Predicting many future events in one large analysis

Feel free to jump to the conference of your choice by clicking on one of the links below:

 

ACC
Big 12
Big East
Big Ten
Pac-10
SEC
Mid-Majors

 

With the first games that count coming up on Monday night, I figured I’d get my predictions in for all the major conferences and a few select mid-majors. Here are the conference-by-conference predictions with projected league record and postseason fate. It’ll be another four-plus months before I find out how wrong I am — sooner than that with some teams. Though I don’t officially make Final Four and Sweet 16 picks, you can infer them from the seedings.

 

ACC

 

Duke (predicted conference record 11-5; possessions returned — 63.8 percent*): There are concerns at point guard, but they were there last year as well, and while Jon Scheyer isn’t a natural at the position, he’s good enough to get by considering his talent and that of those surrounding him. The loss of Elliott Williams does hurt, but the combination of Scheyer and Kyle Singler plus emerging youngsters should keep Duke at or near the top of the ACC. NCAA No. 2 seed. Read More »


Clemson wins a Hokie game in Blacksburg

I’ve been trying to come up with an angle for Thursday’s game of the night — Clemson’s trip to Virginia Tech — for about 30 minutes now, and the more that I think about it, the more that I realize how strange the Tigers’ 86-82 win over the Hokies was.

 

It was like a series of mini-games with wide swings of momentum on either side. It had two players — Malcolm Delaney and K.C. Rivers — go off for career shooting nights. It saw Virginia Tech pick apart Clemson’s vaunted press and hold Clemson’s usually dependable interior game to just 35.7 2-point shooting, and yet that wasn’t enough for a win. The important differences came in the small things — a couple of key coaching adjustments, a couple of missed layups and a couple of huge jumpers. Read More »