Well I didn't make it back to revisit this after a frustrating night in Raleigh. Perhaps WBBTakeover is right when they suggest that NC State and UNC don't deserve to be on a tier above that next group. State looked great in the 1st quarter and then slipped up in the 2nd when they went to the bench...and then majorly slipped in the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th. Then played well for the final 4ish minutes. Incredibly frustrating.
On one hand State is literally right there...they've played as tough a schedule as anyone and have gone toe to toe with everyone other than TCU. OU on the road went to OT and the Pack led most of the game. Louisville went to OT and again, State led the majority of that game. USC was a 1 point loss and a game the Pack led pretty much throughout. And now UNC, a game State again led for a majority and couldn't finish. They beat Tennessee in a game that feels like forever ago at this point. My point is they don't get blown out. They seem on par with teams that everyone acknowledges are good, in fact I bet if you looked at total minutes played in those games State has led maybe 75% or more of the time - yet they can't figure out how to play a full 40 minutes or close games. So at some point it's just who you are.
Last night was very strange because State won the turnover battle, won points in the paint, and dominated the boards. They held UNC to just 3 offensive rebounds. They got 16 more shot attempts, yet lost. A horrible shooting night, this is a team that leads the ACC in scoring and just fell on their face last night offensively. The big difference was UNC got 14 FTs and State managed just 2 FTs for the game. TWO! Too much settling for fade aways and jumpers. Going into last night Zoe had taken 32 FTs in her last 2 games, and had 8 or more in the last 4 games. That's her game, getting in the lane and getting fouled or finishing. Last night it didn't happen, she shot poorly and couldn't get to the line. State went into last night leading the nation in fewest fouls and FT rate given up, they are built on not putting the opponent at the line and last night they were -12 in FT attempts.
Anyhow...zooming out...perhaps there is UL and Duke and then a group of about 9-10 that are hard to figure out. Cal has put together a couple of nice wins over ND and Stanford, but if you look at the rest of their resume - it's pretty spotty, they tend to play everyone close, but have taken a lot of L's and a couple to teams that aren't exactly world beaters (Auburn, Missouri). That's sort of why I had them in a tier below. But I can see where there isn't a ton of difference in them and Stanford, ND, Clemson, UVa etc...basically a lot of teams have flaws, different flaws for each team - but it's a down year in the ACC and there are a lot of pretty good teams and very few REALLY good teams.
