2024-25 ACC Preview (Taylor’s Version)

Part 1

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Moderator Christy Thomaskutty discusses the upcoming season with, from left to right, Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey and Fighting Irish players Liatu King, Olivia Miles and Hannah Hidalgo. Photo Credit: Nell Redmond/theACC.com

Ooh, didn't it all seem new and exciting?

There’s two intertwined storylines right now that could arguably be called the biggest ones in college athletics: name, image and likeness and ongoing realignment. 

I don’t think I need to include too much on the former, but the latter has certainly affected the ACC. The conference has added Cal, SMU and, most notably, three-time national champion Stanford.

The coaches at Tipoff (what the conference calls media days), when asked, were uniformly excited for the new challenges the added squads would bring. Unsurprisingly, the issue of additional travel came up, but most coaches who were asked about it felt like they could handle it with some extra planning. The general sentiment was that brainstorming to minimize the effects on their athletes had started pretty much as soon as the announcement of the additions was made.

All I know since yesterday is everything has changed

Four ACC teams are entering the season with new coaches, including conference newcomer Stanford, where Kate Paye takes over for legendary coach Tara VanDerveer.

Clemson fired Amanda Butler (now on staff at Louisville) after last season and hired University of Tennessee at Chattanooga head coach Shawn Poppie, who amassed a 48-18 record in his two years with the Mocs. Poppie is familiar with the ACC, though, having spent six years in Blacksburg at Virginia Tech assisting Kenny Brooks, rising as high as associate head coach.

Brooks left the Hokies after last season to take the head job at Kentucky, and Virginia Tech brought in Megan Duffy from Marquette. While in Milwaukee, Duffy posted a 110-46 record over five seasons.

Finally, Katie Meier retired from Miami’s head coaching position, and the Hurricanes brought in Tricia Cullop. While at Toledo, Cullop accumulated six MAC Coach of the Year awards and a 353-169 record.

I remember it all too well…

Five of the top 10 scorers in the ACC from last season are gone, as are four of the top 10 rebounders.

Chief among them is three-time conference player of the year Liz Kitley of Virginia Tech. Kitley led the conference in both points and rebounds per game last season. She was one of three ACC players drafted in the 2024 WNBA Draft, although the knee injury she suffered in the ACC Tournament meant she spent this season rehabbing with the Las Vegas Aces. The other two, Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair and Louisville’s Kiki Jefferson, were waived shortly after the season started.

Stanford’s Cameron Brink bested Kitley’s rebounds per game mark by 0.4 last season and would’ve been the eighth-best scorer in the league if we account for the three new teams. Brink was, of course, also drafted to the WNBA last season and, despite tearing her ACL after just 15 games, was second in the league with 2.3 blocks per game this past season at 2.3. Brink’s Cardinal teammate Kiki Iriafen, who transferred to USC in the offseason, would’ve also ranked in the top 10 in points and rebounds last season, at fifth and third, respectively.

Kitley and Fair, along with returning Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo were the three ACC players who averaged at least 22 points per game last season.

Girl, there ain't no I in "team" But you know there is a "me"

Hidalgo, the Preseason ACC Player of the Year, an All-ACC First Team member last season in addition to Freshman and Defensive Player of the Year, leads the returners. Of the 20 members of the two 2023-24 all-conference teams, 14 return, as do five of six members of the All-Defensive team. That’s a lot of star power, experience and scoring, as all 14 averaged at least 10 points a game, and eight averaged at least 15 points per game.

The returning all-conference players, plus Cal’s Ioana Krimili, an All-Pac-12 honorable mention last season, also show a trend in the conference that came up numerous times at Tipoff, and that’s the elite guard roster the conference possesses. Only four of the 14 are forwards (UNC’s Alyssa Ustby is marked as a guard-forward).

As NC State’s Wes Moore put it: “I think that's what makes the ACC one of the great basketball conferences in the country, is the talent, especially at guard. I mean, there's so many really good guards in our league. And it's fun to you know, as a fan, it's got to be fun to come out and watch and see those people play, and especially going head to head against each other… everybody in the conference seems to have a great one." 

