North Carolina Women Win Capital One Cup!
Congratulations to the North Carolina Tar Heels! Their women have claimed the Capital One Cup!
The Confidential
The ACC Sports Blog
Archive for the category “Basketball”
ACC Quick Hitters–News of Recent Days
Other than baseball, not much going on in the world of the ACC. At least not enough to get 200+ words out of it. But lumping it all into one blog entry makes more sense than ignoring it. So here it is:
Pitt has given AD Steve Pederson a 5-year-extension. You may recall Pederson as the guy who voted against ESPN’s TV deal with the Big East, and then took Pittsburgh off to the ACC, screwing the Big East a second time. You may also recall Pederson as the guy who seems to run through one football coach per offseason. Somehow, the powers that be must think he is doing a good job overall though.
Good news for the Miami Hurricanes basketball team, as Donnavan Kirk is transferring back to Miami for his final season of eligibility under the graduate student transfer rule. Unlike most graduate transfer, Kirk originally played for Miami. So it is a return to South Beach (OK, Coral Gables).
UConn is not part of the ACC. Yet. But let’s give them props for academically qualifying for this year’s Big Dance. Baby steps.
5-star LB Matthew Thomas plans to stick with his commitment to Florida State. Good news for the ‘Noles and their fans.
Defending Boston College
The recent records speak for themselves. The Boston College Eagles have been terrible lately. But ACC fans should not necessarily conclude that Boston College is not carrying its weight. In fact, Boston College has more than carried its weight since joining the ACC 10 years ago.
First, the ugly. The last few seasons for Boston College have been terrible. Charles Barkley-esque “turrible.” Just look at these recent records:
- 2012-2013 Basketball: 16-17
- 2012 Football: 2-10
- 2011-2012 Basketball: 9-22
- 2011 Football: 4-8
You do not need a calculator to understand that the Eagles have been awful.
But let’s not get carried away with Boston College’s recent woes. Did you know:
- Boston College has a winning record in football every year from 1999 to 2010?
- From 2001 to 2007, Boston College’s basketball team finished in first place in the ACC and Big East three times, and never finished below 5th place in either conference?
- That, as we recently noted, Boston College had the fifth best record of all ACC teams this past decade.
- That, as we also recently noted, Boston College had the sixth best football record of all ACC teams this past decade.
- Therefore, overall, Boston College has been the 5th best program in the ACC since joining, trailing only Florida State, Virginia Tech, Miami, and North Carolina in revenue sports performance.
- Boston College has appeared in more ACC football championship games (2), than Miami, NC State, UNC, Virginia, Duke, Wake Forest, and Maryland combined (1).
So, while Boston College has fallen on hard times, just think of where they were before this recent sports drought? In addition to opening up the Boston market to the ACC, the Eagles have more than held their own in the ACC. And all of this while on an extreme geographic island without traditional rivals (like Syracuse and Pitt).
Who Has Basketball’s Best Fan Base?
There are a lot of college basketball fans out there. There is no denying that Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky have large and crazy fan bases–but who has the best? There are several ways you can attempt to answer this question and not be wrong.
The Emory Sports Marketing Analytics released their top 10 list based on “fan equity.” Number one on their list may come as a surprise to some, but not me, is Louisville. The ACC unsurprisingly leads the list with four teams in the top ten. Duke is third, North Carolina is fifth and Syracuse is eighth. What are your thoughts on the list?
Coach K will go for Gold, again
I want to win this many golds!
The news over the weekend was that Coach Blue Devils Head Coach, Mike Kryzewski’s was considering a return as the USA Men’s Basketball coach.
At first, all signs indicated that Coach K was ready to pack-up his 2 gold medals and move on, and that the USA basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo was planning to name a new coach.
But something changed in recent weeks, and now it is widely being reported that Coach Kryzewski will return as the USA Men’s Head Coach when they travel to Rio in 2016. Read more…
ACC & The Olympics
You were probably expecting an article about how the ACC teams do in the non-revenue/Olympic sports. After all, we devoted several posts to performance in the revenue sports. See here, here, and here. No, this article is much more simple.
Revenue Sports Decade in Review
Last week, we analyzed the last decade of ACC performances in football and basketball. There were some surprises. For example, Boston College in football and Florida State in basketball. But what does it mean overall? How about a ranking of the performances of all schools in both sports? Here you go.
ACC Basketball: A Decade in Review and Prediction for the New ACC
The ACC records for the last decade of football was posted by acaffrey earlier this week so I thought it would be fun to see the numbers for the basketball side of the conference. I believe the biggest surprise over the last decade of ACC basketball has been the emergence of Florida State as the third winningest program in the conference behind Duke and North Carolina, a period that includes an ACC tournament championship for the Noles.
1. Duke 123-39 76%: Arguable one of the most successful decades in conference history. Duke has won at least 10 conference games in 9 of the last 10 years. During the last decade Duke has won one NCAA title, 3 ACC Regular Season titles, and 6 ACC Tournament titles.
