ACC basketball season in review — part three
Column by Will Ojanen
will@accnation.com
We’re past the halfway point in the season reviews.
Now we get to the teams that made some noise in some postseason tournaments.
Wake Forest Demon Deacons
The term “young” would have been the best way to describe this team. There were no seniors on the roster this season, and not much was expected out of them. Pretty much everyone expected them to be in the basement of the conference. And let’s not forget the unfortunate coaching change, with Dino Gaudio taking over for the late Skip Prosser.
But that was on paper. On the court, this team was far better than expected. The Deacs were off to an 11-3 start, including a win at Iowa in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge, Air Force, and BYU, and a close three point loss to Vanderbilt. Unfortunately, a 39 point loss to Boston College did them in, and they weren’t the same after that. They did recover nicely to beat Miami and Duke during ACC play, but they weren’t the same overall. They finished 7-9 in the ACC and 17-13 overall.
As mentioned, there were no seniors on the roster, and this team will only get better with one of the top recruiting classes in the country coming along. The top three recruits, Al-Farouq Aminu, Tony Woods, and Ty Walker, will all help out in the front court. This team will be in the NCAA Tournament in two years at the maximum. I like the direction this team is going.
Virginia Cavaliers
Expectations were fairly high coming in to this season. With Sean Sigletary returning, this team was expected to be a factor in the ACC, and possibly return to the NCAA Tournament for a second straight season. And early on, the Cavs were looking good, winning 10 of their first 12 games. But just like Wake Forest, one blowout loss damaged the confidence of the team and the season spiraled after that. The Cavs were throttled by 38 points against Xavier, and for good measure, lost by 22 to Duke, and it was over after that. The Cavs lost 10 of 11 in that stretch. The Cavs finished at 5-11 in the conference and 15-15 overall.
The lack of a frontcourt scorer really hurt the Cavs this season. But Sean Singletary did everything he could for this team, and it just wasn’t enough as the season went on. Singletary averaged over 19 points and six assists per game this season. And unfortunately, Singletary was senior, and is now gone, along with Ryan Pettinella, Adrian Joseph, and Tunji Soroye. The Cavs bring in a solid recruiting class, which could immediately help their front court, as long as they can score.
This next season could be a make or break season for the Cavs. There are a lot of question marks surrounding this team, and if they aren’t answered, this team could be near the bottom of the conference next season.
Duke Blue Devils
I know it’s Duke, and their standards are much higher than most basketball teams, but I think it’s idiotic to say a team can go 27-5 and have a down season, and having questions about their team. There’s over 300 teams that would do anything to have a season like that. I know Duke doesn’t produce NBA talent like they once did, but they’re always producing great college players. There’s a reason Coach K will soon become the all time leader in wins in college basketball history. He’s a great college coach.
As for this season, it was a very good season. Duke won their first ten game, and 22 of their first 23, only losing to Pitt by one in that stretch. Duke beat some quality teams in that stretch, like Marquette, Wisconsin, and Davidson, among others. And let’s not forget the win over North Carolina as well. Duke closed out the regular season 26-4, and were in contention for a top seed in the NCAA Tournament until falling in the second round of the ACC Tournament to Clemson. Duke ended up seeded second in the tournament, and after a huge scare against Belmont, ultimately fell in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to West Virginia.
Duke is only losing two players off of this team. Demarcus Nelson is graduating, and Taylor King transferred to Villanova. Duke is still returning the bulk of their squad, and will be very good again next year, and, as usual, will be in the hunt for the ACC title.
Filed under: 02-Men's Hoops, 14-Will's World, Duke, Virginia, Wake Forest | Tagged: ACC, atlantic Coast Conference, basketball, Blue Devils, Cavaliers, Demon Deacons, sports, UVa.
Will - I’ve been stewing over this notion for a while, do you think the cavs would’ve been better or worse last year without singletary?
The case can be made quite easily on the “no” side. Singletary was a great player and without him they would’ve been that much worse, etc. etc.
However, the more distance I get from the season, the more I think it may have inhibited the team by having him dominate the ball so much. He accounted for 31% of the team’s possessions and 28% of the shots.
How were the other members on the team supposed to get better by watching the Sean show?
Sure he was good, but he only shot 48% in eFG terms and turned the ball over 21% of the time.
I’ve got this hunch that the wahoos are going to be either waaaay better than people expect them to be or just completely abysmal cellar dwellers.
I think they would have been a lot worse this year without Singletary, simply because I don’t think there was a conistent second option. Joesph and Diane were a little too inconsistent for my liking, and there weren’t many others that could score when needed.
I do agree with you that next year is a huge question mark. I think Cavs fans will see a huge year from Mike Scott. I really like his game. I don’t know if he is a go to guy next season, but he could be a huge factor on both ends.
I concur on the Mike Scott opinion. He’s a guy that I felt Leitao really underutilized during the season. Granted, with “the pride” and Tunji out, Scott was forced to play the 5 spot. The 5 wasn’t his natural position, but he makes a great 4 and is improving his outside touch to go along with his solid offensive rebounding.
I also agree with your opinion on Joseph. His shot selection was poor and it’s not clear to me that he would’ve benefited from additional touches.
Diane, on the other hand, I’m not so sure. He was trying to fill the void left by JR Reynolds and he’s not the gunslinger Reynolds was.
This is a good and a bad thing. It’s bad because Reynolds could fill it up and shoot a high percentage. It’s good because Diane plays better defense than Reynolds did.
Singletary has a lot of merits, but playing straight-up, lock-down D isn’t one of them. He often ran himself out of the play going for steals and Diane (as well as the “big guys”) felt the brunt of this gambling. When Diane played with Baker, he was in a more consistent defensive situation. Let’s see if this carries over next year.
No idea why there’s a smiley face in there. It ate one of my parenthesis!
The smiley face is hungry. It’s done that to me several times. I can’t figure out how to get it to stop, but I’ll work on it. I always have the problem when I put an 8 and a ) together.
OK, I’ve corrected the problem. I had to turn off the option that converted emoticons to graphics. It should be corrected in your post now.
But how will I express my emotions to all the other comments emoticons?
I don’t know how to express myself otherwise.