Three AM and I'm still awake, I'll bet you're just fine, fast asleep in your city that's better than mine…

Most notable among the eight intra-conference transfers this season is Pittsburgh fifth-year Liatu King.The ACC’s Most Improved Player last season, King was among the top 100 in the country in blocks per game and top 30 in defensive and total rebounds per game. King’s 18.7 points per game accounted for nearly a third of the Panthers’ scoring, and her 10.3 rebounds were 27% of Pitt’s 37.7 per game.

King is the only intra-ACC transfer who averaged double-digit scoring last season, but Tamia Jones, who went from SMU to Wake Forest, just missed that mark at nine points per contest. Jones also dished out 4.1 assists and pulled down 3.8 rebounds per contest.

Jones and King are the two intra-conference transfers who averaged 30-plus minutes per game for their teams last season. Three others played at least 20 minutes per game: Ja’Leah Williams (Miami to Louisville), MaKayla Elmore (Clemson to Pittsburgh), Natalija Marshall (Notre Dame to Miami). It will be interesting to see both how these players fit in with their new teams and fare against their old ones.

No. 6 Notre Dame

It's nice to have a friend

How the Fighting Irish are able to mesh Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles, who is coming off a full year of knee rehab, is one of the biggest conference storylines going into this season.

There were some mumblings from outside South Bend that Miles would transfer after Hidalgo exploded onto the scene throughout last season, but those were officially quashed in head coach Niele Ivey’s availability before the ACC Tournament last March.

Both Hidalgo and Miles were at Tipoff in Charlotte, and they both clearly understand that, in Hidalgo’s words, they’re going to have to put “our pride to the side and do what’s best for the team.” Hidalgo added that they’ve been practicing together in South Bend and the chemistry is there, to which Miles added “when we’re on the same page, it’s a scary sight.” 

To put their combined excellence in stats perspective, over the past two seasons, only four players have averaged at least 14 points, six rebounds, five assists, and two steals. Hidalgo and Miles are two of the four.

While the Taylor Swift lyric first came to mind as appropriate for the Miles/Hidalgo storyline, it could also apply to the other end of the floor. In addition to getting Miles back in the backcourt, Notre Dame added two transfers and a top-10 freshman to its frontcourt. Liatu King from Pitt and Liza Karlen from Marquette join the Irish for their fifth seasons, while Kate Koval, the No. 5 player in the 2024 recruiting class, will start her collegiate career this winter. Karlen and Koval were both named to the Preseason Newcomer Watch List.

All three, obviously, would’ve seen playing time this season regardless of Notre Dame’s injury situation, but unfortunately, the Irish’s forward “room” has already been depleted. Kylee Watson is still out with a knee injury suffered in last season’s ACC Tournament, and Maddy Westbeld recently announced she’ll miss some time with a foot injury. At Notre Dame’s recent media day, Ivey named the three newcomers and said “right now, that’s our post depth chart.” 

Of the two transfers, Ivey said the transition has been “seamless,” highlighting “their experience, their versatility and their pace” as particular strong suits for both already in South Bend, even as they’re still working on “establishing who they are within our offense.”

Koval is arguably the most unknown of the three, at least to the public and in terms of how she’ll transition to the college game, but she’s already garnering high praise from teammates. At team media day, Westbeld said: “She’s not a freshman; she is so special… her IQ is unbelievable.” While at Tipoff, Hidalgo said: “I just think that people don't understand how good she really is.”

At Tipoff while discussing Koval, Debbie Antonelli, former Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw and Ivey were discussing the last time the Irish had a 6-foot-5 post player like Koval and, as Antonelli put it “when you say 6-foot-5, I think Ruth Riley, National Championship.” Now, that championship came in Riley’s senior season, but national championship expectations are certainly there in South Bend.

Notre Dame’s three representatives at Tipoff – Hidalgo, King and Miles – did not shy away from discussing those expectations, with all three mentioning at least once that their goal is to win a national championship and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to try to achieve that. As King put it: “The way I see it is no job is too big or too small. Our goal is to win a national championship, so nothing can be overlooked.” Miles echoed that sentiment: “I think it's important that we're all in agreement, you know we all have to be bought in to the same mission to the same goal… we know those expectations but we're fully ready to tackle them.” 

The Fighting Irish will have plenty of high-caliber tests to figure out what they need to work on before conference and NCAA Tournament play, as they’ll face three teams ranked in the preseason AP poll, with one of those games on the road (USC) and two at home (Texas and UConn).

