I had a longer writeup of the weekend’s games in the works (meaning “in my head”), but time’s running out, so I’ll just do a quickie and get you the updated ratings chart.
I already wrote up my feelings about that Carolina-Virginia travesty. That article, as you might imagine, has gotten some attention. It seems that I touched a nerve and wrote what many people were feeling.
Two post-game quotes from the coaches in that game caught my attention. First was Pete Gillen blaming the loss on the fact that Virginia had played a game just two nights earlier. It wasn’t an excuse he explained, just “a fact.” He went to further justify the effort by saying that the sun was in the players’ eyes and their grandmothers had all just died.
The other quote was this doozy from Roy Williams, “Pete has more desire in his little finger than all the Cavalier fans in the world.” Now, I understand that coaches like to stick up for one another and that Gillen is a particularly likable guy. But there was no need for Roy to belittle Virginia fans. That’s just asinine. It’s not like they are jumping on Gillen after only a couple of seasons. He’s had plenty of time to get the program headed in the right direction, but just failed. I wonder what Roy thinks of Carolina fans who had the gall to call for Matt Doherty’s head after just three seasons?
In the other games of the weekend, Wake held off a hot-shooting Miami team. The Deacons still aren’t playing good defense, but I guess it’s good when you are only down two at the half to a team that hit 10-11 three pointers.
NC State went down to Clemson and earned a critical win. That win kept their hopes alive for a tournament berth. You have to steal some road wins in this conference, and Clemson is usually a place to get one. You don’t even need to steal one in Charlottesville this year. They are handing them out just off of route 29. Just slow your bus down a bit.
Duke spanked Virginia Tech on Sunday night in a pretty rough game. Duke haters world-wide were screaming about the unbalanced foul total in the game, but the part that I watched looked pretty fair. The Hokies were just trying too hard and not playing smart. That happens in Cameron a lot. Teams get jacked up and try to do things they aren’t capable of.
The most interesting game of the weekend was the one with the team that’s having a disappointing season, but just got a huge win over a top ten team and is trying to continue their winning ways. Actually, that described both teams in the Maryland-Georgia Tech game. The Terps got the big home win, but the Yellow Jackets actually played fairly well. I’m starting to wonder if the B.J. Elder injury isn’t shaping up to be a Derrick Whittenburg situation? I’m not saying that they’ll have the success that the Cardiac Pack had, but the similarities are there.
OK, and now on to the table of ratings. It’s a bit complicated now, because I put the current and previous ratings in there for each team. It makes for a lot of numbers. I’ll probably fiddle around with the formatting in the future to make it a bit easier to read.
A couple interesting things – Miami wasn’t hurt by their loss to Wake. In fact, the computers liked the result and moved them up a bit.
State is still climbing and is now in at-large bid territory in the power ratings. Their RPI still sucks, but that will continue to improve as they play tougher teams.
The Hokies weren’t hurt by their big loss to Duke, but they still have a ways to go to convince the computers that they are for real.
ACC Team ratings on 1/31/2004:
| Team | prev/cur | Pomeroy | Sagarin | Greenfield | RPI | Trend |
| Carolina | prev | 70.38 (2) | 93.50 (3) | 95.465 (3) | .6520 (9) |  |
| cur | 70.64 (2) | 94.46 (2) | 96.025 (2) | .6516 (8) | ||
| Wake Forest | prev | 68.77 (3) | 91.53 (8) | 96.769 (2) | .6712 (3) |  |
| cur | 68.47 (3) | 91.93 (6) | 94.638 (4) | .6692 (3) | ||
| Duke | prev | 67.14 (5) | 93.86 (2) | 94.745 (4) | .6693 (4) | |
| cur | 67.44 (5) | 94.00 (3) | 94.515 (5) | .6658 (5) | ||
| Maryland | prev | 61.16 (27) | 85.27 (25) | 85.833 (30) | .5992 (28) | |
| cur | 61.86 (21) | 86.29 (21) | 86.919 (26) | .6098 (22) | ||
| Georgia Tech | prev | 61.98 (22) | 86.12 (21) | 84.652 (39) | .6017 (26) | |
| cur | 61.61 (25) | 85.65 (27) | 85.909 (31) | .5948 (28) | ||
| Miami | prev | 56.09 (74) | 82.06 (48) | 82.849 (55) | .5662 (60) | |
| cur | 56.20 (72) | 82.11 (46) | 82.946 (52) | .5691 (58) | ||
| NC State | prev | 57.91 (48) | 81.23 (56) | 81.119 (80) | .5268 (124) | |
| cur | 58.97 (42) | 82.35 (43) | 82.872 (53) | .5388 (97) | ||
| Clemson | prev | 57.74 (53) | 81.31 (55) | 82.136 (61) | .5668 (59) | |
| cur | 56.72 (64) | 80.70 (63) | 80.899 (77) | .5549 (74) | ||
| Virginia | prev | 55.20 (90) | 80.38 (66) | 82.152 (59) | .5740 (51) | |
| cur | 54.91 (93) | 80.28 (69) | 81.036 (75) | .5670 (59) | ||
| FSU | prev | 56.41 (70) | 80.38 (66) | 80.990 (82) | .5385 (102) |  |
| cur | 56.51 (68) | 79.55 (79) | 81.003 (76) | .5372 (108) | ||
| VA Tech | prev | 53.67 (110) | 78.21 (101) | 78.492 (120) | .5166 (146) | |
| cur | 53.27 (112) | 77.83 (102) | 79.242 (105) | .5189 (142) |
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