Crowded basketball standings take their cue from ACC football’s Coastal Division
When no one was looking, ACC basketball turned into football’s Coastal Division. With N.C. State’s loss at Louisville on Thursday, there are now five – 5! – teams tied for first place at 5-1, a full third of the league jammed atop the standings a third of the way through conference play.
Two of them were expected to be there: Duke and Virginia appear to be the class of the league and among the elite national-title contenders. North Carolina, talent-wise, is right with them, but the Tar Heels are a bit of a surprise given the amount of hand-wringing that’s taken place over their play in Chapel Hill. And then there’s Louisville and Syracuse, two teams that are equally surprising but took different paths to this spot.
Much of the credit for Louisville’s strong start goes to Chris Mack, an excellent hire to clean up the mess Rick Pitino left behind. The Cardinals offered hints of this in the preseason, handing Michigan State its first loss, but they have also benefited from an exceptionally weak schedule. Louisville caught North Carolina on the offest of off nights – the Cardinals had something to do with that, but there were so many self-inflicted wounds as well – and of its other five ACC games has played one likely NCAA tournament team, the Wolfpack.
Those two wins are certainly worth noting, but Louisville has otherwise been bottom-feeding and lost at home to Pittsburgh. All that said, even if Louisville struggles to keep pace with its other neighbors in first place, the Cardinals have certainly played their way into NCAA contention, not something necessarily expected going into the season.
Then there’s Syracuse, two months early with its typical out-of-nowhere surge. The Orange was left for dead in December and came back to life in January, a phenomenon typically seen with Syracuse in the ACC – dead! – and NCAA – alive! – tournaments. There are some extenuating factors here as well, most notably the improvement of point guard Frank Howard, who missed the first four games of the season and took weeks to get up to speed. Syracuse also caught Duke without two starters, although Tyus Battle and Elijah Hughes shot the ball well enough that night to give full-strength Duke a run.
This is what Syracuse was supposed to be, and after a grim start the Orange is starting to play like it. Still hard to fathom that home loss to Georgia Tech, though. Just like it would be hard to fathom N.C. State’s loss at Wake Forest if it hadn’t happened so many times. If Markell Johnson hadn’t gotten hurt against Pittsburgh, the Wolfpack might be in that five-way tie at 5-1 instead of Louisville.
The bottom of the standings is just as crowded as the top with five teams either 1-4 or 1-5 and a few parallel surprises. It’s no shock to see Wake Forest and Boston College at the back of the line, but Notre Dame? Miami? Clemson? Injuries and other absences have left the Irish and the Hurricanes critically short-handed while Clemson opened ACC play on a Duke-Syracuse-Virginia run. There’s still hope for the Tigers.
More notable, perhaps: Who isn’t there. Pittsburgh lost Kevin Stallings’ final 22 ACC games but Jeff Capel needed only two to get his first win. It would take some doing, but .500 isn’t out of reach.
Either way, Saturday’s Wake Forest-Boston College game is going to kick someone out of last – but it’s possible the five-way tie at the top could survive the weekend.
Even if it still feels like a three-team race for the title (Duke, Virginia and North Carolina) and a one-team race for last place (Wake Forest), it has been a more dynamic season so far than anyone could have expected. It’s a lot like the Coastal Division, except that the reward for winning is a lot better than the right to lose to Clemson in the title game.
This story was originally published January 25, 2019 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Crowded basketball standings take their cue from ACC football’s Coastal Division."
