Tis the season for endless articles about who’s in and who’s out and what teams still need to do. I love it! If my article from Monday wasn’t enough for you (and I’m sure it wasn’t), read Al Featherston’s lengthy piece at the DBR. Coincidently, Featherston uses the same power ratings I do, but he’s obviously a much better writer.
One point that Featherston makes that I should have mentioned is the role of injuries. The NCAA Tournament Committee has always factored in the impact of key injuries. Lose an important player late in the season, and the committee will round your numbers down. Have an important player return late (like Derrick Whittenberg for that ’83 Wolfpack team) and the committee will round your numbers up.
The two ACC teams that affects are Boston College and Florida State. BC will be seen as slightly worse than their record shows, because they no longer have Sean Williams. In fairness, he’s been gone a while, but they did win a bunch of games with him. For Florida State, if they can get Toney Douglas back before the season’s over, that could really help. In fact, he might be more valuable to them hurt than healthy, assuming he does return. At least this way, they can claim that they would have won another game or two without having to prove it.