Friday, January 05, 2007

Brief Schedule Thoughts, and a Poll Request

In discussing the differences in the conference schedules among ACC teams, I decided to take a glance at the Big East, whose ridiculous size creates even more scheduling problems. Among the noticeable easy schedules is Notre Dame's - coach Brey has already had a good year, and it should stay good during conference play. The Irish DO NOT PLAY, at all, Pittsburgh or Connecticut. They host West Virginia and Marquette in their only games against those schools. They get to play South Florida and Depaul twice. Their road schedule in conference is: Georgetown, Villanova, St. John's, Syracuse, South Florida, Depaul, Cincinnati, and Rutgers. There's a real legitimate possibility that Notre Dame will finish the year a completely untested 26-3 (or something like that) and be awarded an over-inflated 2-seed, ripe for an upset. This is not to say that Notre Dame isn't a good team - their offense is the 2nd most efficient in the country on the back of some sick shooting (four starters combine to shoot 109 for 242 - 43% - from 3), and both Rob Kurz and Luke Harangody are highly effecitve in all aspects of the game. But if they do finish 26-3, their schedule is more A-10 than Big East, and they could be overrated on account of their record and their conference when tournament play comes around.

My post on Clemson last night (and lauding of both James Mays and Trevor Booker), got me thinking all-ACC, so I thought I'd turn to you the loyal reader for your thoughts. Who's been your first team all-ACC so far this season, and who do you think will end up there at season's end. Mine so far were Mays, Visser, McRoberts, Wright, and Thornton (in no particular order), but it's going to be extremely hard to leave Dudley and Hansbrough off at the end of conference play. The most likely candidates for replacement are probably Mays and Visser. As a side note, it's remarkable how forward-heavy the ACC is this year - arguably the top 7 players are all frontcourt guys. Anyway, submit your replies here, and if enough responses come in, I'll post the results (and go into more detail on my selections when I do).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.