Last fall on Basketball Prospectus I introduced the first ever lineup-based statistical model. Today, I use that model to project the 2013-2014 ACC college basketball standings:

Proj CW, CL = Projected conference wins and losses

Proj Off, Def = Projected points scored and allowed per 100 possessions against an average D1 team on a neutral floor

Top 100 = Number of players ranked in the RSCI Top 100 out of high school who are on the roster 

Ret Min, Ret Poss = Returning minutes and possessions

Last Off, Last Def = Last year’s offense and defense

Duke: Quinn Cook, Andre Dawkins, Rasheed Sulaimon, Mississippi St. transfer Rodney Hood, Amile Jefferson, #2 recruit Jabari Parker. Yes, Duke is going to be dominant again.

North Carolina: Marcus Paige, PJ Hairston, Leslie McDonald, James McAdoo, and four high potential young forwards (either ready to make the sophomore leap or contribute from day one) should make for a dominant lineup.

Virginia: At the start of April I wrote this: “Everything is coming together for Virginia. They have their three top scorers (really the only guys who scored at all) back from last year. Former Top 100 recruit Mike Tobey should be ready for that sophomore year leap in production. They add depth with South Carolina transfer Anthony Gill. Malcolm Brogdon (who missed the entire season) and Darion Atkins should be back healthy. And Virginia played very good basketball in conference games last year.” The only question mark is point-guard. London Perrantes, Teven Jones, and/or Devon Hall have to come through for this team to meet its expectations. And while at #97 ESPN recruit Perrantes isn’t a sure thing, the model thinks he will easily exceed the efficiency of Jontel Evans. Evans couldn’t shoot at all last year and posted an 83.4 ORtg. When a team loses its most inefficient players and has solid replacements coming in, that team should be substantially improved.

Syracuse: Unfortunately, Syracuse seems poised for another brutal offensive year. There were basically only four guys on the team that could score last year, and three of them are gone. The real problem is the lack of depth on the perimeter. My model has Duke transfer Michael Gbinije playing some minutes at the shooting-guard spot, but as Georgetown saw last year when they tried to play Otto Porter at that spot, a four forward lineup doesn’t have the right spacing. This is especially true given that among Syracuse’s returning forwards only CJ Fair has a true jump shot.

That means Syracuse will have to give a lot of minute to Tyler Ennis, Trevor Cooney, and Ron Patterson. Tyler Ennis might have a higher recruiting rank than Virginia’s London Perrantes, but he still isn’t a guaranteed star where he is rated. And Trevor Cooney was brutal last season. While the model predicts Cooney will be better this year, he certainly can’t be counted on to be a star. And Syracuse hasn’t had much success utilizing unranked freshmen right of the bat which isn’t good for Ron Patterson’s expectations.

DaJuan Coleman might become a high scorer next year, but it is a catch-22. While he is the only returning player who was a high volume shooter, he wasn’t very efficient (89.1 ORtg) last year. Part of that was an injury issue, but even with a fairly sizable jump in efficiency this year, he won’t be able to carry the offense. Don’t be fooled by transfer Michael Gbinije’s ORtg on Statsheet.com. He basically never played for Duke two years ago. The fact that he didn’t play says more about his expectations then whatever numbers he posted in garbage time in a few games. And don’t be fooled by Baye Moussa Keita’s efficiency either. Keita basically never shot last year. Syracuse has eight former Top 100 recruits on the roster, so they have talent. But it isn’t quite the right fit to expect a dominant offense.

Where I think the model may be wrong is not the offense, but the defense. The model is skeptical because Jim Boeheim has only had an adjusted defense below 89.0 once in his career. That one year was last season, so perhaps it will be repeatable. But Michael Carter-Williams had rare size at the PG spot. He made it brutally hard for teams like Indiana to get open looks at three and for players to make basic entry passes. If Cooney and Ennis can duplicate that, then Syracuse may be a Top 10 team.  My model expects a solid but not historic defensive performance from Syracuse.

