Orangeyes Daily Articles for Friday for Basketball

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[CuseLegacy]

 

[orangefog]

Why was DC skateboarding in the bathroom while Stevie took a crap? Man, the late 80's and early 90's were wild.

 

[tee1222]

but but but but but zone defenders can't adjust!
:bang:

 

[CuseLegacy]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[tee1222]

Alexis Peterson(#1)'s a cutie. There, I said it. And that can't be sexist nor sixist cause the women of this board say stuff like this about the men's team.
Bam!

 

[tee1222]

Get
It
Done
Fellas!

 

[CuseLegacy]

 

[cuseattle]

I still think I look that young.

 

[721Comstock]

I still think I look that young.

Well, whoop-de-damn-do!!

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[cuseattle]

I like the wall of first round draft pics. Hope they left a bunch of empty space on the end.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

How many ACC teams will make the 2017 NCAA Tournament?

Ten looks like a legitimate possibility.

Duke, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisville, and Syracuse will all be top-25 teams to start the season while Notre Dame, Pitt, Miami, NC State, Virginia Tech, Clemson, and Florida State will all begin practice with realistic hopes of hearing their names called on Selection Sunday.

How is 80.0 percent of the ACC in position to compete for a bid to the field of 68 next March?

There’s a few reasons.

The five teams mentioned above — Duke, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisville, and Syracuse — all should be in position to be near the top-10 for the majority of the season while the other seven teams mentioned all have reasons why they should expect to compete for a bid.

Notre Dame has a combined 17 years of collegiate experience in its projected starting lineup (Matt Farrell, Steve Vasturia, V.J. Beachem, Bonzie Colson, Martin Geben) while both Pitt and Miami return strong veterans who had significant roles on teams that reached the NCAA Tournament last March.

NC State meanwhile was dead last in the ACC last season in assists and adds arguably the best table setting freshman point guard in the country in Dennis Smith along with two transfers in Terry Henderson (West Virginia) and Torin Dorn (Charlotte). The Wolfpack also return three starters in Maverick Rowan, Beejay Anya, and Abdul-Malik Abu.

Virginia Tech and Clemson each won 10 league games last season and both of these teams should be more formidable than they were a year ago. The Hokies return seven of their top eight players from 15-16 and also get back Ahmed Hill, who missed all of last season with a patella injury. The Tigers meanwhile, did yeoman’s work last year without a true home court advantage and add three transfers — Shelton Mitchell (Vanderbilt), Marcquise Reed (Robert Morris), and Elijah Thomas (Texas A&M) — to go with a strong returning nucleus of Jaron Blossomgame, Donte Grantham, and Avry Holmes.

Florida State?

Leonard Hamilton was able to squeeze 20 wins out of the Noles last season along with a 9-9 mark in ACC play despite the fact that his projected starting front court — Phil Cofer and Michael Ojo — only played a combined 11 games due to injuries.

Those two players are now back healthy and join two All-ACC perimeter players — Xavier Rathan-Mayes and Dwayne Bacon — along with a one-and-done type talent in skilled freshman forward Jonathan Isaac.

The NCAA Selection Committee proved that it values teams that test themselves over teams that don’t when it put Syracuse in the bracket last March as a 10 seed over a team like San Diego State that won 25 games and had an RPI in the top-40. The Orange lost to Pitt early in the ACC Tournament and only finished 9-9 in league play, but ultimately made the field of 68 because they won at Duke and beat both UConn and Texas A&M when they played on a neutral court.

Teams that get more opportunities to earn quality wins are going to be the teams that have a better chance of earning at-large bids in March and nobody is going to get more opportunities than teams that play in the ACC.

Another thing to keep in mind?

The American Conference only looks like it has two surefire NCAA contenders in UConn and Cincinnati while the SEC only has one in Kentucky.

The Mountain West is now also trending towards being a one-bid league and there’s also no guarantee that the Pac-12 will get seven teams into the field of 68 like it did last March.

Where are all of the at-large bids going to come from?

The smart bet is on the ACC.