Why isn’t the UM men’s basketball team ranked yet? A combination of reasons | Opinion
.JPG "Miami’s Charlie Moore (3) right, celebrates with Anthony Walker (1) left, and Sam Waardenburg (21) after making the winning shot at the buzzer to end second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Virginia Tech, Wednesday, Jan. 26 2022, in Blacksburg Va. (Matt Gentry/The Roanoke Times via AP)")
University of Miami fans have been waiting for weeks now to see their exciting, resurgent men’s basketball team break into the Top 25.
Surely, this week they’d make the list, right? Could the Hurricanes be left out after Charlie Moore’s half-court buzzer-beating game-winner at Virginia Tech followed up by a convincing road win at Georgia Tech?
Answer: Yes.
Miami fans will have to wait at least another week and their patience is wearing thin. With good reason.
The Hurricanes have been the surprise of the ACC this season. Heading into Wednesday’s home game against Notre Dame they are 16-5 overall and tied with Duke atop the conference standings with an 8-2 league record. The ninth-ranked Blue Devils are 18-3, share the same conference record, and the Canes beat them on Duke’s home floor in early January.
So, what gives?
How is it that Duke remains in the Top 10 (the only ACC school voters deemed worthy of a ranking) while the Hurricanes are nowhere to be found in the Top 25? They are way down the list in the AP poll at No. 30 among the “Also Receiving Votes” group with 29 votes.
Miami is 12-2 since late-November, its only two losses by one point to Florida State, which also beat Duke. Shouldn’t that be enough to earn a ranking? What about that 28-point rout over North Carolina? Doesn’t that count for anything?
Apparently, the voters are not that impressed.
The national narrative is that the ACC is having a down year, so beating Duke, Carolina and Syracuse doesn’t mean what it once did. In the Jan. 3 poll, Duke was the only ACC team to receive votes. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, that was the first time in more than 40 years that only one ACC team received votes in the poll – and there were only eight teams back then.
Why the disrespect for the ACC? Here are a few theories:
The ACC’s non-conference results this year are nothing to write home about. The ACC is 4-16 against ranked teams and has a losing record against teams from the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC. They are 2-2 against Pac-12 teams.
Also, there are not as many NBA first-round draft picks projected from the ACC this winter as in previous years. Other than Duke’s trio of Paolo Banchero, Trevor Keels and A.J. Griffin, there are no shoo-in first-round picks from the conference that for so long bred top NBA talent.
The last two ACC Player of the Year winners – Duke’s Tre Jones in 2020 and Georgia Tech’s Moses Wright in 2021 – were not picked in the first round.
Another reason voters may be reluctant to put ACC teams in the Top 25 is the over-reliance on analytics, particularly kenpom.com, which ranks teams based on “adjusted efficiency margins”, which, in plain English, is the difference between a team’s offensive and defensive efficiency, the number of points by which the team would be expected to outscore the average Division I team over 100 possessions.
The latest kenpom.com ratings have Duke at No. 10, North Carolina at No. 34, Virginia Tech at No. 40, Wake Forest at No. 41 and Miami at No. 54.
I was an English and Journalism double major, and never was very good at math, but the more relevant statistic in my mind is 4-0 in head-to-head competition. The Hurricanes are 4-0 against the Blue Devils, Tar Heels, Hokies and Demon Deacons so how can they be ranked below all four of those teams?
There are no analytics or rankings for heart, grit, and outstanding coaching. If there were, UM would certainly be in the Top 25.
Still, ACC coaches believe strongly in their league and feel the conference is as strong top to bottom as it has ever been.
“I’ve always felt the ACC is the best league in the country, and there’s a lot of different ways to measure that,” said UM coach Jim Larranaga. “A year ago, over a 10-year period the ACC had 110 NBA draft choices. The next closest was the SEC with around 72 and Kentucky had 40 of those. Why the ACC is a little bit underrated right now, in my opinion, it’s because we had a lot of changes, transfers, players going pro. There’s always a period of adjustment and November was that period for all of us. After November we’ve done pretty well.”
Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner, a self-described “eternal optimist” insists there is no league better than the ACC and feels Miami is underrated.
“Jim Larranaga’s creeping up on 700 wins, he’s well deserving of being in the Hall of Fame,” Pastner said. “He’s an excellent coach, they have an excellent staff, they’ve got great players. Their perimeter players are so good. In college basketball, if you have great guard play, you’re going to have a chance to really advance and that’s what they have and that’s why they’re leading the ACC.
“I think the national media, with all due respect, they think if Carolina or Duke is not Top 5 in AP and dominating, then automatically the league is down, but it’s the exact opposite. Because Carolina and Duke have been so good for so long it’s forced everyone to raise the bar to try to meet those programs at the very top. It’s not that the league is down, it’s that the league is so good from one to 15.
“The league is as good as it’s been, it’s just not as top heavy, so that’s just a myth. It’s unfortunate. Maybe in the 90’s or early 2000s that was the case, but no longer. I think our league is the best league in America.”
We’ll find out in March.
This story was originally published February 1, 2022 at 5:51 PM.