The ACC was supposed to be the best conference in the country, and fans of other conferences have been happy to criticize this year. The ACC lost the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, and the bottom of the conference isn’t very good. The league isn’t #1 in the RPI, Pomeroy Rankings, or any other metric. The round-robin schedule is gone. The unbalanced schedules means league favorite Virginia doesn’t have to play at Duke, diminishing the value of the regular season. After once being a conference filled with fast, fun basketball, the ACC had the slowest tempo in the nation last year. And the ACC is 26^th in tempo this season. If you read the comments sections on ESPN, it doesn’t take long to see the opinion that the ACC’s hype is driven by ESPN’s desire for ratings, not by the actual quality of league-play.

But this weekend proved why people really do love ACC basketball. If you didn’t appreciate NC State’s upset of Duke, Virginia’s thrilling road win at Notre Dame, and North Carolina’s last second victory against Louisville, you just don’t love basketball. All three games featured whistle-free, free-flowing basketball. The Duke game was played at a blistering 70-possession pace and NC State went over 20 minutes without a turnover. Notre Dame vs Virginia, while slow, featured a paucity of whistles. The lack of turnovers and fouls led to some truly free-flowing action. And while North Carolina vs Louisville clocked in at only 67 possessions, there was a thrilling fast-paced ending where the teams went up and down the court and North Carolina completed the comeback. Yes, not every ACC game is good. But a top-heavy league with power programs still provides plenty of thrilling games.

Duke vs NC State

NC State has one of the premier backcourts in the country. The only thing that is holding them back from performing at an elite level is that their front-court is incredibly young. But despite being young, NC State’s frontcourt is filled with six freshmen and sophomores who were former Top 100 recruits. And I think it is fair to say that for the first time this season, Duke did not have a major athleticism advantage against their opponent. (Duke’s non-conference opponents Wisconsin and Michigan St. are not stacked with athletes, Stanford’s veterans like Stefan Nastic are hardly super-athletes, and UConn’s talent wasn’t clicking in December.) Duke wasn’t going to be able to beat NC State with sheer athleticism.

As crazy as it sounds, I think Duke played too fast on Sunday. I know the logic is that (1) Duke always try to play fast, and that (2) the better team should win by increasing the number of possessions. But with the fast tempo in the second half, I felt like Duke’s players just got lost defensively. It wasn’t that Duke’s players were getting beaten off the dribble like last season, or that they didn’t have the right personnel. But the play in the second half where Tyus Jones and Amile Jefferson couldn’t figure out what to do against a screen, both covered the same player streaking through the paint, and left an NC State post player wide-open for a lay-up, said it all. The game was going too quickly for a young Duke defense to keep up.

NC State’s forwards are athletic, but they aren’t that polished yet. There was a play late in the game where BeeJay Anja had the ball three feet from the basket, took an extra dribble, and ended up with the ball tied-up. That’s been the story of NC State’s season. When NC State’s big men have had to go against a set half-court defense this year, they haven’t been dominant. But against a defense that wasn’t set, and wasn’t aware, NC State’s elite post recruits looked like future pros.

I don’t see this loss as evidence that Duke’s defense is going to be horrible again this year. Few teams will match NC State’s torrid three point shooting. I know Tyus Jones and Quinn Cook are short, but I don’t buy that height was the reason NC State shot so well. Jones has great athleticism and he doesn’t need to give that much space to his opponent as he did in this game.

But sometimes young players make mistakes when playing at a fast tempo in a raucous atmosphere. I think Duke’s freshmen will learn a ton from watching this game tape.

Virginia vs Notre Dame

Speaking of Tyus Jones needing to play tighter defense, a key question on Saturday was whether Virginia’s pack-line defense could get up on Notre Dame’s shooters. For much of the game, the pack-line played to form, with Notre Dame making 10 threes, but also shooting near 20% inside the arc. But late in the game, Virginia’s defense went to the next level. The only wide open looks Notre Dame got in the final five minutes were from five feet beyond the three point arc.