No. 9 NC State

Long live the walls we crashed through…

NC State offers the strongest evidence that preseason polls aren't  always right, as they don't  account for the changes in team makeup and chemistry that occurred over the offseason.

This time last season, no one expected anything from NC State. The Wolfpack were picked to finish eighth in the league and were nowhere to be found in any of the national preseason polls or top-25 prognostications. Then the Wolfpack reeled off five wins in November, including one against UConn, No. 2 at the time, vaulting NC State into the top five of the AP Poll, the first team to ever go from unranked to top five before December started.

The expectations are somewhat higher this season. In addition to getting picked to finish second in the league, ESPN has the Wolfpack at No. 9 in its most recent Way-Too-Early Top 25 and the Wolfpack matched that ranking in the preseason AP Poll.

Similar to their conference brethren in South Bend, the Wolfpack are stocked with returners at the guard position. That includes their top two returning scorers in Preseason All-ACC selections Saniya Rivers and Aziaha James, and, according to head coach Wes Moore, “may play four guards some with the talent that we have at that position,” but will need to replace and/or improve their frontcourt production.

The Wolfpack’s third and fourth top scorers from last season, River Baldwin and Mimi Collins, have both graduated and moved on to professional careers in Europe. Baldwin, in particular, at 6-foot-5, will be missed as the Wolfpack’s leading rebounder and shot blocker.

The only returning NC State player that is 6-foot-4 or taller is Lizzy Williamson, who, despite appearing in 19 games, averaged less than five minutes per contest. This season, freshmen Lorena Awou and Tilda Trygger check in at 6-foot-5 and Boston University transfer (and reigning Patriot League Player of the Year) Caitlin Weimar checks in at 6-foot-4. Weimar  has been dealing with an injury, per Moore, and her prognosis is unknown. Trygger has international experience at both the club and national levels, but will undoubtedly need time to adjust to the college game, as will Awou coming from high school.

While obviously lineups can change throughout a season, the Wolfpack will have to quickly get a lineup ready they’re at least somewhat confident in, as the second game of the season is against defending national champions South Carolina, the team that knocked NC State from the Final Four. The game is in Charlotte at the Ally Tip-Off, 90 minutes from the Gamecocks’ home arena and two-and-a-half hours from the Wolfpack’s Reynolds Coliseum. Of the upcoming contest against the Gamecocks, Rivers, who spent her freshman season in Columbia, said: “it’s going to be a different outcome, I don’t foresee losing by 20 [the final margin of the national semifinal was 19]. It hurt my chest; it did something to me. I don't ever want to feel that again, so hopefully my teammates have the same mentality when we come in and get it done."

No. 11 Duke 

Flash forward, and we're taking on the world together

Duke is another squad that, similar to Georgia Tech, returns a lot of important pieces from its Sweet Sixteen squad last season. Four of five starters are back, as is 85.2% of its assists, 81.5% of its scoring and 66.6% of its rebounding. The Blue Devils are starting the season ranked No. 11 in the AP poll, their highest slot since Week 20 (February 20) of the 2022-23 season.

Chief among the returners are All-ACC Second Team member Reigan Richardson, also named to the preseason all-ACC team, and ACC Sixth Player of the Year and All-Freshman Team member Oluchi Okananwa.

Head coach Kara Lawson pointed to the fact her squad has a lot of returners as a big positive going into the season, noting that sometimes “in this environment in college basketball, it's rare.” That high percentage of returning players also was a major factor in what Lawson said the strength of her team was: “The strength of our team is our togetherness and our chemistry.” One interesting thing Lawson said on that note, though, was that not only does her team know each others’ various strengths, but “I also think we have an understanding of each other's weaknesses. Instead of waiting for them to show themselves, they try to hide them for each other. If someone doesn't know something, they're going to try to say it to them so they can get it. That part about this group has been fun.”

Lawson noted at Tipoff that her team’s defensive standard will still be high, but said “It will look a little bit different than it has the last couple of years, though.” That’s probably because, similar to a lot of ACC teams, the Blue Devils will be looking for new players to fill in frontcourt departures. Both players that graduated from Duke last season were post players and, with respect to Camilla Emsbo, the big one was Kennedy Brown, who Lawson called “the best defensive player I've coached.” That's immense praise from someone who has her teams prioritize defense. Only three teams have had Her Hoop Stats Defensive Ratings of 76 or better in each of the past two seasons: Duke, South Carolina and UConn.

