The Clemson Tigers ended one of the most historic streaks of college basketball last season and took down the North Carolina Tar Heels for the first time in Chapel Hill. UNC is better in 2020-21, but so is Clemson, who is entering their latest ACC invasion as a top-20 team. Our experts watched the match and others of the weekend’s top matches, while also highlighting the current state of the race for the 2021 Wood Prize and some of the most important recent departures on university hoops.
(Editor’s note: Clemson in North Carolina was postponed Friday)
Jump to the predictions for this weekend’s top matches
It took 60 games and 93 years before Clemson won in Chapel Hill, and it looks like there is a fair chance the Tigers in the 19th position on Saturday (19:00 ET, ESPN) will make two straight. How do you think this tar heel team will be positioned in March? Give fans one reason to think it could still be a relevant team in North Carolina. (Editor’s note: Clemson in North Carolina was postponed Friday).
Myron Medcalf, senior college basketball writer: I think this group will still play an 8- or 9-seed, but I do not know that it will progress. These tar heels, which grab a lot of offensive rebounds but can’t do much with the opportunities for the second chance because they can’t shoot, seem vulnerable for a first round in this crazy year.
With Caleb Love on the floor, they yielded just 92 points per 100 possessions and converted on nearly one-fifth of their possessions, according to hooplens.com. If they can not figure out the point guard game, they will have more problems in the coming months. Relevance? Well, they still have a bunch of former five-star recruits and a top-20 defensive unit. If the offensive efficiency improves, they could win matches in March. Can be.
Jeff Borzello, college basketball insider: With the start of the season, my biggest concern about the tar heels was their wing score and whether they could find consistent shooting. I assumed Garrison Brooks and Armando Bacot would take down most of the inside, I loved Day’Ron Sharpe in high school and I expected Love to be an elite points guard pretty quickly. The last part has not happened yet, and it was a big problem.
Carolina is struggling with turnover and struggling to make shots of 3, and I’m not sure if any of the changes are going to be any time soon. That said, I do not think the top of the ACC is very good, so they should finish in the top six or seven of the league and make the NCAA tournament ranked 9-10. This team has defended better than previous versions of Carolina, the inside group is still elite and I still hold out hope for love.
John Gasaway, College Basketball Writer: It could still be a relevant UNC team, because the Tar Heels are doing two things very well. North Carolina plays defense and drops the offensive glass. As for the shooting, did I mention that North Carolina is playing defense and crashing the offensive glass? These two qualities may be sufficient to complete two or three games above 0.500 in ACC and earn a number 9 series in the tournament. If nothing else, the heels can always miss a shot (it sometimes happens) and can count on Brooks, Bacot or Sharpe.
Joe Lunardi, ESPN Bracketologist: What the tar heels really need is for Cole Anthony to get a year younger. The former star of last season would be quite a missing piece for this year’s crooked team. In the real world, however, North Carolina’s perimeter has a long way to go to balance its productive foreland. UNC’s size is still a major advantage, but the rest of the group will be seriously surpassed against the best teams in the country. Luckily, it turns out that none of the very best teams play in the ACC, so the Heels have to sneak into the tournament. However, they will not wear white, and the first four are out of the question.
The watch list of 25 players of the Wood Award was announced on Wednesday night. What would the top 3 of your wooden voice look like now?
Medcalf: Let’s be honest. Luka Garza of Iowa takes all three places, right? I think the field is fighting for second place. If I had told you before the season that Garza, who finished second to Obi Toppin in last year’s race, would return as a big 11-footer, shooting 49% off the 3-point line, 66% from inside bow and 74% from the charity line, all for the best attacking team in America on KenPom, you may not have believed me. But that’s what happened. This is his award.
For no. 2 I choose Gonzaga’s Corey Kispert. During the 2013-14 season, Doug McDermott averaged 26.7 points and 7.0 rebounds per game, while committing 45% of his three-point efforts. Kispert achieved an average of 21.6 PPG, 4.5 RPG and 2.2 APG for the no. 1-team in America, while making 51% of his three-point efforts, despite playing alongside a point guard, Jalen Suggs. this year’s NBA draft. Nr. 3 would be Ayo Dosunmu of Illinois (23.0 PPG).
