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Seems as if the 1-12 spots in the ACC should make for super competitive games this year.
Curious what anyone else thinks about Wake and NC State?
p.s. Selfishly trying to determine whether those ticket prices will go up or down by early Jan. so really it’s about how they’ll do in the non-con.
Wake won’t have Jao Ituka for a while/for the season due to injury, and Efton needs a waiver to be eligible, and that might not be so smooth based on what happened with football teams this season. I presume a Sallis-Hildreth-Monsanto-Carr-Marsh starting lineup, which looks to be pretty good offensively but not great defensively. But I don’t know where their depth is coming from.
NC State has a nice collection of wings, with Morsell and Jayden Taylor as experienced guys, and MJ Rice and Dennis Parker Jr as talented young guys, and bigs, with Burns and Middlebrooks as the likely rotation. They don’t have an obvious point guard though; DJ Horne is more of a scoring guard, which can work, but is it really a good idea to repeat the Terq-Jarkel YOLO shot selection experience?
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from my perspective, absolutely yes. So much fun to watch that as a neutral fan
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In my opinion, coming into the season I see 4 tiers with one of those very large.
Tier 1: Duke.
I think they have to be considered the heavy heavy favorite. Yes they have struggled to win the reg season title in the past, but this team is loaded and I think clearly better than any other team in the league.
Tier 2: Miami, UNC, UVA, Clemson.
If everything comes together for any of these 4 they have a great chance to finish 2nd. There are questions for each team. Miami has a great starting 5 but a very young and unproven bench. UNC has two really good players returning, but can Hubert meld the transfers, the veterans, and the hungry sophs/freshman into a cohesive unit? UVA has proven they deserve to be in the convo every year, but these years with low returning continuity are the years that have typically had the relatively worst results. Will reece returning trump that? How will Tony meld these guys together? Clemson has a nice mix of returns, young players and transfers and Brownell may need the NCAAT or bust.
Tier 3: VT, WF, NCSU, FSU, GT, Syr, BC, Pitt
It is hard to differentiate these teams as you can make arguments that any could finish in the top half of the league and contend for NCAA bid and equal arguments that they wont. My hunch is that WF, VT, FSU may end up the best of this bunch. I think NCSU/Pitt take a step back. I group BC here because I feel they are better than tier 4. Cuse and GT have new coaches which introduces uncertainty.
Tier 4: UL, ND
UL should be better than last year, but maybe not by much. ND is a complete and total start over. Shrewsbury will have them in the top half of the league soon but not this year.
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I was a little startled to see Torvik putting ND significantly below Louisville, but then I realized he was pegging Louisville to jump all the way up to about where BC or GT were last year. So, still bad, but merely “bad” rather than “some degree of dumpster fire”.
He sees ND as being about as bad as FSU was last year. Which is indeed getting into “dumpster fire” territory but not “setting new standards in dumpster fire-ness” like Louisville did last year.
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ND’s roster is rough, clearly the bottom of the ACC and maybe the worst in P5. They’re having to rely on a bunch of freshman and transfers who weren’t high level players at their previous stops, Shrewsberry is gonna bring some better talent in next season but this first year I wouldn’t be surprised to see them only win 1-2 conference games.
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I’d be more concerned about the Syracuse game on Dec. 2 if Boeheim was still there. I think the Orange have some decent pieces but I expect it to take a while for Autry to find his footing, if it happens at all this season. We roll at home.
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That’s why I worry about that game … because Boeheim isn’t there and Autry is an unknown… the talent is there to be a madness team for sure.
That’s our ACC opener, right? No need to worry
Coach Forbes said that Monsanto is no where ready right now.
Ah, forgot he got hurt too. Dang they have had some bad injury luck.
I wish the chubby guy would stop nodding his head
Lol these things irritate me, too. Like when I listen to the CavsCorner podcast and Brad says “right?” after every. single. sentence.
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I hate this too lol. Alot of people say “right”, whenever they’re monologuing and it’s become a bad habit.
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Cmon, now. This is hoops podcastin, not Oxford union debate. Right?
These kinds of lists are destined to make people mad (but not us this time):
https://twitter.com/thehoopherald/status/1708149114104369548?s=46&t=wAzMZR-0PRGT1LpN6U5x0g
Ranking Stoudamire that high seems disrespectful to someone. Ham might be headed for a third straight season of not even being close to the NCAAT, and yet there he is…
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First dude in the replies of that tweet got bodied pretty hard trying to argue against TB. But yeah that list has some issues, I’m not a huge fan of Brownell or Keatts but they would 100% be over Stoudamire who has a 71-77 record as a college HC. Also while Forbes might eventually end up that high, he has 0 tourney wins as a coach so I feel like it’s a bit too soon to rank him above guys that do.
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Based on that list, I’m buying Autry and selling Forbes. I think Forbes really shot himself in the [foot] with his Bobi screed. That stuff makes a rep…
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