ACC (Bi-)Weekly Roundup: Games Played 11/29-12/13
Conference play is looming as teams take breaks for final exams…
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Weekly Recap:
The ACC actually added a fourth AP top-10 team in the Dec. 5 poll (and kept that number in the one released Monday) after having three in the previous two. However, two of those squads picked up their first loss over the intervening week, both on Dec. 1.
First, North Carolina ran into an Indiana team, which, even without star guard Grace Berger, just couldn’t seem to miss. The lead hit double-digits for IU at the 8:36 mark of the 2nd quarter and never came back down, ultimately ending at a 24-point margin, 87-63. The Hoosiers had just the 11th performance this year where a team shot at least 53% overall, 54% from three (while taking at least 20 from distance), and 52% from two. Nine of the other 10 such performances came against non-major conference competition AND against teams in the bottom two-thirds of the Her Hoop Stats ratings. (Hat-tip to Illinois, the outlier, who did it on the road at Pittsburgh.)
Then, in a MUCH closer game that featured no fewer than 15 lead changes and 10 ties, Notre Dame dropped a heartbreaker to Maryland on Diamond Miller’s jumper as time expired. The Fighting Irish actually outshot the Terrapins by 5.2% in the contest. AP voters were clearly among the 201,000 people who watched the exciting contest and saw how well Notre Dame played, as the Irish actually moved up two spots in the Dec. 5 poll, despite the loss.
In that same poll, Louisville fell out of the AP top 25 for the first time since 2016. During the preceding week, Louisville dropped a home game to then-No. 3 Ohio State and a road game at Middle Tennessee State. The two losses, undoubtedly combined with the double-digit margin in both and the fact it was their third and fourth losses, knocked them out of the poll. I do want to give credit to the Cardinals for going on the road to a couple of perennially-strong non-major conference teams (they also visited Belmont, where the Cardinals scratched out a five-point win).
Speaking of going on the road and taking on tough non-major conference competition, Duke traveled to two such teams in the past two weeks. First, they beat Richmond by 51, and then this past Sunday, they flew south to Florida and beat FGCU by 23. The Spiders are ranked 114th in our Her Hoop Stats ratings, while the Eagles are 46th, both in the top third, and Duke also has a road win over No. 52 Toledo. The Blue Devils are now 10-1, and that FGCU win is a heck of a way to go into the finals break and get ready for ACC play to start on the other side.
HHS ACC Players of the (bi-)Week:
I’m still not thrilled with my logistics here, I may switch to one per bi-weekly period once we get into the rhythm of one-to-two games per week in conference play, a more consistent pool of games and player performances for consideration. For now, I’m still going to do one a week.
HHS Week 4 (11/30-12/6): It’s once again really hard to go against the conference office, as Olivia Miles’ Notre Dame squad is the only team that faced two ranked teams during Week 4, won one, and came THIS close to winning the other. Miles was key in both, scoring or assisting on seven of Notre Dame’s last nine points in the loss to Maryland, and then putting up 21 points in the win over UConn. Over those two huge games, she shot 59.3%.
HHS Week 5 (12/7-12/13): During this week, there were no games played by ACC teams against ranked competition. This led to a lot of big performances from conference squads. Two players stood out over the rest, and after staring at their numbers for a solid five minutes, I’m gonna declare my first co-players of the week of the season, Virginia Tech’s Elizabeth Kitley (the conference’s selection) and North Carolina’s Alyssa Ustby. They averaged an identical 11 rebounds over the past week, although Ustby’s were split more evenly (6.5 offensive vs. 4.5 defensive) than Kitley’s (1.5 offensive vs. 9.5 defensive). Kitley averaged more points, 20, compared to Ustby’s 16.5, but it took Ustby 11 fewer (total) minutes to put up her impressive numbers. Ustby’s 16-point, 10-rebound, zero turnover stat line in the Tar Heels’ game against UNC-Wilmington also stood out a bit even when matched up with Kitley’s more impressive scoring output.
Other Week 4 & 5 Performances of Note:
Virginia’s Mir McLean notched a 24-point, 13-rebound double-double on the road as the Cavaliers handed Penn State its first loss, 89-68.