2. North Carolina 117-45 72%: The baby blue (UNC) and navy blue (Duke) have dominated the conference in hoops. Although Duke has a better conference record, North Carolina won 2 NCAA titles during the Roy Williams era (which started in 2003-04). The Heels have also won 6 ACC Regular Season titles and 2 ACC Tournament titles during that time.
3. Florida State 85-77 52%: How in the world did the biggest name in ACC college football climb so high in the basketball centric ACC? Leonard Hamilton. Hamilton’s teams consistently play above their talent level through hard work and relentless defense. However, FSU could be hit the hardest from the most recent conference expansion as the competition for 3rd place in the conference gets considerably tougher.
Syracuse’s Michael Carter-Williams Stock Falling
Few questioned the decision by Syracuse’s Michael Carter-Williams to forego his last two years of college basketball and enter the NBA draft. After all, NBA draftniks had been drooling and fawning over MCW for the entire season. The phrase “certain lottery pick” is enough to convince the Confidential that any player should turn pro. But this one is getting ugly.
The good news for MCW is that Chad Ford has stated to Syracuse.com that scouts either “love” or “hate” MCW. So some scouts still love him. But others hate him? That seems harsh… presumably they just dislike his game. But that is bad news.
Even worse is this quote from Ford:
“I know his agent thinks that I’m insane to have him, I think right now, I have him projected outside the lottery,” Ford said. “I think Dallas is a very good possibility for him at 13 and Sacramento is a good possibility for him if Anthony Bennett is off the board. Other than that, I just haven’t identified the other teams where I think he is a fit and they’re high on him.”
The good news for MCW is that he is still likely to be a first-round pick and get guaranteed money. If so, the decision to go pro was unquestionably a sound move. If the flaws in his game were not corrected next year, that extra year of college would be wasted.
But it is still a shame to see someone leave school when the “potential” outweighs the “actual.” If only the NBA and college basketball could work together to allow kids a chance to continue to develop their game in college, without making that a risky proposition from a business sense.
Billboard Demands Removal of Wake Forest Coach, AD
We all have a pet project that consumes our time and money. Some of us take it too far and wind up ignoring our significant others or forgetting meaningful moments in our lives. However, some us take it a little further.
Yahoo! Sports is reporting that a new roadside sight along U.S. 52 near Winston-Salem is showing just how far some fans will go to vent their frustrations about college athletics. According to The Dagger’s Jeff Eisenberg, a group of Wake Forest University fans have spent a load of money to erect a billboard blasting men’s basketball head coach Jeff Bzdelik and athletic director Ron Wellman’s performance at the school.
(Credits: WXII12.com)
Wow. Talk about not holding back. Tell me what you really think, Wake fans.
WXII12.com is reporting the group of fans raised over $4,500 to fulfill their wish of bringing more public attention to the disaster the basketball program has become under Bzdelik and Wellman’s watch. But the billboard is only the next chapter of their group’s efforts – they’ve also taken out newspaper ads and created websites like firebz.com.
Among other notables, the website keeps a rolling tally of the basketball team’s ventures – the Demon Deacons are 34-60 overall and 11-42 against ACC opponents under Bzdelik.
One Wake Forest fan who hasn’t disguised his displeasure with the basketball program is Fire Jeff Bzdelik Group fan Brian Stratton. Stratton is on record as saying the billboard was a necessary step to take because the fanbase has been alienated by the athletic director’s actions. He also took to Facebook to further explain the erection of the billboard.
“All would have been forgiven had [Wellman] done the right thing and fired Bzdelik at the end of the year,” Stratton wrote via the popular social media site. “However, he boxed us into a corner and we had to take the next step. Ron Wellman has clearly brought this on himself and needs to be relieved of his duties.”
Although this recent news is fascinating, fans weren’t too keen on Bzdelik’s hire even in 2010. He was chosen by Wellman after going 36-58 at Colorado after three seasons and never ended a Big 12 season ranked higher than eighth in the conference standings.
As a Louisville graduate, I can certainly identify with fan malcontent over a sports coach who hasn’t performed. The Steve Kragthorpe Era at UofL really tested the Cardinal fanbase. Of course, our athletic director realized the error in his ways and put into motion the process of replacing him with up-and-coming star Charlie Strong.
No one wants a cloud of negativity to surround an athletic program for too long. Wake’s brass leadership may wake up one day soon and realize that Bzdelik and perhaps Wellman have to go, if not for the athletic program, for the university image and relationship with fans and alumni.
Demon Deacon fans, you simply have to believe that better things will come. The one thing Wellman can do to revive your trust is to make a stellar choice as the next head coach to lead Wake back to relevance.
And we wait.
Recent Comments
Atlantic Coast Confidential RSS
The Confidential 