Flight: Garza, Jared Butler of Baylor and Hunter Dickinson of Michigan. To be clear, Dickinson was not included in the middle of season 25, and he will not actually come within a mile of the Wood Prize. He’s a rookie who’s not hyped up to a significant degree before the season, so he will not be able to compensate the ground against the (worthy!) Like Garza and Butler. But everyone does me a favor and compares the young man’s two-point accuracy and possession usage to what we saw two years ago from a certain (rightly!) Fourth year at Duke. This is an enlightening comparison.
Monday: Garza is the obvious number one choice, and that is unlikely to change. After that, I go with the best players in the two best teams, Drew Timme from Gonzaga and Jared Butler from Baylor. If pressed, Butler and Ayo Dosunmu would actually be tied for third place. And, randomly, how confusing would it be if Butler had a star named Jared Baylor?
Borzello: I think Garza is the obvious choice at the moment. He entered the season as the most popular favorite to win the Wooden Award, and he did not disappoint either. His ‘bad’ games are still 18 and 6, 22 and 9, 16 and 14. Those numbers on their own are perhaps good enough to get a player on an All-America team. I will work with Dosunmu on no. 2 go, although I think there’s a pretty big gap between Garza and Dosunmu. Dosunmu scored at least 30 points on three occasions, was very good in late situations and improved his outside shooting dramatically.
I like Gasaway’s Hunter Dickinson exclamation, and Jared Butler will be on my All-American team in the mid-season, but I’ll be choosing with Gonzaga players for my no. 3. The first few weeks of the season, it would have been Suggs. Then Timme would have been the choice. At the moment, however, Kispert is playing out of his mind. He has scored at least 25 points in three of his last four games, shooting 75.8% from 2 and 50.8% from 3.
Four players who were on the initial Wooden Watch list – Keyontae Johnson (Florida), Caleb Mills (Houston), Chris Smith (UCLA) and Oscar Tshiebwe (West Virginia) – will not be playing again this season. Which of their teams can best withstand the absence and make some noise in March, and who is in the biggest trouble?
Borzello: I’ll go with Houston. I think the Cougars are clearly the class of the AAC, with or without Mills, and that probably means they have to go to the NCAA Tournament in the best shape in terms of boring. Kelvin Sampson was also loaded on the perimeter. Quentin Grimes had the type of season we would all expect from high school a few years ago, Marcus Sasser is great and DeJon Jarreau is an everyday type. The freshman Tramon Mark also had his moments.
I actually think all four teams need to survive the absence and make it to the NCAA Tournament, but Florida is perhaps in the most trouble. Keyontae Johnson was the best player of the four aforementioned absentees, and although the transfers Anthony Duruji (Louisiana Tech) and Colin Castleton (Michigan) have been playing well lately, I am most concerned about the Gators.
Medcalf: I also think Houston will be good. Mills’ role changed for an excellent Cougars squad that did not need him to record the minutes he played a year ago. We have seen Justin Gorham (12.5 PPG during the last two games without Mills) give more offense to help his team beat SMU and Wichita State in rugby games. Sampson has depth in this group.
I also think Florida has scored the biggest hit on this list. Johnson was a possible choice in the first round when he collapsed against the state of Florida in the most terrifying incident of the year. Plus, the SEC looks like a more complicated race than it seemed to be entering the season.
Flight: Houston looks like it’s definitely going well without Mills. The Cougars are a basket away from unbeaten, and we’ll probably see this team end the regular season with an extraordinarily small number in the loss column. Mills was the best scorer last year, but he was not the last word in efficiency. In his absence, Grimes competently filled the role, and UH overwhelmed American opponents with offensive signs and outings to the line.
Monday: The answer is Houston for all the reasons outlined above. But West Virginia’s epic return to Oklahoma State is still the best, and Bob Huggins seems more than happy to ride it out with Derek Culver as the loner. I think the mountaineers will be good, and unfortunately Keyontae Johnson of Florida will be the biggest loss.
ESPN.com expert selects for this weekend’s top matches
(Lines, if available, from Caesars Sportsbook. Predictors do not have access to lines when making predictions.)