2009 Player Projections: UNC, VPI, and Wake

North Carolina is going to be silly good.

Virginia Tech's Jeff Allen should be a superstar in his sophomore season, but don't expect big breakouts from his four classmates who helped the Hokies to a surprising 9-win ACC season in 2008.

Wake Forest would have a solid 8-man rotation of returnees. Throw in three high-quality incoming freshmen and Dino Gaudio might have trouble finding enough minutes to go around, especially once Jamie Skeen returns to the team in December.

Tourney Preview: (8) Wake Forest vs. (9) Florida State

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The first game of the day also looks to be the closest, and it's the only one in which the TAPE favors the lower seeded team. While the result figures to be close, there's not a whole lot else that's all that compelling about it. Both are right at league-average in terms of defensive efficiency, with Wake giving up 1.0444 points per possession (6th in the ACC) and FSU allowing 1.0465 (7th) in conference play. Both are well below average offensively; FSU ranks 11th-best in league play at 0.9929 points per possession, and Wake isn't all that far ahead in 9th place at 1.0102 points per possession. All of this is a long way of saying that there's not much reason to believe the nooner will be a particularly well-played game.

Neither team has any significant advantages in any category, and neither team is especially well-suited to take advantage of the other's weaknesses. Wake won each of the two regular season meetings, beating the 'Noles 74-57 (66 possessions) on January 20 in Cigarette City and 78-70 (72 possessions) on Valentine's Day in Tallahassee. The first game was more evenly-played than the score would indicate, with Wake Forest winning essentially because they just shot the ball a little better than Florida State. The second game once again saw the Deacons get hot, this time from outside, and hold off the Seminoles despite FSU taking a whopping 21 more field goals than the Deacons (FSU rebounded 20 of their 46 reboundable misses for a whopping 43.48 OR% in the game).

It should be noted that while both teams are projected to take and make a similar number of three-pointers in this game, Florida State shot 26 and 27 three pointers in the first two games (making only 15 of them), while Wake took 28 in the two games combined (and made 14). Those are completely out of line with what each team did in their other games, so I'd be surprised if the trend continues.

Game Previews: The Overshadowed

Let's be honest here: there's only one game that anybody outside of Atlanta, Chestnut Hill, College Park, Coral Gables, Tallahassee, and Winston-Salem really cares about tonight. It's a damn shame, too, because all three promise to be good games. I'm running short on time this evening, so I'll run a paragraph on each along with a link to the respective reports.

The closest of the three is the first game of the night, when Maryland travels to Chestnut Hill to take on the Boston College. Maryland has a small advantage on paper, but when the difference between two teams is 2/3 of a point over 74 possessions it's hard to call them a favorite to win.

Also tipping at 7:00 are Wake Forest and Georgia Tech. The two schools everybody used to get confused with one another when they were kids square off in a game whose winner will reach the halfway point of the ACC season at .500. Wake is just under a 2-point favorite, and they won 55% of the simulations.

A half hour later, Florida State and Miami will tip off before a crowd of dozens. Miami's advantage on the glass makes them a 7-point favorite, making this the biggest mismatch of the night.

12. Wake Forest

2007 ACC Record: 5-11, t-11th in ACC
Projected 2008 Record: 5-11 (912 PARTOBS, .251 raw W%)

Update: It's been pointed out to me that with the unbalanced schedule, who a team actually plays (or avoids playing) can have a tremendous affect on where they sort out in the standings table. With this in mind, I used each team's PARTOBS-derived winning percentage and the LOG5 method to run a Monte Carlo simulation of the 2007-2008 ACC season 100,000 times. Using this information, I can assign a reasonable upside and downside to each team's chances, as well as find out who might have an easier schedule. This information will be included for all teams.

The good news for Wake Forest fans is that the Deacons have been blessed with one of the easier schedules in the league, and the schedule alone is probably going to be worth an extra conference win. Wake will play just six games against the projected top five teams in the league, maximizing their chances to steal games against relatively weaker competition. As a result, their projected record has been bumped up to 5-11.

The bad news is that the Deacons still have the worst projected record in the league.

Projected Player Contributions:

The PARTOBS number next to the team's projected record uses the projected Points, Assists, Rebounds, Turnovers, Blocks, and Steals to arrive at a number that correlates pretty strongly with a team's overall and conference record. The order of the PARTOBS number correlates even more strongly with the order of finish. The predicted order of finish and number of conference wins will be based on that number.

Wake Forest figures to be the worst team in the league, and they've got a shot at being one of the worst teams in the last 20 years. Only eight times in those 196 team-seasons has a team finished with a PARTOBS of less than 912, and those six teams (Wake '88 and '99, Clemson '00 and '04, UVa '98, GT and NCSU '97, and FSU '00) combined for only 33 ACC wins in 126 tries.

Things aren't all bleak for the Deacons, however. Ishmael Smith had a fine freshman season, and freshman point guards who are able to contribute at above-average levels right away tend to have strong careers. Jamie Skeen has an intriguing list of comparable players. Wake has a strong complementary cast in place just waiting for superstars to arrive. The good news for Deacons fans is that help is on the way. The bad news is that it's going to be a long year in Winston-Salem before it arrives.

Pre-Deac-tions

Yeah, that's bad. No more puns in the headlines unless they're really good. Promise. Anyway, Wake Forest's projections are ready.

Next up: Florida State.