College basketball is back! Practice kicks off today and there should be plenty of excitement in the ACC. Recenly the Sporting News ranked 4 ACC teams in their top 10. Let's take a quick lap around the ACC and see what is going on.
Preseason Team Superlatives
- Most players on the roster: Georgia Tech (19). Brian Gregory has plenty of options. Not sure any of them are all that good.
- Fewest players on the roster: Notre Dame (12). A few injuries and a instrasquad scrimmage will require Mike Brey to jump into action.
- Heaviest roster: Pitt and Notre Dame (avg 209 lbs/player). This pretty much confirms the eye test.
- Lightest roster: Wake Forest (avg 194 lbs/player). A guard heavy roster with slender big men will have this effect.
- Tallest roster: Pitt, Notre Dame, and FSU (avg 6'6")
- Shortest roster: Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, and Syracuse (avg 6'4")
Random Thoughts
- Julius Hodge made the statement on Twitter yesterday that this NC State team is their best in 10 years. Trevor Lacey will be a big part of that, but Mark Gottfried is expecting scoring balance from his team.
- UNC has a nice freshmen class and a talented roster. It doesn't appear they addressed their biggest weakness from last season though. Shooting.
- A lot of articles and press on Duke's team chemistry in the preseason. Most have quotes from the Duke assistants praising the team, but let's check back with them in December after we see how game minutes are dispersed.
- Syracuse a top 25 team? Not sure I see it, but I can be wrong.
- The Oakland Zoo Scrimmage. Ok, I'm interested. Apparently that's what Pitt calls their Blue/Gold game. Shameless plug, we're scheduled to have live tempo-based stats for that game tonight.
- Underrated Roster: Notre Dame. Its easy to forget how good the Irish were when Jerian Grant was playing last season.
- Miami has a lot of nice pieces, but I'm thinking the results might be a little shaky early. Give Larranaga a month or two and this team could be tough.
- I might know 3 players that play for Virginia Tech now. One of them is Maryland transfer Seth Allen who will sit out this season.
- It should be no surprise that Louisville will be really good and will make an impact in the ACC right away. The Cardinals also have a roster with some of the toughest names in the league. Akoy Agau, Mangok Mathiang, Chinanu Onoaku, and Anas Mahmoud all say hello. They also like throwing in the occasional z in names, looking at you Montrezl Harrell and Matz Stockman. Also, pretty sure Shaqquan Aaron was used as a name in the Key & Peele East/West College Bowl name skit.
- Virginia is going to be really good again. In talking with a few friends, everyone wants their team to beat UVA. There seems to be some "Duke-like" hatred there. Bennett won't have Joe Harris to lean on anymore, but this team had outgrown Harris anyway. Time for Virginia to take the next step and head to the Final Four.
- What kind of effect will Danny Manning have at Wake Forest? The roster is still iffy to me. The fanbase deserves a winner though, really hoping Manning succeeds.
- Boston College will be counting on Oliver Hanlan once again. Hanlan is the one guy that didn't jump ship (deuces Ryan Anderson and Joe Rahon) and there's a good chance he'll lead the league in shot attempts per game.
- Clemson is exploring life without KJ McDaniels. Who will step up?
- Why is it so easy to forget FSU? Thomas, Brandon, and Bookert all provide a veteran presence and there is plenty of size (Bojanovsky, Turpin, Ojo) to go with them. Watch out for Xavier Rathan-Mayes as he's an impact player for the Noles.
- Georgia Tech has a giant hole at point guard that Brian Gregory must fill. Gregory has a lot of choices at every other spot, and desperately needs Marcus Georges-Hunt to take his game up to the next level.
