One of the problems facing college basketball right now is the unprecedented popularity of college football.
Even the so-called dog games in the latter sport hold our attention. Butler's riveting basketball upset of Indiana didn't rivet as many people as two no-account bowl games: The New Mexico Bowl (Arizona-Nevada) and Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (Utah State-Toledo) drew overnight ratings of 1.9 and 1.8, respectively. The Butler-Indiana game? A 1.5. Ouch.
So we rail on the multitude of weak bowl matchups, we rail on some truly bad football -- cough, VIRGINIA TECH-RUTGERS!, cough, cough -- but the bottom line is we keep watching while we rail.
The college football season builds to the crescendo of BCS games, capped by the title game, and then it's over and we're supposed to be totally captivated by a college basketball season that will play a 65-team postseason tournament two months from now.
This isn't a death knell for the sport, and it's still compelling to watch when you do watch. But just saying it's an issue right now, or seems to be. College football has never been more popular, and the popularity of college basketball is in some question for varying reasons.
All of this is said to explain why I'm just now playing catchup on ACC basketball. It's been harder than usual to get jazzed about it, but this article by The Washington Post does a pretty good job of summing up the developments to date.
The article contains a long quote from Roy Williams about "top to bottom, the league is the best it's been" and "if you take somebody lightly you're going to lose," which is basically what every coach in every conference has been saying since 1949.
Also covered, though, is defense as the defining characteristic of this season. If you're a Clemson fan and you were embarrassed by that 10-spot the Tigers put up in the first half at Duke recently, don't fret too much because your team has company.
A sizable drop in scoring has coinicided with the conference’s increased balance. Eight teams are averaging less than 63 points per conference game and no team is shooting better than 44.9 percent from the field. Entering its Tuesday home matchup against Boston College, Maryland has become known for slugfests, with halftime margins that read like middling football games. At Miami: 19-14. Against North Carolina State: 22-16. At North Carolina: 42-20.
N.C. State put up 84 points in a win over Duke on Jan. 16, and after that 16-point half at Maryland they produced just 66 against Clemson.
On Jan. 5 at Clemson, Florida State couldn't miss in the first half while building a 38-25 halftime lead. Three days ago at Virginia, the Noles put up 15 in the first half.
Virginia's first-half outputs against North Carolina, Wake Forest and Clemson: 24, 22, 20.
As recently as the 2007-08 season, all 12 ACC teams averaged more than 68 points per conference games. The following season, every team averaged more than 67.
This season, in the 26 games since Jan. 5, teams have scored fewer than 60 points 18 times, including Florida State’s 36 points against Virginia on Saturday.
There is no single cause for the trend.
There are few elite scorers in the ACC, and teams such as Virginia and Clemson insist on a grind-it-out philosophy of defense-focused basketball. Turgeon, for instance, preaches a defense-first mind-set, focusing on team principles that often force contested outside shots.
“The parity in the league, it’s early in the conference season, guys are still feeling guys out,” said first-year Virginia Tech Coach James Johnson, who spent five seasons with the Hokies as an assistant coach. “I think the league has been a very good defensive league anyway. I think it’s young. You put a lot of young players out there on the floor, the inconsistency with certain guys, you can see that.
“You’ll see the scores come up a little bit as the season goes on.”
LW
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