There are five frontcourt players on Duke’s roster this season, and all are underclassmen. Unfortunately, the one center listed, first-year Arianna Roberson (the No. 17 recruit in the 2024 class), is out for the season with a knee injury suffered at the 2024 FIBA 3x3 U18 World Cup this summer. Of the two returners, Jordan Wood only saw action in 14 contests last season and averaged less than five minutes per game, while Delaney Thomas appeared in 33 of Duke’s 34 games, averaging 16.6 minutes per contest as a frontcourt substitution. Thomas’ effective field-goal percentage all ranked in the 96th percentile nationwide, a good sign for someone who will be looked to as the main experienced voice down low.

To those two frontcourt returners, the Blue Devils add the No. 10 and No. 80 recruits in the 2024 class, Toby Fournier and Jenessa Cotton, respectively. Fournier has gotten a lot of the shine nationally for her ability to dunk, but both should see playing time this season as Duke figures out its strategy down low.

Duke will take on its first big-name opponent of the year on Nov. 10, when it faces Maryland. The Terps are in a similar situation as the Blue Devils, as they also struggled with post play last season and are hoping new additions will help them shore up that area.

No. 17 Louisville

 'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my s***

They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it…”

It’s yet to be determined if Jeff Walz’s team can make the end of that lyric “and I did,” come to fruition this season, but if you’re going to have a team with mostly freshmen, having half of them be top-100 prospects and three be top-25 is a pretty darn good place to start.

Of his newbies, Walz said: “It's going to be neat to see which one of these freshmen [is] going to take that step the quickest. But like I've tried I've tried to explain to them all, ‘you might come in and your teammate might go from here to here faster, but then in two years you might be up here so don't worry about judging yourself by where your teammate is.’”

Imari Berry, the 19th-ranked prospect in the 2024 class, leads the deck of new Cardinals. Berry was originally committed to Clemson, but upon the coaching change there, followed former Tigers’ head coach Amanda Butler, now an assistant on the Cardinals’ staff, to Louisville.

Not far behind Berry at No. 23 in the ESPN HoopGurlz rankings was Mackenly Randolph. Randolph was also the lone freshman representative from any squad at ACC Tipoff. When asked why he brought a freshman, and specifically Randolph, to Charlotte, Walz said: “As we have gone through our practice, [Randolph has been] you know, one of our most consistent players we've had so far and not just making shots, but being vocal, being a leader, being positive.”

Randolph, the daughter of NBA All-Star Zach Randolph, is one of two NBA kids in the Cardinals’ first-year crew, along with Izela Arenas, Gilbert Arenas’ daughter. Of the two, Walz joked that he hasn’t seen much of his basketball knowledge rub off on his fifth-grade daughter, before getting more serious and adding: “I think them being around basketball is a good thing so I think that's exciting for them but I'm not going to sit there and say it's going to rub off.”

While the Louisville freshmen are getting a lot of the shine nationally, Walz is also very excited about the addition of Miami transfer Ja’Leah Williams, especially on the defensive end, noting at a press conference on the first day of practice: “I think she’s one of the best defenders in the ACC.”

Williams and the freshmen will be joining a group of returners that includes Merissah Russell and Olivia Cochran, who have both been to a Final Four. Cochran, who has started every game for the Cardinals the past two seasons, was tied for second in both points and the lead in rebounds for Louisville last season, while also leading the team in steals and blocks. Cochran shared the rebounding lead with Nyla Harris, who also returns. Overall, 52% of the Cardinals’ scoring is back.

Taking another moment to look back at last season, Walz said, “We just turned the ball over too much last season… We just had to value the basketball better,” adding that they’ve been “trying to make sure each day in practice, we get them to understand, you know, I'm not the smartest in the world, but I'm not stupid, and I know if you turn it over, you can't score, so trying to get them to understand shoot the ball before you turn it over, and we've been doing a better job at valuing the basketball in practice, and hopefully that will continue.” 

