Defending a Title

This just in: Duke is good this year. The Blue Devils managed to fly under the radar (well, for Duke) for some of last season. Duke won't be tricking anyone this season. With about 59% of minutes return, Coach K's squad is rightfully the preseason favorite. Let's take a look at the past five championship teams and how many minutes they returned the following year:




This table really highlights the crazy season that was UNC 2010. Anyways, this is reason 3849 that Duke will be good. For the Duke haters, look on the bright side... At least they don't have the number one point guard recruit coming in. That wouldn't be good...

Atlantic Coast Conference: 2010-11 Preview

Teams

Boston College

Before last season, I talked to my friend who happens to be a BC fan. We talked about realistic expectations for BC. They had everyone back except for standout guard Tyrese Rice. Interestingly enough, he told me he expected BC to take a step forward in 2009-10 while getting worse results. How does this make sense? Well, BC was coming off an odd season. They beat eventual national champions UNC and lost to Harvard. When the season was all said and done they collectively had gotten pretty lucky. Results were good, but they only ranked 69th in Ken Pomeroy's rankings. Well, said friend turned out to be completely right. BC saw modest improvements in the rankings (62nd overall), but finished the season 15-16. Back to present day. Joe Trapani, Corey Raji, and Reggie Jackson are all great pieces. The extremely efficient role player, Tyler Roche, is lost to graduation. Rakim Sanders has transferred to Fairfield, but may actually help BC's offensive efficiency. Depth and defense will be the problems for the Eagles. A tourney bid is unlikely, but the "big three" will make BC dangerous when on their game.

Clemson

The Tigers will be a different team this season with the departures of Trevor Booker and Oliver Purnell. Demontez Stitt will lead a talented backcourt. Stitt, Tanner Smith, and Andre Young need to do a better job taking care of the basketball. Each player turned the ball over on over 22% of possessions last season. On the bright side, Stitt and Young both shot the ball really well last year. 6'8" Jerai Grant will provide solid efficiency, rebounding, and shot blocking for Clemson. Devin Booker may be the X Factor here. Booker showed promise in limited minutes last season and will be a big part of the ultimate fate of the Tigers.

Duke

Coach K's squad will once again be the team to beat in the ACC. The national champs are loaded once again with parts. Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith are the known quantities for the Blue Devils. Both will surely provide the team with superb offense. Kyrie Irving takes over for Jon Scheyer. Much has been made of Irving, and we have no evidence to disagree with the public sentiment. Miles Plumlee will presumably take over Zoubek's role. Plumlee may not approach Zoubek's offensive rebounding, but will be more than competent underneath. Seth Curry, Andre Dawkins, Ryan Kelly, Mason Plumlee, Tyler Thornton, and Josh Hairston will make the Blue Devils as deep as they come.



Florida St.

Last season, FSU was really, really good defensively and really not good offensively. In the end, it resulted in a first round exit to Gonzaga. Solomon Alabi and Ryan Reid are both gone. With these two out, FSU's interior defense will take a bit of a hit. Still, the Seminoles have competent replacements coming in. Xavier Gibson returns for the Seminoles and newcomers Okaro White (top 100 prospect), Jon Kreft, and Bernard James will provide an abundance of size. The development of Michael Snaer and Chris Singleton will be crucial for FSU. Both featured very inefficient offensive production last season. Other guards, Kitchen and Dulkys, provided much better efficiency albeit in a smaller offensive role. The Seminoles defense should keep them competitive alone, but improvement on offense would turn them into a legitimate contender in the ACC.

Georgia Tech

Paul Hewitt's club should be in for a rebuilding year this season with the losses of Lawal, Favors, Peacock, and Bell. Iman Shumpert will be the established go to guy for the Yellow Jackets, but needs to bring up his efficiency. Brian Oliver and Glen Rice both showed great signs last year to indicate they are ready to break out. The former shot 38% from three while the latter shot 47%. Still, the problem will be the frontcourt for GT. Kammeon Hosley, Daniel Miller, and Nate Hicks will form an extremely inexperienced frontcourt. The young Yellow Jackets will most likely be on the outside looking in at the NCAA Tourney, but gaining experience will be crucial down the road for a team with a fair amount of talent.