Pittsburgh: This is going to sound odd, but Pittsburgh probably has a better starting rotation than Syracuse. Talib Zanna was Pittsburgh’s best forward last season. James Robinson was impressive as a first-year PG, and Lamar Patterson was a do-everything player. Meanwhile, JJ Moore is back and he was Pittsburgh’s most efficient bench player. The team also adds highly ranked freshman recruit Mike Young at forward. The real weakness for Pittsburgh is going to be depth. After those five guys, there is a serious drop-off. But keep in mind that Jamie Dixon has only finished with more than six conference losses once in his career. That isn’t going to change even in a stacked ACC.

Maryland: Replacing Alex Len won’t be easy, but the combination of Shaquille Cleare and Charles Mitchell’s development, combined with the addition of a lights out perimeter shooting forward (Michigan transfer Evan Smotrycz) should make it palatable. Pe’shon Howard was so inefficient at the PG slot that his departure is probably addition by subtraction.

Notre Dame: For those of you keeping track, despite being listed as seniors last year, Garrick Sherman and Tom Knight are coming back. I am most interested to see how Mike Brey utilizes freshmen Demetrius Jackson. Brey usually has a short-leash with freshmen. The exception was Luke Harangody, and Jackson might just be that kind of freshmen. What is holding Notre Dame back is that Mike Brey is not an elite defensive coach. And that means the loss of a premiere defensive rebounder like Jack Cooley is a real problem.

Florida St.: Somehow, despite a horrible non-conference season, and terrible margin-of-victory numbers, the Seminoles won nine ACC games last year. I expect Florida St.’s offense and defense to be substantially better than last year. But I don’t expect them to match last year’s exceptional luck. And in an improved ACC, I project Florida St. as a 9-9 team. They will be better, but they might not have more conference wins to show for it.

Of course, if Andrew Wiggins matriculates, this expectation will be much higher.

Looking back, it is hard to believe how dreadful Florida St. played at times last season. The Seminoles scored 36 against Virginia and an even more embarrassing 46 against defensively challenged Wake Forest.  Highly rated freshman Montay Brandon had one of those avert-your-eyes awful seasons. It was amazing how much Leonard Hamilton stuck with him despite his clear offensive struggles. Brandon’s poor performance shows the difference between an old-school coach and a new-school coach. Buzz Williams and Brad Stevens would have never let a player like Brandon waste so many possessions.

But despite these offensive concerns, the real problem was the defense. How did one of the top defensive coaches suddenly forget what he was doing? I think the injury to Ian Miller had a lot to do with it, but the overall team performance was head-scratching. With a healthy Ian Miller, I predict a substantial bounce-back on both ends of the court. But it also depends on Hamilton making better lineup decisions than last season.

Boston College: Notre Dame transfer Alex Dragicevich will add to the team’s depth. But until Boston College starts playing better defense, they won’t make the tournament.

NC State: If you ask Mark Gottfried, he will admit that the lack of depth last year was frustrating. It made it hard to hold legitimate practices. But thanks to a host of defections NC State only has eight scholarship players again. One of those eight players, Jordan Vandenburg has struggled to ever earn playing time and was injured for much of last year. It is possible Vandenburg will break out as a fifth-year senior, but the expectations cannot be that high. The other seven players (including LSU transfer Ralston Turner and JUCO addition Desmond Lee) should all be solid players. But at this point, you have to bank on extreme luck to even put together a decent rotation. No one can get injured. None of the prized recruits can be a bust.

And Mark Gottfried hasn’t exactly been the kind of guy to bring a new crop of recruits together and play top defense right away. NC State probably has a higher upside than some of the teams listed ahead of them, but the downside risk is pretty high too. If everyone (but Vandenburg) comes back, this team will be in much better shape in 2014-15.

Wake Forest: Wait, why is Jeff Bzdelik still the head coach? Senior Travis McKie deserves better.

Georgia Tech: Marcus George-Hunt and Robert Carter were solid scorers as freshman last season and as highly ranked high school recruits, there is no reason to think they won’t make the sophomore leap and become stars this year. Overall Georgia Tech’s offense would be rated higher, but there is a major question mark at the PG slot. Solomon Poole wasn’t ready last year, but the alternatives Corey Heyward and Travis Jorgenson don’t have obvious pedigrees either. Without a strong point-guard and with several offensive liabilities in the rotation, the offense will still be bad.

