ACC hoops previews: Heels have goal after falling just short in last NCAA title run; Wake, State, Duke looking to move up

Published 12:00 am Friday, October 21, 2022

By Aaron Beard

AP Basketball Writer

One month of inspired play changed everything about how people remember Hubert Davis’ first season at the helm of North Carolina.

It’s also the reason why the Tar Heels open this year as the nation’s No. 1-ranked team.

The Tar Heels went from being a bubble team in February marked by inconsistent play and blowout losses in measuring-stick games to making a rousing run to the NCAA championship game as a No. 8 seed. Four starters return from a team that showed off its best-case potential, while Davis has restocked a roster that was largely down to relying on an “Iron Five” starting lineup to close last year.

Returning starter RJ Davis even uttered “championship or bust” when discussing his mindset.

“I’m OK with them saying that,” Hubert Davis said. “For me, I don’t look at it that way. For me, one of the many things I loved about last year is I felt last year’s team reached its full potential. And I think everybody would say last year was a successful year. … That is my hope this year, that this year’s team reaches its full potential.”

Davis, who followed retired Hall of Famer Roy Williams, has never changed his goals of contending for championships. He remained positive while saying he believed in his team amid last year’s ups and downs.

Then came the unexpected win at Duke in the spectacle of a final home game for retiring Blue Devils Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski. A wild NCAA second-round overtime win against reigning champion Baylor. A tense Sweet 16 standoff with UCLA and a romp against 15th-seeded tournament darling St. Peter’s to reach a record 21st Final Four.

Once there, the Tar Heels beat the Blue Devils again in an epic third meeting that marked their first NCAA Tournament meeting and closed Krzyzewski’s career. They even went up 16 on Kansas in the title game before losing the lead in a game that ended with Caleb Love’s off-target desperation 3-pointer to force overtime in New Orleans.

Outside-shooting big man Brady Manek is gone. But double-double machine Armando Bacot is back in the post, while Leaky Black returns as the team’s top defender to play alongside the Davis-Love backcourt.

The last time the Tar Heels had a title-game loss, the core of that group used the painful memory to drive them the next season all the way to the program’s sixth NCAA championship in 2017.

Davis was an assistant to Williams then. He’d love a repeat. “We kind of want to write our own story,” Love said. “This is a new team. This is a new age. For us to go out this year and do what we’ve got to do, knowing what happened last year, we’re more motivated than ever.”

BACOT’S PRESENCE

The 6-foot-11, 235-pound Bacot led the team in scoring (16.3), rebounding (13.1), shooting percentage (.569) and blocks (65). He is the preseason pick for ACC player of the year for the league favorite Tar Heels.

He finished with 31 double-doubles last season, tying the NCAA single-season record set by Navy’s David Robinson in 1985-86 before a long NBA career. He also became the first player ever to post six double-doubles in the same NCAA Tournament, including 15 points and 15 rebounds against the Jayhawks despite an ankle injury.

GAME-CHANGING POTENTIAL

Love, a 6-4, third-year guard, improved his shooting (.371) and specifically his 3-point (.360) and free-throw (.863) shooting percentages from a rocky freshman season. He averaged 15.9 points, but has also shown the ability to take over games with a fearless confidence.

That included scoring 27 of his 30 points after halftime in the win against the Bruins, then going for 22 of his 28 after halftime — including a huge 3-pointer with 24.8 seconds left — in the Final Four win against Duke.

NANCE’S DEBUT

After finding transfer portal success with Manek, the Tar Heels went back and lured Pete Nance from Northwestern.

The 6-foot-10 graduate led the Wildcats in scoring, rebounding and 3-point percentage. The latter piece is particularly important considering Manek’s ability to step outside filled a vital piece of Davis’ approach to modifying UNC’s attack with a bigger emphasis on floor spacing.

Nance isn’t as prolific as Manek outside but has more length, which could offer more defensive help inside.

