ACC Roundup: New Year, new season
Games played 12/18-12/31
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We had some conference games over the past two weeks, but non-conference contests were still the majority. The average NET Ranking of ACC non-conference opponents over this timeframe was 217. The average HHS rating was 220. There are 363 Division I teams. So, not much to write (home) about.
The good news, overall, is that the ACC acquitted itself well over the stretch, going 6-1 in the games against the top-100 squads and 17-2 against the others.
Overall this non-conference season, the ACC went 144-71, a 67% winning percentage. The wins came against teams with an average HHS rating of 216, while the losses came against teams with an average HHS rating of 65.
Which teams have an argument for the best win? Notre Dame against USC, Louisville and NC State against Tennessee, and Stanford against Washington and Oregon. Those are the five wins by ACC teams over squads currently in the top 35 of HHS rating.
Which team had the worst loss of the non-conference slate? Pitt, against Scranton, and it’s not particularly close. It’s just not acceptable for a power conference school to lose to a Division III one.
Now, it’s time to mostly wipe the slate, as most coaches consider conference play its own mini-season, separate from non-conference and postseason contests.
HHS ACC Player of the Bi-Week: Toby Fournier, Duke
Runners-up: Hannah Hidalgo and Cassandre Prosper, Notre Dame, and Grace Oliver, Wake Forest
In a two-week period where the ACC’s non-conference opponents were collectively underwhelming, Duke was the only team to play three teams that rank in the top 105 in both NET and HHS rating: South Dakota State, Syracuse and Belmont. Fournier put up 20-plus point, seven-plus rebound performances against all three, leading Duke to sweep the trio of contests, two of which came in true road games. She was one of just three ACC players to score 22-plus twice over the past two weeks.
Hidalgo was another one of those three. She also notched her second career triple-double against Bellarmine, putting up 30 points, 10 assists and 13 steals, plus five rebounds in the 72-point Fighting Irish win. Hidalgo now has the two top steals performances in the country this season, as her 13 against the Knights is second only to the 16 she grabbed against Akron. She is now second all-time on Notre Dame’s career steals list, having passed head coach Niele Ivey. Hidalgo’s 350 steals are 31 shy of Skylar Diggins’s career record. She also now holds the Notre Dame record for most career 30-point games with 13 and she has tied Arike Ogunbowale’s Fighting Irish record of 60 career 20-plus point games.
Prosper was the only ACC player to have more than one 15-plus point double-double over the past two weeks, averaging 19 points, 12 rebounds, four steals, and two blocks in a pair of wins over Pitt and Bellarmine.
Oliver went 14-for-14 against Gardner-Webb on Monday, the first time since 2016 a player has shot 100% on 14 or more attempts (Tinara Moore of Central Michigan went 16-for-16), and just the fourth since the turn of the century, per Wake Forest.
Other Performances of Note (alphabetically):
Paris Clark, Virginia: The senior guard was one of two ACC players to put up a 12-assist double-double over the past two weeks, one of just 15 such performances in the country this season.
Mikayla Johnson, Pitt: The redshirt junior was just one of three conference players, joining Toby Fournier and Hannah Hidalgo, to score 22-plus more than once over the past two weeks. Johnson scored 22 against Hidalgo’s Fighting Irish and 23 against Duquesne.
Mackenzie Nelson, Virginia Tech: The redshirt sophomore was one of two ACC players to put up a 12-assist double-double over the past two weeks, one of just 15 such performances in the country this season.
Lara Somfai, Stanford: The freshman forward pulled down 18 rebounds against Cornell, one of just 35 18-plus rebound performances in the country this season.