Clemson: Given that they lose their two best players and have zero players who were elite high school recruits on their roster, I think a lot of preseason predictions will have them even lower than this. There really isn’t anyone on the roster who looks like a likely offensive star. (The only good news is that Clemson was young last year and the sophomore leap should help at least a couple of their freshmen become solid players.) But let’s face it, this is going to be an ugly team to watch. The only reason the model doesn’t have Clemson lower is because of Brad Brownell’s ability to teach defense.

Miami: Give Jim Larranaga credit for what Miami did last year, but this is a rebuilding year. This team was just devastated by graduations and Shane Larkin’s early entry into the draft. I think the lineup-based model may be a little too pessimistic. But the best-case scenario here is probably what Vanderbilt did in the SEC last year.  Don’t count on much from guys like Tony Jekiri and Erik Swoope. Guys who shoot that little rarely become big scorers. I feel bad for Rion Brown.

Virginia Tech: Goodbye Erick Green. Yep, next year isn’t going to be any better.

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Final exams are here in college basketball, making this the quiet period of the season. After the excitement of the Champions Classic, the Holiday Tournaments, and the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, college basketball must make it through a relatively boring stretch on the schedule.

The marquee game last week was supposed to be UCLA taking on Texas at Reliant Stadium in Houston. But with UCLA losing a bunch of early games (including blowing an 18-point lead against Cal Poly), and with Texas struggling (including a loss to Chaminade in Maui), this game had lost most of its luster. In fact, it lost so much luster, that less than 3000 fans showed up to watch a game being played in a dome stadium.

Fittingly, the game lived up to its billing. Texas turned the ball over possession after possession down the stretch allowing UCLA to come from behind at the end. But UCLA couldn’t make free throws that would seal the game. Then Texas air-balled a three at the buzzer that would have won the game. UCLA prevailed, but neither team was able to shake its reputation as a disappointment early in the year.

(Quick side note about Texas. The Longhorns' defense has actually been shockingly good this season. No team has a better eFG% defense at this point in the season than Texas, meaning the Longhorns are forcing teams to miss both their twos and threes at an impressive rate. Rick Barnes simply doesn’t get enough credit for his ability to teach defense. Unfortunately, without point guard Myck Kabongo, Texas’ offense has been dreadful. Only Sheldan McClellan and Julien Lewis have shown a consistent ability to put the ball in the basket this year, and the Longhorns other four Top 100 prospects out of high school have been nothing short of horrible, sporting ORtgs of 61 to 83. No team can win consistently when only two players have ORtgs over 100.)

But the beauty of college basketball is that even on a weekend with few marquee games, the plethora of games ensures there are always some fantastic finishes:

- UNLV’s Quintrell Thomas caught the ball under the basket and put back in a lay-up that gave UNLV a last-second win against California. Both teams will be likely be in the NCAA tournament this year, so it was an important win for both UNLV and the MWC. UNLV’s Mike Moser injured his elbow in the game, and that bears watching.

- Elsewhere, West Virginia handed Virginia Tech their first loss of the season on a Juwan Staten lay-up in the final seconds. West Virginia had high hopes for the elite transfer Staten, but his debut was an ugly 0-6 two turnover performance against Gonzaga. Fortunately Staten had bounced back, scoring in double figures the last four games and living at the free throw line. And against Virginia Tech, Staten drove the lane in the final seconds and hit a lay-up that proved to be the game-winner.

- Meanwhile, Purdue and Mississippi were reminded why major conference teams hate to play at mid-major venues. Purdue fell 47-44 at Eastern Michigan. This is not a great Eastern Michigan team, but with Eastern Michigan turning the ball over only four times, while Purdue turned the ball over 18 times, those 14 additional possessions made all the difference in the upset win. Meanwhile, Middle Tennessee’s Kerry Hammonds made a jumper in the final minute to break a tie and give Ole Miss its first loss of the season. Unlike Eastern Michigan, Middle Tennessee has been playing pretty good basketball this season, and this loss might not hurt quite so much come selection Sunday.

Other notes

- Illinois was back to making three-pointers in Saturday’s win over Gonzaga, sinking 11 in the win. With over 10 made threes per game, I am very curious whether this will continue in conference play.

