finals exams upon us, the college basketball card is light so I'll be providing conference breakdowns throughout the week.
ACC - Duke and North Carolina are clearly established as the league's elite while Boston College may not win a conference game. The rest of the league though looks to be a toss up with everyone showing a lot more weakness than strength. Virginia, Virginia Tech and Florida State are off to decent starts in part because of their commitment to defend. Offensively though, there are going to be plenty of nights where all three teams struggle to score 60. But that seems to be the norm in the ACC this year. Miami, Georgia Tech and Clemson are all below average offensively. Outside of North Carolina and Duke, the best ACC offense I have seen is NC State though the Wolfpack don't defend and look very undisciplined under first-year head coach Mark Gottfried. Maryland is a work in progress under Mark Turgeon and could go one of two ways. If the Terps eventually buy into what Turgeon preaches, they'll survive. If not, it could get really ugly. Wake Forest is improved and will assuredly better last season's 1-15 ACC mark. As bad as the ACC has looked, the Demon Deacons are really not that far removed from the middle of the pack – not a good sign. Here is the best way to describe the ACC thus far: Eliminate Duke and North Carolina and the rest of the league is 10-22 SU vs. power conference teams. Those 10 wins came against Oklahoma State, Michigan, Rutgers, Georgia, Iowa, Texas, Colorado, Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Texas Tech. I would venture to say that of those 10, maybe two (and that may be a stretch) will make the NCAA Tournament.