NEW ARRIVALS

The Tar Heels’ freshman class is headlined by 6-3 guard Seth Trimble, ranked No. 37 nationally by 247sports. UNC also added 6-9 forward Jalen Washington and 6-8 forward Tyler Nickel, while 6-10 forward Will Shaver could see his first action after joining the program as a midyear addition last season.

FROM OUTSIDE

The Tar Heels set program single-season records last year for made 3-pointers (328) and attempts (916), while the percentage (.358) was up from the previous two seasons (.311).

Keatts hoping NC State staff,
roster changes spark surge

RALEIGH — Kevin Keatts knew things had to change for his sixth season at North Carolina State.

The Wolfpack’s last NCAA Tournament trip came in his debut season in Raleigh. And last year marked the worst record of his head coaching career, a perilous trajectory that has put his long-term future in question in Raleigh.

So Keatts overhauled his coaching staff. He reworked the roster to add four graduate transfers and seven new players alongside the only three youngsters who saw significant action through last year’s bumpy season.

“We didn’t have a good year,” Keatts said. “And we can point to a lot of different things. Ultimately, I’m the head coach. So I take responsibility, full responsibility, of our season last year. … We wanted to get bigger, stronger and older. And I think we did.”

There’s no arguing that, at least. The newcomer quartet of guard Jarkel Joiner (transfer from Mississippi), wing Jack Clark (La Salle), and big men DJ Burns (Winthrop) and Dusan Mahorcic (Utah) have combined to play 302 college games and start 203 of them.

Those additions certainly help the depth on a team that looked lost defensively after losing top big man Manny Bates to an opening-night injury (he later transferred to Butler), and relied on second-year player Dereon Seabron (team-best 17.3 points) along with freshman Terquavion Smith (16.3).

Seabron left to pursue a professional career, but Smith returned after a flirtation with the NBA to provide the potential for high-level perimeter scoring. The 6-foot-9, 275-pound Burns could offer a complementary scoring presence inside after averaging 15 points and shooting 62.6% last year en route to becoming the Big South Conference’s player of the year.

Keatts arrived in Raleigh in 2017 promising to install a fast-paced game that included fullcourt pressure. That first team went on to beat highly ranked Arizona, Duke and North Carolina before reaching the NCAAs. His second team barely missed the field and his third was positioned to return before the pandemic wiped out the tournament.

“We want to get back to playing the way we played my first three years,” Keatts said. “We’ve got depth. We can get back to pressing. We can get back to running. That was the biggest changes we made.”

PRESEASON EXPECTATIONS

N.C. State is picked to finish 10th in the 15-team Atlantic Coast Conference. Last year’s team lost 16 of 20 regular-season league games followed by a one-and-done showing in the ACC Tournament, heading into the offseason by losing five straight and 11 of 12.

KICK IT OUT

Burns sounded eager to play alongside Smith, who set a program freshman record with 96 3-pointers last year and could spread defenses to give Burns more room inside. Burns is a willing passer, too.

“That just came from me not wanting to be a selfish big,” he said. “I noticed that most of the bigs, we complain a lot about not getting the ball, we get the ball, and it’s like a black hole and it ain’t coming back out.”

JOINER’S ROLE

Joiner speaks with confidence that comes with having 102 career college starts going back to his time at Cal State Bakersfield, and Keatts is counting on him for leadership. That was clear with the team selecting the newcomer as one of its two player representatives for ACC media day.

“I feel like being vocal, being an experienced point guard, it’ll help the team in big ways,” Joiner said.

DEFENSIVE IMPROVEMENT?

N.C. State allowed opponents to shoot 47.2% last year, ranking 335th out of 350 Division I teams and worse than all but two power-conference teams (Georgia in the Southeastern Conference and Oregon State in the Pac-12). The Wolfpack ranked 246th in KenPom’s national statistics by allowing 106 points per 100 possessions.