Walz’s squad will have to get ready quickly, as the Cardinals’ non-conference schedule is challenging, starting with a trip to Paris to take on UCLA. To prepare for their non-conference schedule, Walz says that their practices have been “a little more intense at an earlier point… than [they] have [been] in the past,” which he thinks is especially important with all the newcomers, as it’s going to be a lot of freshmen replacing a freshman if one struggles, not an upperclassman coming in to tighten things up, “but come January I think they're going to have seen enough playing time that they're going to hopefully be able to become consistent.”

No. 19 Florida State

We're getting stronger now, find things they never found 

They might be bigger but we're faster and never scared

The Seminoles are the only team with both a guard and a forward on the All-ACC preseason teams, as forward Makayla Timpson made the list, as did guard Ta’Niya Latson, the latter garnering nine first-place votes. Overall, Florida State returns 75% of its scoring production from a season ago and 82% of its rebounds. Timpson on her own accounted for 10.1 rebounds per game, 30th-best nationally.

To their returners, the Seminoles added four players, but no freshmen, the only team in the league without any first-year players. Two junior college transfers and then Sydney Bowles from Texas A&M and Malea Williams from Cincinnati. Bowles, a guard, made the All-SEC Freshman Team two seasons ago after starting all 29 of the Aggies’ games and leading them in points per contest, but then last year only started one and saw her productivity drop significantly. Still, if she can take the reset that her new environment provides and get back to her freshman form, she could be a big help to the Seminoles’ depth. It’s Williams, though, who I think will be the biggest impact addition.

At Tipoff, head coach Brooke Wyckoff noted that “we were small last year,” and that her staff had been sure to bring in some size. Last season with the Bearcats, Williams ranked in the top third nationally in rebounding and in the top 10% in blocks per game. In addition to that, though, Williams also ranked in the top third nationally in 3-point percentage, not exactly the norm for a forward.

As for Timpson, FSU’s returning all-conference forward, spending more time out of the post towards that 3-point line was one of the main focuses of her offseason work. In a recent interview, she said that over the summer: “I was developing out a little bit more in the perimeter, making sure I get my mid-range game down pretty well… making sure I’ll be able to shoot a couple threes this year, more than I did last year…” The Seminoles adding both size and increased versatility to their arsenal should be a scary proposition for opponents, both because even being undersized in the post they went 23-11 last season and because it’ll take some of the pressure off Latson.

Latson said in Charlotte that the main thing she’d worked on all summer was her leadership, and keeping her teammates involved and their confidence high. Basketball-wise,  it was revealed at Tipoff that the Seminoles have revamped their defensive system.  In an interview with ACC Network, Latson said she’ll be picking up the ball more than she did last season, and we’ll see a little more “electricity from on the defensive end” from her. One of Latson’s goals is to make a defensive all-conference team.

The Seminoles’ two biggest non-conference games are road battles against Tennessee and reigning WBIT champion Illinois. Tennessee and Florida State met last season, with the Seminoles winning a dramatic 92-91 contest. The good news for Florida State is that both of the players that put up 20-plus, and three of its four leading scorers from that night, return, while Rickea Jackson, who scored 31 for Tennessee, has moved on to the WNBA.

No. 15 North Carolina

It’s death by a thousand cuts

It’s much more that it *was* death by a thousand cuts, but I digress. Last season, the Tar Heels just could not stay healthy. It was pretty clear over the course of the season that head coach Courtney Banghart and her team were frustrated by the ongoing injury bug, which started off with two then-incoming freshmen, Ciera Toomey and Laila Hull, opting to take the season to redshirt and recover from pre-UNC injuries. Toomey is a forward, but Hull is a guard, and the latter group was the one hit especially hard by injuries, with guards Kayla McPherson, Paulina Paris and Reniya Kelly all missing significant time.

The Tar Heels ultimately finished 20-13, their season coming to an end in the second round in Columbia against eventual undefeated national champion South Carolina, falling 88-41. UNC had played the Gamecocks earlier in the season, losing by only seven. In the press conference after the NCAA Tournament loss, Banghart said: “The last time we played them, we had three different ball-handling guards in, so Deja [Kelly] could play off the ball some. Now with our roster depletion that wasn't what we could do.” Banghart further notes that “I think they had 50 bench points or something [51]. We had zero.”