And the scary thing about Virginia is their offensive versatility. Malcolm Brogdon entered the year as the player to stop and he hit a big three late. Anthony Gill has stepped up this season. But neither hit the dagger shot on Saturday. Instead it was Justin Anderson. On the one hand, I find myself asking how a player that made 30% of his threes as a freshmen and sophomore suddenly became one of the best three point shooters in the country But there Anderson was knocking down a back-breaking three late in the game.

Louisville vs North Carolina

I rarely criticize Dick Vitale. Even if a lot of “smart” fans don’t appreciate his style, Vitale is largely employed to engage the casual college basketball fan, not to provide detailed X’s and O’s analysis.

But I thought Vitale was way off on Saturday. He seemed obsessed with North Carolina’s Marcus Paige, saying on multiple occasions that the only way North Carolina could win was with Paige knocking down threes. It was a case of star obsession. And with the exception of one late three by Paige, it didn’t at all tell the story of the game. North Carolina came back by forcing a few key turnovers and getting out in transition. The Tar Heels came back by getting the ball in the paint and making patient passes. JP Tokoto is just brilliant at finding North Carolina big men when the defense collapses, and he had some clutch interior passes again on Saturday. Yes Paige had the game-winning lay-up, but Vitale’s total focus on one player was beyond over-the-top.

Louisville’s Chris Jones, whose early season slump was well-chronicled, bounced back with a terrific and efficient day (19 points on 12 shots). But I’m still not entirely sold on his decision-making. He had a turnover and took a very quick shot with Louisville nursing a late lead. He obviously felt he had the hot hand, but if you take a jumper nine seconds into the shot clock while trying to nurse a lead that late, that shot has to go in.

Redemption or Blip Part 1

In the preseason I debated whether Oklahoma or Kansas St. was going to be a better team. Obviously, when TaShawn Thomas became eligible, Oklahoma was clearly the superior team. But Kansas St. was arguably a very good team. Yet a 7-7 start, that dropped Kansas St. out of the Top 100 ended any such statements. In fact, the Pomeroy rankings were so pessimistic that at the start of January, his model expected Kansas St. to finish 6-12 in the Big 12.

When a team performs this much under expectations, I tend to study the numbers carefully to see what we missed. The statistical model basically said that Kansas St. had a star in Marcus Foster, and that the loss of Shane Southwell and Will Spradling was over-rated, given how poorly Southwell shot last year, and how infrequently Spradling shot.

Given Bruce Weber’s track record as one of the top defensive coaches, Kansas St. was expected to be good defensively again. This was especially true with more size than last year. But this year the defense has fallen off the map, particularly on the interior. And when something like that happens, you realize that the model simply didn’t appreciate the benefit of the departed players. Having two four-year players who knew where to be on the court defensively was more difficult to replace than what the stats said.

Meanwhile, transfers Stephen Hurt and Justin Edwards have been offensive liabilities in the early season. Both transfers received good hype (because of Edwards high-volume shooting and Hurt’s excellent performance as a freshman in the Atlantic Sun.)

So while 6-12 sounded pessimistic, it also sounded realistic given everything we had seen from the Wildcats so far. But Sunday’s game may have been the first step in the right direction. First, Kansas St. had to hold on by locking down defensively. To hold Oklahoma to 0.93 points per possession on the road was truly a special defensive effort. And both transfers finally started to perform. Edwards had a key drive to the basket late in the game, and Stephen Hurt hit a key jumper.

And most importantly, Kansas St. still had that superstar player from last season. At both the end of regulation and overtime, Foster simply would not be denied. With Bruce Weber calling a timeout in neither situation, Foster drove for the tying lay-up at the end of regulation, and hit the game-winning three off a screen in OT. With no time-out called, Lon Kruger couldn’t set up a defense to deny Kansas St.’s best player the ball, and Foster delivered with two big-time plays.

Maybe this was a one game fluke. But if Kansas St. rebounds to a 9 or 10 win conference season, Saturday will mark the first point where Kansas St.’s team actually played like we expected in the preseason.

Breakout Players (Good and Bad)

During the Illinois upset of Maryland this week, the Big Ten network showed a graphic with the three Big Ten players with the biggest upticks in scoring since last season. The three players (Zak Irvin, Marc Loving, and Malcolm Hill) all made our SI Breakout Player List.