NEW VOICES

Keatts has three new assistant coaches, starting with former Wolfpack player Levi Watkins after a stint at Ole Miss. Watkins is joined by former UMKC head coach Kareem Richardson and Joel Justus, whose previous two stops had been Arizona State and Kentucky.

The changes included the departure of former Virginia Tech head coach James Johnson, who was the last holdover from Keatts’ first-year assistants.

Wake Forest aims to repeat fast climb, this time to NCAA tourney

Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes quickly built success for a long-struggling program. The test now is sustaining that in a time of transfers and roster turnover.

Forbes led his second team to a 25-win season and nearly secured only the program’s second NCAA Tournament bid since 2010. But that success leaned heavily on a pair of transfers — one who unexpectedly blossomed into the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year — who have departed.

“Growing up, we can be brutally honest right here: Wake Forest weren’t that good when I was growing up watching them,” guard Daivien Williamson said. “We’re trying to bring that tradition back to Wake Forest. I think we did last year winning 25 games, and we’re just trying to grow and carry that momentum into the coming season.”

There was plenty to feel good about in Year 2 for Forbes, so much so that he was named The Associated Press league coach of the year. That team was picked to finish 13th in the 15-team ACC, but won 13 regular-season ACC games to finish fifth while also posting the Demon Deacons’ first 20-win seasons since 2010.

Along the way, Alondes Williams was the league’s top player after finishing second in scoring (18.5) and first in assists (5.2) after transferring from Oklahoma. Indiana State transfer Jake LaRavia developed into a first-round NBA draft pick.

“There’s a little element of a little bit of luck involved in it,” Forbes said of the transfer success. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m the portal whisperer.”

Now he faces the challenge of turning another wave of newcomers into players capable of making an impact in the ACC.

Williamson, himself a transfer who played at East Tennessee State under Forbes, is the top returning scorer (11.8) and the lone returning starter. The newcomers include transfers Tyree Appleby (Florida), and Jao Ituka (Marist) in the backcourt, and 6-foot-10 forward Andrew Carr (Delaware) and 7-footer Davion Bradford (Kansas State) up front.

If one or two become another transfer gem, the Demon Deacons could surprise again.

PRESEASON EXPECTATIONS

Wake Forest this time has been picked to finish ninth in an ACC that is still pursuing a post-expansion goal of becoming a 10-bid league. The Demon Deacons have hit 20 wins in consecutive seasons just twice since the Tim Duncan era in the late 1990s, including four straight seasons from 2002-05.

APPLEBY’S PRODUCTION

Appleby spent his first two college seasons at Cleveland State before spending the past two years at Florida. He has averaged double figures in all four seasons and is a career 1,500-point scorer.

“I think just because Alondes and Jake left, i think a lot of people think we don’t have players to fill those shoes this year,” Appleby said. “But I think they’re going to be shocked.”

PERIMETER PLAY

The Demon Deacons have three undersized guards capable of putting up numbers, with Appleby, Ituka and Williamson all listed at 6-1. Ituka was the top scorer of the three last season after averaging 15.3 points at Marist, while the three players combined to shoot 37% from behind the arc.

MONSANTO’S MINUTES

Damari Monsanto was expected to miss last season due to surgery for an Achilles injury, but he recovered in time to play 17 games and average 7.3 points. That included shooting 39.5% from 3-point range. The former Southern Conference freshman of the year at ETSU could thrive with a full offseason of recovery and last season’s experience.

THE NEXT STEP

Wake Forest ultimately fell on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble after an unexpected one-and-done showing in the ACC Tournament. It didn’t help that the team had the 343rd-ranked nonconference strength of schedule as of Selection Sunday.

Forbes said the team has sought to improve its schedule strength for this year, with matchups ahead against Georgia (Southeastern Conference), LSU (SEC) and Rutgers (Big Ten) along with Wisconsin in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

“We have to win the right games to take the next step, because obviously the next step is to go to the tournament,” Forbes said. “But that’s something that we expect to do every year. These guys know that, and so that’s the plan.”

