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The Season to Date

By T.H.

The ACC seems to have gone out of the way to have the conference season get underway without any sort of fanfare this year. Six teams have already played conference games, on the 9th, 23rd, and 30th of Decemebr. UNC and Clemson meet tomorrow, and the remaining four teams don't break the conference seal until the following weekend. There's a thirty-five day gap between BC and Maryland's first conference game and Duke and Virginia's debut - that's just ridiculous.

So now is a good time as any, in anticipation of tomorrow's game to look at the season's tempo-free stats to date.  You can compare last year's numbers in December to the conference-only numbers and see that while the magnitudes change as the schedule gets tougher, the relative positions don't move all that much.

As always for the non-conference stuff, the numbers are from Ken Pomeroy, and I use the non-adjusted values, as I just don't think there's enough data to weight them this early in the season.

First, pace:

Team                 Pace
North Carolina       77.7
Duke                 73.7
Virginia             72.4
Georgia Tech         72.0
Clemson              71.9
Maryland             71.1
Wake Forest          70.0
Florida St.          69.3
Boston College       67.9
Miami FL             67.5
North Carolina St.   66.8
Virginia Tech        64.4
Of course, the big news here is with the folks in Durham. After spending last year as an uncharacteristically slow-paced team, the Blue Devils have returned to their running style of play. This is less a result of Josh McRoberts dogging it, and more a function of Duke playing nine players a game. Last year there was a big drop-off in minutes after sixth man Gerald Henderson, and this season not so much.

Once you put the Blue Devils aside though, the next four slowest teams last year are the four slowest this year. No one else seems to be making any big changes in their playing styles.

                PPP    eFG   OReb    TO %   FTP
North Carolina  1.19  0.547  0.427  0.187  0.311
Duke            1.17  0.575  0.344  0.189  0.271
Clemson         1.14  0.539  0.437  0.213  0.210
Virginia        1.13  0.532  0.411  0.220  0.269
Miami           1.12  0.515  0.386  0.196  0.311
Florida State   1.08  0.539  0.340  0.231  0.296
Georgia Tech    1.08  0.531  0.361  0.222  0.260
Boston College  1.07  0.515  0.379  0.215  0.318
N.C. State      1.04  0.519  0.325  0.222  0.393
Virginia Tech   1.03  0.501  0.356  0.227  0.249
Wake Forest     1.02  0.473  0.359  0.203  0.243
Maryland        1.00  0.484  0.376  0.235  0.279
On a whole, the ACC's offensive production is down from last year's non-conference season. Individually, Duke has made incredible improvement, primarily by shooting better and not coughing the ball up. Wake and Maryland have backslid, generally through the simple process of missing shots.

Oh, and N.C. State leads the country in scoring by free throws. This will not stop Wolfpack fans from complaining about every foul call when they play UNC.

                OPPP  OeFG   DReb   OTO%   OFTO
Duke            0.85  0.445  0.694  0.260  0.260
Wake Forest     0.88  0.462  0.679  0.275  0.359
North Carolina  0.89  0.465  0.723  0.238  0.222
Clemson         0.89  0.463  0.692  0.249  0.251
Miami           0.89  0.431  0.668  0.210  0.291
Maryland        0.90  0.420  0.674  0.216  0.324
Virginia Tech   0.91  0.452  0.702  0.210  0.261
Florida State   0.92  0.477  0.678  0.237  0.282
Virginia        0.95  0.481  0.746  0.201  0.311
N.C. State      0.97  0.441  0.655  0.163  0.192
Boston College  0.98  0.484  0.651  0.197  0.234
Georgia Tech    1.01  0.523  0.686  0.230  0.487
Want to understand Miami's shocking turn around this season? They apparenty finally figured out how to get a hand in their opponents' faces. Where last year their opponents semingly scored at will, to the tune of 1.03 PPP, this year the Hurricanes have clamped down, cutting the other team's shooting percentage and greatly improving their defense efficiency. Georgia Tech seems to have replaced them in the defensive futility race, and it shows in their record.

Next, Clemson.

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