While the Taylor Swift lyric quoted above could very easily refer to the ongoing injury bug the Tar Heels battled last season, the song itself is about a woman who, in Swift’s words, “has to end this relationship that she didn't want to end… but they just grew apart.” That seems to be the case with star guard Deja Kelly, who left UNC after the season and transferred to Oregon. Kelly had been the leading scorer on the Tar Heels for three of her four seasons in Chapel Hill, and among the top 10 scorers in the conference in those three seasons.

Now, obviously it’s not my call to say that Kelly didn’t want the relationship to end, but I do think the part about growing apart applies. In a recent TikTok, Kelly addressed her transfer: “I feel like sometimes there gets to a point where you outgrow your environment, you outgrow the people that you were around, and there's nothing wrong with that. Which ultimately led to my decision to transfer.”

The good news for the Tar Heels is that, in addition to getting Toomey (the No. 4 recruit in the 2023 class) and Hull back, UNC will add two more five-star recruits in the form of Blanca Thomas and Lanie Grant. Joining them are Arizona State transfer Trayanna Crisp and Richmond transfer Grace Townsend, both double-digit scorers at their previous stops. Those six players will join a roster that includes returnees Lexi Donarski, Maria Gakdeng and Alyssa Ustby, all three of whom started at least 32 games for the Tar Heels last season and averaged at least nine points a game.

The Tar Heels’ biggest non-conference test will technically be at a neutral site, but seeing as Greensboro is only 55 miles from Carmichael Arena but 710 from UConn’s Gampel Pavilion, it’s essentially a home game.

RV Stanford

It's a new soundtrack, I could dance to this beat, beat, forevermore

While Stanford didn’t officially become an ACC member until August 2, they got a bit of an anticipatory welcome present from NC State in March, as the Wolfpack knocked the Cardinal out of the NCAA Tournament on the infamous uneven 3-point line court. In that game, the Wolfpack overcame a 10-point halftime deficit with a 28-10 third quarter, during which Cardinal All-American Cameron Brink also committed four fouls. She committed her fifth just 1:50 into the fourth quarter. Stanford kept pace with NC State in that final period, only getting outscored by two, but that obviously was not enough.

Kiki Iriafen scored 14 of those 22, though, like Brink and head coach Tara VanDerveer, Iriafen is no longer at Stanford. Add in the graduation of Hannah Jump, and 52 of the Cardinal’s 67 points from that night are gone.

So, there’s a lot in flux in Stanford. Only two starters return, they’re in a new conference, and Stanford was not ranked in the (preseason) AP Poll for the first time since January 2018.

New head coach Kate Paye, a member of VanDerveer’s staff for 17 years and a player on the Cardinal’s 1992 national championship team and the associate head coach on its 2021 championship squad, has leaned into all the newness. “I think kind of having so much change has been helpful,” Paye said. “There's not just one thing that's different. There's a lot of things that are kind of new and different. I think it creates a sense of energy for our staff, for our players.”

Of Stanford’s new league, Paye had already noticed what a lot of the coaches said at Tipoff, saying back in May: “One thing we noticed with the ACC is it was much more of a perimeter-guard-oriented league.” With Brink and Iriafen gone, the Cardinal have the opportunity to go smaller, although they do add two top-100 recruits that are forwards, Ume Kennedy and Harper Peterson, plus Purdue transfer Mary Ashley Stevenson, the 2023-24 Big Ten Media Freshman of the Year.

The two Stanford starters that return are guards Elena Bosgana and Talana Lepolo. While both will have to improve their shooting numbers, both are upperclassmen and should provide a steadying presence on the court. Lepolo especially, as the point guard and as someone who did an excellent job taking care of the ball last season, with a  2.41 assist-to-turnover-ratio that ranked No. 30 in Division I.

The Cardinal have a whopping four non-conference games that fans should have brightly circled, with two on the road in Indiana and LSU, Gonzaga at home on Tara VanDerveer Court unveiling night, and one at a technically-neutral site, although Stanford will be much closer to home at San Francisco’s Chase Center than Ohio State will be.

Finally, at Tipoff, I asked Paye if any ACC fans didn’t stay up for some of those late Pac-12 games last season, what would she want them to look for from her squad. “If this is the first time they're watching our team, they're gonna see really up tempo, unselfish, tough team basketball,” Paye said.

RV Miami

Push the reset button, we're becoming something new

Miami is another ACC squad with a lot of turnover but also a lot of experience in some of the new-to-Coral Gables additions. First off is head coach Tricia Cullop, who  left Toledo after 16 seasons.