Maryland

The Terps had the 5th offense in the nation last season. In fact, not one player on the team had an offensive rating below 100. Unfortunately for Maryland, they are losing three key starters. Vasquez, Milbourne, and Hayes all provided efficient offense with high usage. Sean Mosley and Jordan Williams will both see greatly increased roles. If both players can keep their efficiency at last years levels, they both are excellent breakout candidates. The supporting cast of Bowie, Tucker, Padgett, and Gregory are all efficient options. The Terrapins should remain efficient on offense if one or more of those four can step up. Six more recruits will also enter the mix for Gary Williams. Maryland could find themselves on the bubble, but have the pieces to get back to the NCAA Tourney in what should have been a rebuilding year.

Miami

The U had a tough conference season last year. The 4-12 last place finish was not indicative of Miami's true talent level. Dwayne Collins and James Dews are unfortunate losses, but talent is still around. Durand Scott had a solid freshman campaign, but also has plenty of room for improvement. Scott and Malcolm Grant will form a great backcourt for the Canes. Adrian Thomas' ORtg of 122 and 3P% of 42% make him the perfect role player on offense. 6'9" Reggie Johnson is a breakout candidate in the frontcourt. As a freshman he was extremely effective in limited minutes. Miami could be a big surprise in the ACC.

NC State

Team defense was a strength for the Wolfpack last year, but offensively they really struggled. Apart from go to guy Tracy Smith, NC State only has one player returning with and ORtg over 100 (Scott Wood). On the bright side, Sidney Lowe was able to land top recruit CJ Leslie. This team has gotten a lot of early hype, but I am taking a more cautious approach. The Wolfpack will be deep and have a solid distributor in point guard Javier Gonzalez, but a wait and see approach should be used for a team that has big expectations.

North Carolina

Many words have been written on UNC. Potential is the key for most of the Tar Heels. From a statistical standpoint, Tyler Zeller and Will Graves are Roy William's best offensive options. Zeller is one of the best big men in the ACC when healthy and Graves is a solid shooter who can take care of the ball. Harrison Barnes will improve UNC right away. The Heels have a solid foundation with those three. John Henson, Lesile McDonald, and Dexter Strickland are the unknown returners for UNC. All three had not so great freshman years, but have talent. Reggie Bullock and Kendall Marshall will enter with plenty of talent as well. Production will be needed from a couple of these young, talented players to return UNC into a conference contender once again.

Virginia

UVA will probably once again be near the bottom in the ACC. Sylven Landesberg is now in the rear view mirror after getting kicked off the team towards the end of last season. Jeff Jones and his solid ORtg are also taking their talents elsewhere this season. Mike Scott should be the team leader underneath. He can rebound and score very well. Sammy Zeglinski and Mustapha Farrakhan both return and will need to make big strides for UVA to be competitive. Tony Bennett's first recruiting class will also be entering. UVA will most likely be fighting to get out of the ACC cellar this season.

Virginia Tech

VT did virtually everything well last season except shoot. Everyone is back this season, and shooting will probably still be the achilles heel. However, the Hokies are still a legitimate contender in the ACC. Heck, College Gameday even made the decision to visit for the Duke game. Malcolm Delaney is the real deal. He can get to the line really well and has a solid assist to turnover ratio. Still, he hasn't been able to shoot consistently (like most of the Hokies). Dorenzo Hudson is being acknowledged as one of the most underrated players in the conference, but he too has struggled shooting. In fact, Hudson did not break 30% from three last year despite taking 120 attempts. VT will be one of the top defensive teams in the conference again this season. Offensive consistency and shooting will be what prevents Tech from challenging Duke for conference supremacy.

Wake Forest

The Deamon Deacons will be a different team in Jeff Bzdelik's first season. The team could be led by two rising sophomores: Ari Stewart and C.J. Harris. Harris posted an impressive ORtg of 107.7 in his rookie campaign. He gets to the line well and is an excellent foul shooter. Stewart struggled last season, but still has potential. Tony Woods and Gary Clark were both also useful options in limited time last season. The real key for Wake will be the incoming recruits. ESPN ranks Bzdelik's class as 12th in the nation with four top 100 recruits. If the class is as good as advertised Wake Forest should be in line for another NCAA Tourney berth, but the margain for error is pretty slim.

