Let us retreat from the world of bloody noses to cold, hard, statistics:
Teams PPP eFG OReb TO % FTP North Carolina (11-5) 1.12 0.529 0.382 0.187 0.293 Florida State (7-9) 1.10 0.524 0.353 0.196 0.292 Boston College (10-6) 1.09 0.526 0.371 0.217 0.359 Virginia Tech (10-6) 1.09 0.510 0.304 0.162 0.313 Georgia Tech (8-8) 1.07 0.525 0.388 0.222 0.230 Maryland (10-6) 1.06 0.507 0.350 0.195 0.260 Miami (4-12) 1.06 0.470 0.381 0.172 0.197 Virginia (11-5) 1.04 0.489 0.350 0.204 0.265 Duke (8-8) 1.04 0.526 0.340 0.222 0.221 Clemson (7-9) 1.01 0.506 0.337 0.195 0.160 NC State (5-11) 1.01 0.531 0.262 0.225 0.256 Wake Forest (5-11) 0.95 0.476 0.317 0.222 0.259
What I find interesting is the drop in offensive rebounding across the board since last year, when six teams would have outpaced Georgia Tech's league leading percentage. Also of note is Virginia Tech handily outpacing the rest of the league in turnover percentage for the seond year in a row, and Clemson's absolutely pitiful point generation from foul shots, a combination of the league's fewest attempts from the line and the worst shooting percentage.
OPPP OeFG DReb OTO% OFTO North Carolina 0.95 0.478 0.692 0.211 0.328 Duke 0.99 0.500 0.709 0.219 0.337 Maryland 1.00 0.479 0.617 0.209 0.332 Virginia 1.02 0.461 0.666 0.177 0.365 Clemson 1.04 0.530 0.616 0.245 0.374 Georgia Tech 1.06 0.533 0.678 0.230 0.488 Boston College 1.07 0.513 0.636 0.176 0.234 Wake Forest 1.08 0.530 0.695 0.201 0.419 Virginia Tech 1.08 0.497 0.637 0.192 0.361 Florida State 1.09 0.529 0.652 0.195 0.394 NC State 1.11 0.512 0.607 0.171 0.301 Miami 1.17 0.572 0.660 0.188 0.548
Team 3FGA/A 3FG % Virginia 0.387 0.360 NC State 0.343 0.370 Florida State 0.328 0.399 Wake Forest 0.327 0.344 Boston College 0.321 0.337 Clemson 0.319 0.336 Miami 0.315 0.346 Duke 0.308 0.361 Georgia Tech 0.281 0.344 North Carolina 0.249 0.333 Maryland 0.223 0.366 Virginia Tech 0.208 0.356
Also interesting is the fact that Maryland, who everyone seems to attribute their resurgence to Strawberry and Jones's hot hands, relies on the three very rarely. The league average as a whole dropped a good amount from last year, but that's almost entirely a function of N.C. State's astronomical number of threes taken last year returning to a more managable number. Exactly half the teams shot less threes than last year, and the other half more.
Finally, a glance at the efficiency margin:
North Carolina 0.17 Maryland 0.06 Duke 0.04 Virginia Tech 0.02 Boston College 0.02 Georgia Tech 0.01 Virginia 0.01 Florida State 0.01 Clemson -0.02 NC State -0.10 Miami -0.12 Wake Forest -0.12
(Or from the opposite perspective, you can also ask why Virginia, with such a low effective margin, won the regular season championship. It's an impressive bit of game management on the Cavs part, and a big failure on the part of the Heels.)
If you were going to say who makes the NCAA's on the basis of this list, you'd think the ACC would send eight, with Clemson getting the short straw. (Last year, FSU had the fifth highest margin at 0.01 and just missed the cut.) Yet most opinions I've read seem to think the Tigers have a better shot than the Seminoles. Myself, I think you can look at the 8-9 game of the ACC as an NCAA play-in game, but if neither team makes the cut I wouldn't be surprised.