- Last season, Florida St. had a scatterbrained resume of puzzling losses to bad teams and amazing wins against Top 10 teams. It was largely because of their one-sided play. When you play elite defense, all you need is for a few surprising shots to fall and you can beat an elite team. And when you have lousy offense, all you need is for your opponent to hit a few surprising shots and you can lose to anyone. Georgetown looks like that team this year. They lost to Indiana in OT and have thus far pulled out close wins against teams like Towson. Still, the Hoyas have some head-scratching games ahead, given their great defense and poor offense.

-Michigan’s Nik Stauskas continues to be way more athletic than I anticipated. When the Arkansas game tightened up near the 12 minute market of the second half, Stauskas had the ball at the wing and I thought a turnover was coming. Instead he shook his man, drove all the way to the edge of the free throw line, and banked home a long-layup. To me, it was a game-changing play.

Of course, I have already learned to love Illinois’ three-point shooting, Stauskas’s game, and Georgetown’s defense.  In fact, I wonder if sometimes the computers learn more from these December games than the media. We all know that Kansas is going to be the favorite in the Big 12 in conference play, and that Bill Self’s teams play lock down defense year-after-year. But with ugly games against teams like Chattanooga and San Jose St., Kansas was no longer looking like a Top 10 team in most computer rankings. That changed on Saturday with the Jayhawks 36 point thrashing of a solid Colorado team. I tend to struggle with what to say about a 36 point loss, but in the grand scheme of ranking teams, all these games provide important information.

The other takeaway from the Colorado-Kansas game is that regional rivalries don’t have to die when teams switch conferences. Missouri and Kansas might not play again, but if they do not, that is a dumb choice by the teams. It is not a necessity.

Undefeated but Overrated

As the number of undefeated teams dwindles (we are down to 14 after Sunday), columnists tend to write about which teams with strong starts are over-rated. But I hate that tone. Nobody honestly believes that Charlotte is an elite team after a 9-0 start. But why rain on the parade of a team that has exceeded expectations.

It is one thing to say that you don’t necessarily expect a team to keep it up. If a team is winning close games, it is reasonable to ask whether they will still have a strong season in conference play.

It is one thing to criticize strength-of-schedule and say you wish that an elite team had played more quality competition. For example, I wish Arizona would have scheduled a few more marquee games, because until they play Florida next weekend, I still have no feel for how good this team can be.

But I hate it when people criticize a team for doing what they are supposed to do and winning games. Wyoming is my favorite example. Larry Shyatt had a disappointing run as Clemson’s head coach, but after joining Billy Donovan’s staff and helping Florida win two national championships, he finally got a second chance with the Cowboys. In his first season, he completely turned Wyoming’s team around by emphasizing defense, and now in his second season, his team’s offense is starting to come around. Wyoming isn’t an elite team, but after they came from 18 down to beat Illinois St. and preserve their undefeated mark, they deserve praise, not criticism for an undefeated start.

Do December games matter if everyone is focused on the NFL?

The NBA wants you to think its regular season is extremely important. But when San Antonio can choose to rest four key players at the Miami Heat, that undermines the NBA’s credibility. Chuck Klosterman wrote a fantastic piece recently asking some key questions about whether San Antonio owed it to NBA fans to play its star players against the Heat.

The beauty of college basketball is you never have to ask those questions.

- Almost every player is young, and even with some teams now playing 40 games, the season is still relatively short. The number of key players debating whether to play through a nagging injury is relatively small.

- For most of these kids, this is the moment. Was Louisville’s Peyton Siva really going to complain about playing three games in three days in the Bahamas and not want to give it his all against Duke? Of course not. This season is his moment in the sun and he wants to take full advantage of it.

-Every game matters for selection Sunday. I’ve long said that there is no resting your starters in college basketball because nothing is ever clinched. With so many teams with similar resumes at the end of the year, every loss counts for seeding. In the NBA, if San Antonio drops a game against New Orleans in November, it probably won’t matter much to the team’s ultimate probability of winning a championship. But if UCLA drops a game to Cal Poly in November, it is a critical red-mark on the Bruins resume, and it might be the reason the Bruins don’t play in the regional round in Los Angeles in the Staples Center in March.