NC State’s Saniya Rivers and Diamond Johnson both scored 22 in then-No. 8 NC State’s 94-81 road takedown of then-No. 12 Iowa.
In the close Maryland loss, Notre Dame’s Sonia Citron put up a 24-point, 10-rebound double-double, including three rebounds in the final quarter and the basket with 15 seconds to play to tie the game.
Georgia Amoore recorded the first triple-double in Virginia Tech program history in the Hokies’ convincing 85-54 win against Nebraska. She put up 24 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds, and only committed one turnover.
In her “off” week (ha), Miles put up a triple-double of her own, scoring 13, pulling down 13 rebounds, and dishing out 14 assists in a 108-44 win against Merrimack. She now sits alone in the Fighting Irish record books as the only player to have three career triple-doubles.
Pitt’s Amber Brown put up 20 points and 17 rebounds in an overtime two-point loss to Ball State. Three of those rebounds came in the five-minute overtime period.
Looking ahead:
The first big conference game of the season comes this Sunday, as No. 5 Notre Dame travels to No. 6 Virginia Tech. It will be a matchup of the last two ACC Players of the Week, although I’m not sure how much 6-foot-6 center Kitley and 5-foot-10 guard Miles will be matching up. Miles will have a worthy positional foe, though, in the other player to notch a triple-double recently, Amoore. As far as the teams go, there are a few categories where the two squads are within a single spot of one another (opponent 2-point percentage and points per play) and a bunch more where they’re both in the top 10% nationally.
What may be more intriguing though, are the multiple categories where the one squad excels at one thing and the other excels at the inverse. The Fighting Irish are scoring the fourth-most points in the country, but in the Hokies, they’ll be facing a team allowing the third-fewest opponent points. Notre Dame is, overall, the better-rebounding team, but Virginia Tech’s defensive rebounding rate is 25th at 74.9%, while the Fighting Irish come in 52nd at 73.5%. On the flip side, Notre Dame’s 44.3% offensive rebounding rate is fifth nationally, while the Hokies’ 34.8% is 90th. Both of the less-impressive rebounding rates are still in the top third nationally though, so to call them weaknesses would be a huge stretch. All of these close and excellent numbers somewhat explain why, even with the game at home for the Hokies in Cassell Coliseum, our predictor is expecting Virginia Tech to win by just 4.1 points, with a Hokies’ win probability of 63.5%. Were the game on a neutral floor, it has the prediction at a 0.2-point win for the Hokies and just a 50.7% win probability. Should be a heck of a game. You can watch it on ACC Network on Sunday at 4 p.m. ET.
The other big game over the next couple weeks takes place in Charlotte, as No. 7 North Carolina and No. 19 Michigan will face off in the inaugural Jumpman Invitational. While the game is technically on a neutral floor, the Tar Heels will be playing just a two-hour drive from Carmichael Arena, while the Wolverines will be nearly a 10-hour drive away from Crisler Center. Both teams are in the top 20 in all three Her Hoop Stats ratings (overall, offensive, and defensive).
The two teams came into this season in very different positions, personnel-wise, as UNC returned every player but one from its roster last season, including all three of its double-digit scorers and its top three rebounders. Meanwhile, Michigan came into the season looking to replace all-everything, including AP 1st Team All-American, Naz Hillmon. With her gone, Leigha Brown has stepped up her game, but the two even more impressive improvements have been from Laila Phelia and Emily Kiser, who have increased their player efficiency rating (PER) by 82% and 105%, respectively. (H/T to SkinsHoops86 on Twitter for pulling those numbers together). The game airs at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday on ESPN2.
This should be a fun game to watch. If it were on a true neutral floor, our predictor is giving the Tar Heels a 54.4% chance to win. With the game nearly in the Tar Heels’ backyard, we’re also going to note that were the game at home, our predictor would give UNC a 67.8% chance of winning.
Honorable mention:
Florida State vs. UConn (in Uncasville, Conn.), 12/18 at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN
Standings/Tiers:
As things start to shake out, we’ll begin to see separation amongst the squads, but for the nonconference part of the season, we’ll just include the standings:
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Very excited the Hokies will be playing still in waking (viewing) hours in the UK. Cassell will be bumping.