ACC Basketball January

FanDuel currently has us at +550 to make the final 4, which implies a probability of 15.4% and I wish I could short that.

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I’ll go out on a limb and say at least 60 min per game combined for Isaac, Dunn and Shedrick.

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I wonder if because the regular season is *so long, and if we don’t win a game or play well there is always tomorrow. *Or we are used to not playing well for a stretch during the regular season, but know that we have enough time to turn the game season around and based on those ā€œlong termā€ habits that we take that approach into the NCAA tournament at times.

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Yeah, I think it’s closer to 10% or so

I buy 10

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Is that the recipe for making the final four? I see a UVA team that shares the ball, really well and their play is getting better and better. Right now UVA has 5 (almost) guys averaging double digits points. Potentially could be 6. That’s a very well balanced team and the emergence of Dunn and McNeely is going to pay dividends in the tourney time.

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Yeah I don’t get this line of thinking (that we can’t make a final four). We are currently integrating new weapons in our arsenal and have great team chemistry. There are no real dominant teams this year just a bunch of really good teams (of which I believe we belong). If anything, I think this particular team is less vulnerable to a bad upset given the versatility and experience of this group. If we have a 3 seed it’s probably 50/50 whether we even have to play a 1 seed to make the final four.

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Curious … in your mind - what makes up a dominant team?
2018 Villanova was probably the most dominant March team of the last 20 years and yet they were 14-4 in conference play and it took OT to win the Big East tournament against Providence who was a 10 seed and lost 1st round in the madness.
One might say that 2015 Villanova at 33-3 was even more dominant in the regular season but they lost in the 2nd round to 8 seeded NC State after winning the Big East title game by 17.
2016 Villanova lost 5 games but won it all.

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Is there a way to see Kenpom ratings each year before the NCAA tournament? I think that would be a decent way to see which years had one or two dominant teams. I think it’s hard for humans to differentiate teams at that level especially on a year by year basis.

Right now I think there are clearly 2 dominant teams …
Both Houston and Tennessee are outscoring opponents by 20 points per game which is largely unheard of this deep in the season … especially for a Power 6 team. I’d probably say that Houston’s conference is 7th or 8th.

Yes, but you have to download a .csv file and sort it, and that’s a lot of hassle, even for a dork like me

Only 1 loss with Phil Booth in the starting lineup, one of the most ā€œunsungā€ great hoops players of the 2010s. Also, I always thought the Bagley/Carter Duke team could’ve beaten them, since they had no good big, but instead Self coached circles around K in the Elite 8, and Nova had no issues with Kansas.

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Maybe… but imagine those 2 bigs trying to guard the quick Nova dudes.
and for Tennessee this year Vescovi has missed 3 games and Jordan-James has missed 8.
and for Houston they had Walker get hurt in December and hasn’t returned - was averaging 15 min per game. and Sharp has missed 4 games. (15 min per game) including the loss to Alabama.

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Yeah, and Bagley was (still is?) kind of a cipher on defense.

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I’m not going to venture an opinion on our final four chances because I’m not that smart (but just smart enough to know that). But I do think this season’s ceiling is Shedrick. If he’s functional for 10-15 a game when we need him for matchups, then I think we can make a deep run in March. If he’s the dude who showed up yesterday fouling 3 point shooters and getting abused by Jesse Edwards, then I will be thrilled just making the second weekend and would not be shocked if we get bounced in the second round if we catch a bad matchup with a strong big. Part of what helps our guards play defense is knowing they’ve got help behind them which lets them push up on opposing guards, helping defend the 3 and letting them stay out of foul trouble by not being over aggressive cutting off drives. Right now, we just don’t have that and I think it’s the driving factor behind why we are heavily reliant on offense to win games at this point.

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Its impossible to gauge because making a Final Four is impossible. Only guarantees (outside of UCLA maybe) in my Lifetime were Houston in 80s and UNLV in early 90s. Duke won back to back 91-92? But hardly guaranteed

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+30 adjusted efficiency on kenpom is typically a good benchmark. I realize there are a couple teams close. 2018 it was us and Villanova (before the umbc game) which checks out. Also if you remember how many elite teams there were in 2015 - 6 teams of 30+.

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The 2007 Florida team felt like a pretty good bet to get back to the Final Four.

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True. But I lived in Brasil then so didnt really know

I was so mad that year. Did a bracket challenge with a bunch of friends. My roommate, who followed no sports, was like ā€œI bet the tournament final will just be the same as the football final - Florida over Ohio Stā€. And I said ā€œThat’s dumb and won’t happen.ā€ Well guess who won?

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So Shedrick comes in and has the best offensive rating and the best defensive rating of anyone on the team in his 11 minutes … but wasn’t good??
Counter argument is we didn’t use him enough in the dunker spot over the zone to force Cuse to stop jamming the high post … I think you are confusing Sheds defense on Edwards with BVP’s …
Oh and he didn’t foul Bell on the 3 … that was inept college officials not knowing how to officiate the offensive leg kick into a defender… and that play happened because BVP was butterfingers on the rebound attempt

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