Players

(Note: Incoming freshman were not considered)

Player of the Year: Kyle Singler, Duke

Singler was used on a higher percentage of possessions last year than any of his other teammates. Many players have this distinction, but Singler is the only one who did it on the national champions. He also took full advantage of his opportunities. He shot the three ball well, got to the line, and took care of the basketball. The result was an ORtg of 116.2. The only flaw in Singler's game was shooting two's. He only shot 42% from inside the arc in 2009-10. In his freshman and sophomore years, that number was significantly hire. The two point shooting will almost certainly improve and Singler will be the best player on the best team in the ACC.

Best of the rest:

1) Malcolm Delaney, Virginia Tech

2) Nolan Smith, Duke

3) Tyler Zeller, UNC

4) Corey Raji, Boston College

5) Jordan Williams, Maryland

Breakout Player: Reggie Johnson, Miami

As a freshman, Johnson did hardly anything wrong in limited minutes. He shot over 50% from the floor, blocked shots, took care of the ball, rebounded on both sides of the floor, got to the charity stripe, and shot 78.5% from the line. This resulted in an ORtg of 122.4 while being used on 23.2 percent of possessions. Now Johnson will see regular playing time. With the increase it is unrealistic to expect Johnson to maintain this unbelievable efficiency, but he should be one of the top big men in the conference.

Best of the Rest:

1) Brian Oliver, Georgia Tech (2009-10 stats: 41.2 %Min, 20.1 %Poss, 105.7 ORtg)

2) Miles Plumlee, Duke (2009-10 stats: 40.9 %Min, 17.1 %Poss, 107.2 ORtg)

3) Sean Mosley, Maryland (2009-10 stats: 66.3 %Min, 18.7 %Poss, 116.6 ORtg)

4) Devin Booker, Clemson (2009-10 stats: 28.9 %Min, 20.7 %Poss, 100.1 ORtg)

Whacks at the Pinata

Earlier this month, Ken Pomeroy tweeted, "I request to copyright the phrase 'gets more whacks at the pinata' to describe a low FG%/high efficiency offense." Naturally, I decided to take this a step further. This post is a look at the teams that got the most whacks in 2009-2010.

Formula

(Team's OEff)-((100.8/48.8)*(Team's eFG%))

Explanation

The formula is essentially subtracting a team's expected OEfficiency based ONLY on shooting from the team's actual OEfficiency. 100.8 represents the Division One average OEfficiency and 48.8 is the Division One average effective field goal percentage. eFG% is multiplied by the constant to establish the same scale as OEff.

Results

1. Duke (11.2) - The national champs had the most whacks at the pinata (as pointed out by John Gasaway). How could a team with quality long range shooters like Smith, Scheyer, and Singler be on this list? Two point shooting was the achilles heel of the champions. Two pointers combined with Zoubek's offensive rebounding and the big threes ability to take care of the basketball accounted for the Blue Devils number one ranking on this list.


2. West Virginia (10.3) - Kevin Jones and Wellington Smith were efficient shooters for the Mountaineers. The rest of the team, however, did not shoot the ball well. What brought WVU to the Final Four was their ability to go get their misses. 41.8 percent of the missed shots were rebounded by the WVU.


3. Houston (9.9) - Bad shooting? Check. Bad rebounding? Check. Bad foul drawing? Check? Bad offense? Nope! Houston managed to feature the 41st best offense in the nation by doing one thing: taking care of the ball. The Cougars only turned the ball over on a ridiculous 12.4% of possessions. Good for the best TO% in the KenPom (2004-2010) Era.


4. Morgan St. (9.2) - Simply put, Reggie Holmes did the shooting and Kevin Thompson did the rebounding for the Bears. Holmes shot on about 32% of the possessions he was in the game. Thompson was 5th in the nation in offensive rebounding. Holmes took 280 threes (36%) and 304 twos (41%). Clearly, Thompson had plenty of garbage to clean up.


5. Providence (8.7) - Keno Davis' squad put it (i.e. points) on the board with efficiency last year. Unfortunately, the defense was not competent enough to be relevant in the Big East. The key to Providence's offense was offensive rebounding. Jamine Peterson and Bilal Dixon anchored the offensive glass. Ball control was also a strength for the Friars. If Providence had been able to shoot it at a higher percentage, they would have had an exceptional offense. If Providence had been able to get more stops on defense, they would have been an exceptional team.

Best of the Rest: Southern Mississippi, Virginia Tech, South Dakota State, Seton Hall, Charlotte.