My votes and the results for ACC Player and Rookie of the Week the past two weeks
Please note: SIDs and coaches submit the players they want considered, we don’t have free rein to pick anyone
Votes for the week of 12/22:
Marissa’s Player of the Week: Courtney Ogden, Stanford
Marissa’s Rookie of the Week: Lara Somfai, Stanford
Actual Player of the Week: Kymora Johnson, Virginia
Actual Rookie of the Week: Uche Izoje, Syracuse
Player of the Week this week was HARD. Just this week, among submitted players:
Toby Fournier averaged 23 points and 12.5 rebounds against two teams with an average HHS Rating of 65 and an average NET ranking of 77.
Imari Berry put up 15 points, 13 rebounds, three assists and four steals against Tennessee, the No. 17 AP-ranked team that is No. 27 in the NET and No. 26 in HHS Rating.
Hannah Hidalgo notched a triple-double.
Kymora Johnson scored 41.
Two others averaged a double-double on the week in Florida State’s Jasmine Shavers and Syracuse’s Uche Izoje.
True, Courtney Ogden’s stat lines over the course of the week aren’t nearly as flashy as any of those, but without Ogden’s scoring contribution, the Cardinal don’t win. Stanford’s opponents over the last week, then-No. 22 Washington and Oregon, average a NET ranking of 28 and an HHS Rating of 33. The win over the Huskies was the Cardinal’s first ranked win since March 8, 2024. In that contest, Ogden contributed eight of her 12 points in the final frame, in which Stanford outscored Washington 25-12, to help the Cardinal close out the Huskies after they trailed by eight after three.
Okay, I admittedly thought Rookie of the Week was obvious because of quality of opponent. However, I had the unfair advantage of knowing, thanks to Syracuse’s radio broadcast of the game against Mercyhurst, that the Lakers had no one healthy taller than 5-foot-11, allowing the six-foot-three Izoje to go off for 23 points on 10-for-12 shooting, 11 rebounds and three blocks.
That said, I voted for Stanford’s Lara Somfai. I already discussed the quality of the Cardinal’s opponents above, and Somfai added 14 points against both Washington and Oregon and averaged 7.5 rebounds across the two contests.
Votes for the week of 12/29:
Marissa’s Player of the Week: Grace Oliver, Wake Forest
Marissa’s Rookie of the Week: Lara Somfai, Stanford
Actual Player of the Week: Grace Oliver, Wake Forest
Actual Rookie of the Week: Lara Somfai, Stanford
As I mentioned above, Oliver had a historic performance against Gardner-Webb, becoming just the first player since 2016 to shoot 100% on at least 14 field goal attempts. Being the first to do something in nearly a decade makes for a pretty high bar for anyone else to clear and swipe player of the week.
Somfai was the clear winner of the rookies submitted, for reasons I also stated above.
Looking ahead:
From this point on, with the exception of a mid-January Notre Dame/UConn tilt, it’s all ACC play all the time.
The next two weeks have a number of games that pretty much everyone who watches college basketball will have circled. Chief among them are Notre Dame at Duke this Sunday (noon ET, ACC Network), North Carolina at Notre Dame on the 11th (1 p.m. ET, ESPN), and, possibly for the slightly more dedicated, the Blue Devils and Tar Heels against Stanford (Jan. 11, 5 p.m. ET, ESPN and Sunday, 1 p.m. ET, ESPN, respectively), but there’s also a lot of measuring stick games on the calendar for other conference squads.
There are four games on the schedule over the next two weeks that our predictor expects to be within a single point. With the exception of Notre Dame at Duke, the other three are games the casual women’s basketball fan probably doesn’t have circled on their calendar. However, if you like close games, you should check out Virginia at Florida State on Jan. 4 (2 p.m. ET, ACC Network), Florida State at Syracuse today (6 p.m. ET, ACCNX), and Virginia Tech at Syracuse on Jan. 8 (6 p.m. ET, ACCNX).
Overall, of the 34 games over the next two weeks, according to our predictor: 20 have an expected margin of 10 or fewer, nine have an expected margin between 10 and 20, and five have an expected margin of 29 or more.
Finally, for the first time this season, the conference standings:
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