We nailed some of the breakout players, and in the case of players like Christian Wood and Terry Rozier, we under-estimated how much they would break out. But we were also dead wrong about some players. Two of the biggest mistakes we made were Florida’s Chris Walker and Marquette’s Deonte Burton. Chris Mannix has a nice profile of Walker in the print edition of SI this week which explains why the elite prospect Walker may simply need another year to become the next Al Horford. Essentially, Walker didn’t play at a prep high school, and his skill development is lacking. Meanwhile after a second Marquette coaching staff decided Burton was at best a bench player, Burton elected to transfer to Iowa St.

Two other busts on the list caught my eye this weekend:

Redemption or Blip #2

Clemson’s Jordan Roper somehow forgot how to shoot this off-season. Roper’s two point percentage has fallen from 48% to 37%. Meanwhile his three point percentage has fallen from 41% two years ago, to 32% last year, to 18% this year. Overall Roper’s ORtg has fallen from 105 to 83. He finally had his most efficient day of the season, including 8 points and 4 assists in the team’s win at Pittsburgh on Saturday. Clemson hopes this is a sign of improvement, not a one game blip.

Redemption or Blip #3

Breakout candidate Marc Loving hit the game-winner in OT at Minnesota mid-week. And for a moment, it looked like another player on this list might do the same.

Will Artino opened the season as Creighton’s starting center and had two big scoring days. But he was quickly passed in the rotation by Zach Hanson, a sophomore who played sparingly last year. And yet with Hanson out on Saturday, Artino had a chance for redemption. Artino played 35 minutes and had 14 points and 11 rebounds. And with time running-down in a tie-game, Artino hit what appeared to be the game-winner on a tip-in. But the story of redemption came up short when Seton Hall’s Sterling Gibbs hit a three at the other end to win the game.

That’s the beauty of college basketball. As much time as we spend on the big names, every player has a story.

Notes

-Rutgers earned its first win in history against a Top 5 team by beating Wisconsin on Saturday. How did this happen? First, Frank Kaminsky was out with a concussion. Of course, Wisconsin still led in the second half. The other huge contributing factor was that PG Traevon Jackson twisted his ankle. With Wisconsin down two starters, Rutgers came from behind to win in the second half. Assuming he isn’t out for long, does this actually improve the Player-of-the-Year arguments for Frank Kaminsky? Defensively and offensively, the Badgers aren’t the same team without him.

-I feel like a broken record by questioning Colorado St.’s defense, but they somehow allowed Air Force to hit 16 threes. The good news is that they still won. The bad news is that star forward JJ Avila was suspended for one game for an altercation during the game.

-Tough way to end a game: Tennessee led 36-35,then scored just 2 more points in a 56-38 loss to Alabama.

Kentucky’s Struggles

There’s something to be said for human nature. Maryland went on the road to play an Illinois team playing without Rayvonte Rice, and shockingly lost. One has to wonder if they overlooked an opponent playing without its best player. Similarly Kentucky went on the road at Texas A&M, and again A&M was without its best player, Jalen Jones.

But searching for these type of explanations is probably taking things too far. Emotion and effort matter. But sometimes we forget there is just variation in performance. We like to think the best team wins. We never want to write a game story that says, “As would be expected on a long season, Kentucky did not play well in every game.”

More importantly, we really struggle with low likelihood probabilities. In fact, statistical inference tells us to reject low probability events as chance. Let’s say I’m testing a drug and a placebo. If the outcomes are so different that less than 5% of the time the two means are equivalent, we say the drug has a statistically meaningful impact. And so, is it any surprise that when an event with a less than 10% probability occurs, we have a hard time believing it is just random variation in performance?

On a more basketball related note, Tyler Ulis hit a back-breaking three in OT. I will be shocked if that is the last huge three Tyler Ulis hits this year. Ulis is such a pass-first PG, that any good defense is going to be trying to stop him creating for his teammates. This won’t be the last time he has a wide-open look from three in a close game.