Greetings Terps/ACC fans! Here is the latest ACC basketball Power Poll results for week 10. For the first time this season, we have a consensus #1 team. That honor goes to the Duke Blue Devils. Boston College was almost the consensus #12, but a few votes for NC State saved BC from that distinction, which only UVA has had the privilege of owning thus far. Of course, after every tallied their votes for this week, NC State solidly defeated Duke and then turned around and got blown out by Maryland. But that sums up the ACC this season – who would have thought Virginia would be tied atop of the conference at this point in the season? I for one did not see that coming. Whether the Cavs can keep it up remains to be seen.
Speaking of Virginia, their amazing climb out of the basement of the power rankings continues this week, as the Cavaliers have climbed all the way to #6 in this week’s ranking! From a consensus #12 up to 6 in 4 weeks is no small feat!
The final rankings are below. I’ve provided a little insight into where I think each team stands at this point. Enjoy and as always, we welcome your comments and input!
Final ranking – Week of Jan 18th (Week 10)
1. Duke – 1.0 – seems to be the crop of this year’s ACC class, but has struggled on the road and showed they were vulnerable after getting handled by NC State this week.
2. Clemson – 2.7 – Clemson will battle with Georgia Tech, FSU, Wake and Maryland for one of the much coveted top four spots in the conference, which affords a team a bye in the first round of the ACC tournament. The Tigers are starting to look like the second or third best team in the conference.
3. Georgia Tech – 3.7 – Tech has talent, but can they maximize it completely? They should finish between second and fifth in the conference. I like their current ranking at number 3.
4. UNC – 5.0 – I said it at the beginning of the year, the Tar Heels have talent, but they haven’t proven anything yet. Why they were ranked in the top 10 pre-season with players that hadn’t really proven anything at the college level yet, I’ll never know. We’ve seen that the Heels can beat good teams, but we’ve also seen them struggle. Until they can consistently prove their abilities, I can’t see them being more than an 8-8 team in conference play this year. I think their current ranking of 4 is still too high and I predict they’ll slowly fall back to earth, settling around 7 or 8.
5. Florida State – 5.1 – Another team with talent. Florida State had a chance to really separate themselves from the pack when they faced Maryland last week, but the Terps look like someone lit a fire under their butt and they took care of FSU. The Seminoles are a team I could see finishing as high as 4th and as low as 8th.
6. UVA – 6.8 – I think most are surprised to see UVA here. Their play recently has been admirable and they look like a different team from earlier in the season, which is credit to their head coach, Tony Bennett. But I don’t think UVA can continue their play and I see them fall and ranked too high at 6. I think they’ll fall and will eventually end up maybe as high as 7 but probably closer to the 9-10 range. Bennett has done a lot, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
7. Wake – 6.9 – Wake has talent and some early struggles find the Decs in the bottom portion of the ACC ranks. That probably won’t last for long. They have too much talent on this team to struggle consistently. They’ll probably end up around 4-6, but until they can prove they deserve it, I don’t have a problem with them being here, although I think they’re playing better than both UVA and UNC at the moment.
8. Maryland – 7.0 – I know at heart I’m a Terp fan, but even taking off my fan hat for a moment, I don’t get some of the rankings Maryland received this week in the balloting. Some people ranked the Terps 10th or 11th! How can you justify that? The Terps beat a ranked FSU team and solidly beat BC at BC. How can you justify putting them that low? But I digress. I think Maryland could contend for the ACC title this year and I’m fairly confident they’ll end up in the 1-4 area.
9. Virginia Tech – 7.9 – Virginia Tech in ACC basketball has been middle of the road. And I think that’s where you’ll see this team as well. Probably in the 8-10 range.
10. Miami – 9.4 – Many people were high on Miami at the beginning of the season because they won so many games. But those games were against much weaker opponents and the fact that the Hurricanes weren’t challenged early is starting to show now, when they have to face fierce competition every game playing in the ACC. I see the Hurricanes finishing with 6-7 ACC wins. They’ll probably finish about 10th place, but not too much higher.
11. NC State – 10.7 – These wolves have been all over the place. I think they have potential, but until they harvest it, they’re not going to make too much noise this year.
12. Boston College – 11.8 – Maryland ran them out of their own gym. The Eagles don’t look like an Al Skinner coached team, which are normally fundamentally sound and show a lot of effort. Once they start doing those things, they’ll move up, but overall, this will probably continue to be a down year for BC.
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