No. 7 Blue Devils start anew
with Scheyer, 11 new players

DURHAM — A season of massive change has arrived at seventh-ranked Duke.

Jon Scheyer has taken over a program led by a Hall of Fame coach who to many was the face of college basketball in Mike Krzyzewski. And there’s a nearly complete roster overhaul with 11 new players after the latest wave of early NBA departures from last year’s Final Four team, including No. 1 overall pick Paolo Banchero.

“Everyone has a first time for something in their lives,” freshman 7-footer Kyle Filipowski said. “There might be some pressure with that. But there’s pressure in every situation you’re put with. It’s just how you really handle that … and not let the outside noise get to you.”

And there will be plenty of that.

Duke has long faced possession-by-possession scrutiny as a blueblood program, from its five NCAA championships to Krzyzewski’s standing as the winningest coach in college basketball history. But that will be higher this year as the first-time head coach proves whether he can keep the Blue Devils among the national elite.

“He’s done an excellent job, I’m telling you, man,” said associate head coach Chris Carrawell, a former player and coach under Krzyzewski who has remained on the staff for the transition.

“He’s only 35 years old. … I knew he would be good now. I didn’t think it would be here, but I knew he would be a good head coach one day. He’s exceeded expectations so far and he continues to do so.”

Scheyer was the leading scorer on Duke’s 2010 NCAA championship team, and he spent the past eight seasons on Krzyzewski’s staff. He was designated as Krzyzewski’s successor in June 2021 and spent last season preparing for this moment as his mentor’s side.

He’s been undeterred by the challenge ahead.

“Really throughout the entire year, not only was I coaching at the highest level I could in the role assisting Coach K,” Scheyer said, “but I also realized: here are my non-negotiables as a coach, here’s the things we’re going to work on. So as we started the season, I already knew the first two weeks, we were doing defense.”

He was a key part of Duke’s recruiting success in recent years and landed the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class for his debut season, including three of 247sports’ top four overall prospects in 7-foot-1 Dereck Lively II (No. 1), 6-7 wing Dariq Whitehead (No. 2) and Filipowski (No. 4).

The way they see it, they’re part of a new era, too.

“I feel like it played a big role in me coming to Duke, just knowing it was going to be a lot of pressure on (Scheyer) in his first year,” Whitehead said. “I told my mom that I look forward to embracing that with him and taking on this challenge of him being a first-year head coach.”

PRESEASON EXPECTATIONS

The Blue Devils are picked to finish second behind No. 1 North Carolina in the 15-team ACC. And Scheyer has put together a roster capable of contending for a return to the Final Four.

ROACH’S RETURN

Jeremy Roach is the lone returning starter and team captain coming off a strong postseason performance. He averaged 11.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists in five NCAA Tournament games.

TRANSFER HELP

Duke’s newcomers include a pair of Big Ten transfers in 6-6 guard Jacob Grandison (Illinois) and 6-10 big Ryan Young (Northwestern).

Grandison averaged 9.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists while making 23 starts last year. He also shot 41% from 3-point range. Young averaged 8.7 points and shot nearly 58% over three college seasons.

PROCTOR’S ARRIVAL

Duke’s incoming class includes Australian guard Tyrese Proctor, who had committed to Duke for next year’s class before reclassifying to play now. He attended the NBA Global Academy in Canberra designed to train elite international prospects.

“I think it was just knowing that I thought I proved as much as I could in Australia, so I just wanted to take the next step,” Proctor said of his reclassification.

DEFENSIVE FOCUS

Scheyer has been clear that he thinks this year’s team could be an “elite” defensive team with its size and length. Lively’s mobility and rim protection certainly offer a great starting point inside.

Scheyer said the coaches have “talked about how to maximize what he can do on the defensive end especially” to take advantage of his versatility.

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