The Dreaded Early RPI

Even if the loss to Middle Tennessee (discussed above) doesn’t cost Ole Miss an NCAA tournament spot, the sum total of these wins and losses does matter for the conferences. And at this point, the SEC might have needed that win more than Ole Miss.

Through Saturday, the conference RPI standings were as follows:

At this point the SEC is sitting 8th among all conferences in terms of RPI rankings, and the plethora of bad losses by teams at the bottom of the conference is going to make it hard to earn quality wins in SEC play this year. And as bad a measure of team quality as the RPI may be, it is still a very strong predictor of NCAA selection.

Rob Dauster noticed it earlier this week, but even if the Pac-12 has lacked signature wins in the early season, because its teams are chalking up fewer head-scratching losses this preseason, winning Pac-12 games will mean something this year. Right now it looks like a team that goes 11-7 in Pac-12 will be in the discussion for an at-large bid, something you couldn’t say last season.

The bigger concern might be how many teams can make the tournament out of the Big 12. I thought the Big 12 might be the deepest conference in the country this year, but none of the Big 12’s bubble teams have been coming through. Kansas St., Iowa St., and West Virginia certainly don’t look like terrible teams based on their margin-of-victory so far this season, and Texas probably won’t be a terrible team in January and February (assuming Kabongo plays eventually). But none of those teams have done anything in their marquee games. The Big 12 might have eight legitimate teams eventually, but unless the conference has a stellar last few weeks of non-conference action, the league may be capped at four or five NCAA bids.

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The game of the weekend featured Baylor ending Kentucky’s 55-game home winning streak. I’ve often described Scott Drew as an excellent recruiter, but without the in-season coaching ability of John Calipari. But for at least one afternoon, Scott Drew’s club ended up on top.

A couple of things fascinated me about the game.

First, John Calipari had Kyle Wiltjer on the bench for a long stretch in the second half. And he really had no choice. Wiltjer finished the day 1-for-11 from the floor, and he doesn’t have the defensive ability to stay in the game if his shot isn’t falling. Wiltjer has to find ways to provide value to his team other than just knocking down threes if he is going to be a true leader this season.

Second, I continued to be impressed with the all-around game of Baylor’s Isaiah Austin. I wish he would settle for a few less outside shots, but what I love about Austin is how he always looks extremely focused when on the floor. Even if he commits a turnover or takes a dumb shot, Austin doesn’t ever appear to get rattled.

Of course it is easy to describe an intangible like “quiet confidence” when a player is winning. And with Kentucky losing, it is easy to attack Nerlens Noel’s complete lack of an offensive game. But had Kentucky rallied to win, we’d instead be talking about all the little things Noel did to help his team win on Saturday. Noel had 16 rebounds and 6 steals in Kentucky’s loss, and Kentucky needed those defensive stops in a game where they shot so poorly. Watching so many freshmen play prominent roles made me want to do a quick update of how all the top recruits have fared this season. Here is a summary of the RSCI Top 80.  * = injured or ineligible for part of the season

Kentucky has had a problem with rebounding this year, but don’t blame Nerlens Noel. He needs some help from Willie-Cauley Stein and Kyle Wiltjer who are very poor defensive rebounders for their size.

If Kaleb Tarczewski and Steven Adams aren’t earning major minutes at this point in the season, it is hard to envisioning them becoming full scale stars later. When conference play rolls around, coaches tend to be less patient with their freshmen. Thus in many ways, percentage of minutes can be the most important stat this time of year.

Efficiency is also important, and Kyle Anderson’s 87.9 ORtg is terrible for an elite recruit. Point guards can struggle more than other players to adapt to the college game and Anderson was considered to have point guard skills out of high school. So perhaps Anderson’s struggles aren’t a complete surprise. On the other hand, Archie Goodwin and Marcus Smart weren’t really point guards in high school and they have adapted to the position. Goodwin’s turnover numbers are far too high, but he’s set up his teammates passably while setting up his own shot a lot. And Marcus Smart has made a tremendous transition to playing the point-guard position at the college level. Smart’s assist rate is much better than many players regarded as better passers out of high school.