When asked what to look for from her team right after her hiring, Cullop said that she and her teams “love uptempo. I want this team… to run and try to create opportunities in transition. I think the other thing you're going to see us do is find great opportunities to shoot the ball. We've always been one of the top assist-turnover teams in our conference [at Toledo], we take good care of it, we take high percentage shots, we set our players up for good opportunities.” At Tipoff, Cullop echoed similar sentiments, adding that after seeing and getting to practice with them, her new team “is in great shape. They want to run. We've got players that can really run the floor. We have great leaders.”

Two players that will be looked to as the leaders this season were in Charlotte with Cullop. Jasmyne Roberts and Haley Cavinder, both members of the Hurricanes’ Elite Eight run two seasons ago, along with Haley’s twin sister Hanna. The Cavinders took a year out of basketball and then Haley nearly transferred to TCU before deciding to return to the Hurricanes. Haley led Miami in scoring two seasons ago, followed by Destiny Harden and then Roberts. Roberts was then second on the team in scoring last season.

Miami also added four transfers, all of whom appeared in at least 31 games for their prior teams and averaged at least 17 minutes per game. The Hurricanes added a familiar face to ACC fans in Notre Dame transfer Natalija Marshall, whose 1.0 blocks per game put her in the top 10% nationally. The most prolific of the new Hurricanes, though, was All-AAC third-team member Daniela Abies from Wichita State, who just missed a double-double season average for the Shockers last season.

As far as the schedule goes, Miami will not leave the state of Florida until a conference game at Pittsburgh on Dec. 15. The big game on their non-conference schedule comes against in-state rival Florida.

Virginia

There's a fire inside of you That can't help but shine through

Third-year head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton was pretty clear at Tipoff about where she wants to take her team after they made it to the WBIT last season, the first postseason appearance for the Cavaliers since 2018. “The next natural step is obviously the big dance, getting back to the NCAA Tournament, where this program used to frequent regularly,” Agugua-Hamilton said.

The postseason breakthrough was led by first-year point guard Kymora Johnson, an All-ACC Second and Freshman Team honoree last season. On the latter list, Johnson trailed only Hannah Hidalgo in voting points received, coming in second for Rookie of the Year by 108 points, but 142 ahead of the third-place finisher, NC State’s Zoe Brooks.

This season, Johnson joined Hidalgo as the only underclassmen on the Preseason All-ACC team, and Johnson also garnered one first-place vote.

Agugua-Hamilton said her team, including Johnson, “are motivated to reach their goals and reach our team goals.” Asked what she worked on in the offseason, Johnson said the “biggest thing is probably leadership and efficiency,” also mentioning that she felt like she was something of a leader as soon as she arrived in Charlottesville, even as a freshman: “It's hard coming in and, like, leading a team, and I didn't take that lightly. I knew it was something I wanted to do.”

Johnson ranked in the top-10% nationally last year in points per game, while her 5.4 assists per game ranked 31st nationally. The Cavaliers’ second-leading scorer and leading rebounder, Camryn Taylor, graduated after last season, but Johnson also ranked second in rebounds per game. Fellow returner Paris Clark came in third in both points and rebounds per game. Johnson and Clark both also ranked in the top 10% nationally in steals per game at 1.8 and 1.6, respectively. They’ll be bolstered in their efforts to improve upon last year’s record by one of the players above them on that list, Casey Valenti-Paea, who averaged two takeaways per game for Long Beach State last season. Also joining the Cavaliers are two of the intra-ACC transfers this season, Latasha Lattimore from Miami and RyLee Grays from UNC, as well as Hawa Doumbouya from Maryland, all three of whom, it could easily be argued, didn’t really get a chance to show what they can do last season. Three freshmen also join Virginia, highlighted by Breona Hurd, the No. 99 prospect in last season’s class.

Last season, Agugua-Hamilton noted that her team was just a few games away from that NCAA Tournament goal, but “a couple games we came in uninterested, a little unserious, and next, you know, we lose that game…” She’ll find out fast if her team is ready to play from early, as the Cavaliers’ second game is a road contest at Oklahoma, which checked in at No. 9 in the preseason AP poll and is predicted to finish fourth in the SEC.

Part 2 coming on Monday!

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