Interested in seeing the whole list? Don't hesitate to e-mail us.

Varying Impacts - Jon Scheyer

A while ago, we did a post on the varying impacts an efficient basketball player can have. In order to explore this subject further, we have conducted a series of interviews. We have discussed three different types of players with team specific bloggers. This second post features an interview with Duke Hoop Blog (twitter: @DukeHoopBlog) on Jon Scheyer.

Hoop Vision: Jon Scheyer was 10th overall in offensive rating, but 3rd overall for players with at least 20% of possessions used. Solid shooting percentages and an excellent assist to turnover ratio were the driving factors. Where (on the floor) and when (transition, end of shot clock, etc.) did Scheyer's shots occur in 2009-2010?

Duke Hoop Blog: Jon took over half of his 531 shots in 2009-2010 from deep (287). His two-point attempts usually came at the rim or just inside the arc due to Duke’s offense. Once in the half-court, Jon would primarily play off the ball with Nolan running the point. Jon took most of his shots at the beginning or very end of the shot clock. Because of the personnel of the 2009-2010, Duke did not run in transition that often. If Duke couldn’t get a quick shot in transition (beginning of the shot clock) Coach K liked to run the clock all the way down, causing Jon to take shots at the end of the shot clock. Jon also took quite a few shots after an offensive rebound and a quick kick-out, causing the shot to come at the beginning of the shot clock.

Hoop Vision: As the point guard for Duke, Scheyer was not able to hide on the court. How much of Scheyer's phenominal TORate (11.4%) was due to his ability to rely on his teammates and how much was due to his decision making ability?

Duke Hoop Blog: Half and half. He wasn’t able to hide on the court as a point guard, but after bringing the ball up, he often played off the ball. That obviously helped his TORate. He was also, arguably, the smartest player in college basketball. There were too many examples of his basketball IQ and decision making ability to single out one from last year, but a great example from 2009 sticks out. In the second round game of the NCAA tournament with 15 seconds left he dives to save a ball and throws it up in the air as high as he can to the other side of the court to waste time. A foul by Texas occurred and Duke ended up winning the game because of the spectacularly intelligent play by Jon.

Hoop Vision: Would Scheyer's style of play have seen as good of results on a team inferior to Duke? Were his assist numbers and efficiency largely dependent on his team's ability to make shots?

Duke Hoop Blog: That is a tough question. On a team with less talent, Jon would have had to take most of the shots, causing his assist numbers to drop and, most likely, his turnovers to increase. Jon is not a John Wall type player who can slash through a defense and get teammates wide open layups time and time again. But, what he can do is command defensive attention for himself and then get the ball to his teammates for open shots.

Hoop Vision: It is hard to criticize a national championship team, but did Scheyer best utilize his talents in Duke's offense or could he have played a more prominent role while keeping his excellent efficiency?

Duke Hoop Blog: No I don’t think he could have played a more prominent role and kept his efficiency as high as it was. As I have said, he often played off the ball after bringing the ball up; this let him maximize his talent as a shooter and a more natural 2-guard. He was also able to develop his skills as a passer and game manager while playing the point guard position. If he had been expected to carry the load offensively his numbers would have suffered.

Hoop Vision: What can we expect from Duke as a whole in 2010-11?

Duke Hoop Vision: Duke will be more talented in 2010-2011 because of the arrival of freshman point guard Kyrie Irving, transfer Seth Curry, the return of Kyle and Nolan, and the emergence of the Plumlees. Duke has all the tools to repeat as national champions, but they will certainly miss the decision making and leadership of guys like Jon, Zoubek, and Lance. If a leader can emerge (most likely Kyle or Nolan) and Kyrie can make good decisions with the ball, the Blue Devils will be extremely successful. Duke will look very different next year than they did this past year. They will be a more traditional Duke team on defense, using pressure man-to-man and stepping in passing lanes. This is possible because of the speed and agility of the added personnel. On offense, Duke will look to run. The Plumlees are built to be agile and athletic big man who can run the floor and finish at the rim. Kyrie is a lightning quick player (he will challenge Kemba Walker as the quickest player end to end in college basketball) who can get the ball up the floor and either finish in transition or put a teammate into position to finish. Expectations are very high for the Blue Devils in 2010-2011, but they are achievable.