By Russ Brown
Special to NKyTribune
LOUISVILLE — Raise your hand if you figured that approaching one-third of the way through the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball schedule, Clemson, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh would be near the top of the standings. Or that Duke and Virginia would be fighting to stay at .500.
So far, the only team that has justified its preseason billing is North Carolina, which was picked to win the championship and is 5-0. Other than that, hardly anything has gone as expected.
The 15-team league is topsy-turvy. Two-time defending champ Virginia, Duke, Notre Dame and Miami were picked to finish 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively. They may still wind up in some semblance of that order, but right now they are 9th, 6th, 7th and 8th.
A ranked Duke team (No. 20/12) has lost three straight to unranked teams — Miami, Clemson and Florida State — for the first time since the 1968-69 season. Clemson has beaten three ranked teams in a row, including Louisville, for the first time ever. Virginia Tech is 4-1 in the ACC for the first time since 2008-09.
More proof of parity in the new ACC: NC State is 0-5, but three of its losses have come by five points or less (including 77-72 to UofL) and another was by seven. And the Wolfpack gave the Heels fits for most of the game last Saturday in Chapel Hill. The only teams that look like they’re in over their heads are Boston College (0-4) and Wake Forest (1-4).
UofL basketball coach Rick Pitino, who knows something about these things, has some advice for his players, fans and the media: get used to it.
“I’ll tell you what I tell the team, which is basically buckle your seat belts because it’s gonna be one helluva ride in the ACC,” Pitino said during his news conference Tuesday afternoon to preview Wednesday night’s game against Florida State. “It reminds me so much of the Big East in its prime in terms of, you see it going one way, then all of a sudden you see now you have Virginia and Clemson near the top, you see Georgia Tech playing real well.
“Syracuse looks like they’re out of it, now they get hot. Duke loses three, Virginia loses three and then suddenly the thing’s upside down, and then it will turn back. It will be a roller coaster ride that will drive fans and coaches crazy, but it will be a lot of fun playing this type of competition, needless to say.”
At least one fellow Hall of Fame coach agrees with him.
“Winning is difficult in this league,” Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski says. “It’s really difficult. And it will be really difficult for us. And it has been in the first (six) games. Boston College is undermanned, but the rest of the teams can win. Overall, there’s not much difference.”
But the ACC isn’t alone, in Pitino’s opinion. He mentioned the Big Ten, where upstarts Indiana and Iowa are leading the pack as Michigan State and defending champion Wisconsin falter.
Unlike last year, when Kentucky held the No. 1 spot in both polls en route to an undefeated regular season, five different teams have been ranked No. 1 — and all have lost. Oklahoma had the top spot for only a few hours before being upset at Iowa State Monday night.
“In college basketball in every conference it’s interesting this year more than any other years,” he says. “It surprises me, the losing streaks, the winning streaks. It looks like Syracuse isn’t playing well, all of a sudden they’re playing great. It looks like Clemson’s not playing well, all of a sudden they’re playing great. Seton Hall in the Big East has a tough loss to Creighton, then all of a sudden they turn around and they have a great win at (No. 16/17) Providence. Iowa goes into Michigan State (and blows out the Spartans). This is a crazy year in college basketball. Some things you can’t predict.”
Pitino named Oklahoma, Kansas and West Virginia as “dominating” teams from the Big 12, along with UNC in the ACC and Villanova in the Big East right now.
“It’s fun. It’s a lot of fun,” Pitino says. “It’s nervewracking. You’ve got to play every game like it’s the last game on your schedule and come March, we’ll see where we are. I don’t know where we’re gonna be, but we’re all gonna be fighting come March for wins.”
With a win over Florida State (1-5, 2-3) Thursday in the KFC Yum! Center (9:05 p.m. tipoff), No. 16/17 UofL (14-3, 3-1) can move into a three-way tie with Pitt and Virginia Tech for third place in the ACC before embarking on back-to-back road games against Georgia Tech Saturday and the Hokies next Wednesday.
The Cardinals are coming off their best defensive performance of the season in last Thursday’s 59-41 win over then-No. 20/17 Pitt when they held one of the nation’s most efficient offensive teams to 28.6 percent shooting and forced 19 turnovers.
Now the question is, can they duplicate that intense showing or was it a temporary upgrade? Pitino isn’t sure.
“I think any time you have a totally new basketball team every game’s a journey,” he says. “I don’t think you can say that just because they played great defense against Pitt, it’s always going to be there. They took a lot of pride in what they did in terms of their defense and they feel good about it. But now they’re gonna go against a different type of team in terms of one-on-one ability.”
Senior guard Damion Lee says it’s too early to tell if the Cards have turned the corner and are ready to play the type of defense on a consistent basis that Pitino demands.
“Not yet,” Lee says. “Can’t say that because it’s just one game and basketball’s a game where things can change game to game. So now it’s build off this. In the Clemson game we took two steps back, and (vs. Pitt) we took a step forward. So we need to keep taking those steps forward and progressing.”
UofL is also eager to see if its two leading scorers, Lee and Trey Lewis, can snap out of a shooting slump that has seen them combine for just just 22.6 percent shooting (14-62) in their last three games, including 4-of-32 from 3-point percent range.
“I don’t think they’re struggling shooting,” Pitino insists. “I think they’re taking bad shots. If they take good shots they’ll shoot a high percentage. So they’re getting the penalty of taking challenged shots.”
NO COMMENT–Pitino declined to answer a question about a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal over the weekend that he is interested in the UNLV coaching job.
“Next question,” he said.
But his son, Richard, the Minnesota coach, addressed the issue briefly during his weekly radio show Monday, saying there is “zero truth” to the report. And as far as him accompanying his dad to the desert, he said, “I’ve done three years of hard time working for him. I don’t want to go back to that.”