The ACC seems to have gone out of the way to have the conference season get underway without any sort of fanfare this year. Six teams have already played conference games, on the 9th, 23rd, and 30th of Decemebr. UNC and Clemson meet tomorrow, and the remaining four teams don't break the conference seal until the following weekend. There's a thirty-five day gap between BC and Maryland's first conference game and Duke and Virginia's debut - that's just ridiculous.
So now is a good time as any, in anticipation of tomorrow's game to look at the season's tempo-free stats to date. You can compare last year's numbers in December to the conference-only numbers and see that while the magnitudes change as the schedule gets tougher, the relative positions don't move all that much.
As always for the non-conference stuff, the numbers are from Ken Pomeroy, and I use the non-adjusted values, as I just don't think there's enough data to weight them this early in the season.
First, pace:
Team Pace North Carolina 77.7 Duke 73.7 Virginia 72.4 Georgia Tech 72.0 Clemson 71.9 Maryland 71.1 Wake Forest 70.0 Florida St. 69.3 Boston College 67.9 Miami FL 67.5 North Carolina St. 66.8 Virginia Tech 64.4
Once you put the Blue Devils aside though, the next four slowest teams last year are the four slowest this year. No one else seems to be making any big changes in their playing styles.
PPP eFG OReb TO % FTP North Carolina 1.19 0.547 0.427 0.187 0.311 Duke 1.17 0.575 0.344 0.189 0.271 Clemson 1.14 0.539 0.437 0.213 0.210 Virginia 1.13 0.532 0.411 0.220 0.269 Miami 1.12 0.515 0.386 0.196 0.311 Florida State 1.08 0.539 0.340 0.231 0.296 Georgia Tech 1.08 0.531 0.361 0.222 0.260 Boston College 1.07 0.515 0.379 0.215 0.318 N.C. State 1.04 0.519 0.325 0.222 0.393 Virginia Tech 1.03 0.501 0.356 0.227 0.249 Wake Forest 1.02 0.473 0.359 0.203 0.243 Maryland 1.00 0.484 0.376 0.235 0.279
Oh, and N.C. State leads the country in scoring by free throws. This will not stop Wolfpack fans from complaining about every foul call when they play UNC.
OPPP OeFG DReb OTO% OFTO Duke 0.85 0.445 0.694 0.260 0.260 Wake Forest 0.88 0.462 0.679 0.275 0.359 North Carolina 0.89 0.465 0.723 0.238 0.222 Clemson 0.89 0.463 0.692 0.249 0.251 Miami 0.89 0.431 0.668 0.210 0.291 Maryland 0.90 0.420 0.674 0.216 0.324 Virginia Tech 0.91 0.452 0.702 0.210 0.261 Florida State 0.92 0.477 0.678 0.237 0.282 Virginia 0.95 0.481 0.746 0.201 0.311 N.C. State 0.97 0.441 0.655 0.163 0.192 Boston College 0.98 0.484 0.651 0.197 0.234 Georgia Tech 1.01 0.523 0.686 0.230 0.487
Next, Clemson.