I really think the problem with Anderson is that Ben Howland hasn’t figured out how to use him. Lots of coaches from Rick Pitino to John Thompson III have been able to feature great lanky passers, by positioning them at the high post and letting them see the whole floor. Anderson still has the potential to be that type of player, even if he has struggled early.

Grant Jerrett and Sam Dekker are the only players in the Top 20 who are not starting. Ricardo Ledo is ineligible. And Kris Dunn and Gary Harris are injured.

We start to see the typical drop-off when we get to recruits in the 11-20 range. DaJuan Coleman still has the profile of a player who will be a star in a future season, but right now he is having trouble earning playing time behind other quality big men on Syracuse’s roster. Meanwhile Cameron Ridley has been extremely disappointing for Texas. Certainly it hurts not to have Myck Kabongo eligible, but Kabongo’s absence doesn’t explain why a player like Ridley can be so passive against a team like Chaminade as he was in the Maui Invitational loss. The only good thing I can say about Ridley is that he has 19 blocks already, which is more than any other player in the Top 50 except Nerlens Noel.

Only Rasheed Sulaimon has become an undisputed crunch time star for his team. And Sulaimon’s efficiency is even more impressive when you look at Duke’s strength of schedule so far. Rodney Purvis has also played major minutes, but he is deferring a lot to his teammates at this point.

Glenn Robinson has been shockingly efficient at this point in the season, well above many of his peers on this list. But none of the players listed here are going to quite be in the national player of the year discussion because they are starting to become more passive offensive players. (I.e. the percentage of possessions used is now often below 20%) Only Danuel House is using a large number of possessions at this point in the rankings, and House plays for a Houston team that is in the process of upgrading its talent level in anticipation of joining the Big East.

This preseason I wrote how Marcus Paige would have some growing pains and be inconsistent this year, and the response I got was that Roy Williams had a ton of confidence in Paige and that I was being un-necessarily pessimistic. So far, with an 87.7 ORtg, neither Paige nor the Tar Heels are off to a great start. Paige has better days ahead, but North Carolina is also going to have a few more baffling losses before the season is over.

I was worried that Yogi Ferrell could have a similar negative impact on the Hoosiers because freshmen are often inconsistent. But Ferrell has thrived because he has worked within the offense. Instead of hogging the ball and needing to create shots, Ferrell has let his teammates work their isolation stuff, and provided key drives and dishes when needed. Ferrell has been happy to fill a role on the Hoosiers, and he has been everything Indiana needed.

Finally, Tony Parker’s minutes this year have been a joke, but with Josh Smith transferring, Parker at least has a chance of cracking the UCLA rotation now.

Notice how often a lack of playing time plagues players at this point in the rankings. I expected and still expect big things out of Kansas’ Perry Ellis and Iowa’s Adam Woodbury, but their coaches have only given them a taste of playing time at this point. The result is that some guys at this point in the rankings become unmitigated gunners. Hey Indiana’s Jeremy Hollowell, no matter how good you think you are, when the game with North Carolina was close late in the first half, Indiana didn’t want you bombing threes. They wanted Jordan Hulls bombing threes.

Xavier has played much better than many of us anticipated this season, and freshman Semaj Christon deserves a lot of that credit. Christon has out-played point-guards like Marcus Paige and realistically he’s been much more important than even Yogi Ferrell given his role in the offense. Christon is using nearly 30% of his team’s possessions, scoring at a prolific clip, and setting up his teammates without a rash of turnovers.

Most of Christopher Opekpa’s stats are pretty pedestrian, but not his block rate. Opekpa has 35 blocks at this point in the season, easily out-distancing any of the other freshmen in today’s column.

Nik Stauskas has been unbelievably efficient at this point and he is playing major minutes to boot. Some people expected Michigan to be a Top 10 team, but did they really expect Stauskas to outperform his peer level players by this much? His efficiency is due in large part to his teammates, and his shot-selection. But his performance is still notable. Stauskas has the most threes of anyone mentioned in this column (18 made) beating even UCLA’s super-aggressive shooter Jordan Adams.

Also give Adams credit. He’s shooting 26% of the time while maintaining a solid ORtg. Kyle Anderson may have been the third rated recruit for UCLA, but Adams has actually played like one.

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