ACC PREVIEW PART THE SECOND

6. YOUR MARYLAND TERRAPINS! - See separate blog post.

5. Clemson Tigers - You know things are bleak for the long-term outlook of your basketball program when you lose your head coach to Depaul, but that's what happened to Clemson this spring. Oliver Purnell brought them back to respectability, and now the Tigers have to hope they aren't as hopeless as they were for...well, most of their history aside from when Purnell and Rick Barnes coached them. The Tigers also loss the often dominating Trevor Booker from their lineup, so there are some on-court losses too. On the other hand the Tigers return most of their other contributors. Demontez Stitt and Andre Young is a good pair of quick guards, and Jerai Grant and Trevor's brother Devin will be a good combo. If former top recruit Milton Jennings improves on a very mediocre freshman year, this team could do a lot better than I'm predicting them. Clemson has just one new recruit coming in, a lightly regard spring signee, so it looks like the team will have to make do with last year's lineup sans Trevor Booker and David Potter.

4. Florida State Seminoles - I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed with what Leonard Hamilton has done recently with this program. Plus he reminds me a lot of Bunny Colvin. I'm not sure if i thought that up or if Andrew mentioned it previously, but we'll share credit since we pretty much share a brain anyway. The 'Noles lost Solomon "Fawaz" Alabi as well as another big man in Ryan Reid, who inexplicably got drafted after putting up 7/4 as a senior. I mean, he was a nice little ballplayer in college, but come on. I just really have no particularly strong feelings about any of these guys. They're just kind of there. Maybe Chris Singleton will be really good. I honestly have no clue.

3. Virginia Tech Hokies - Now we start getting to the teams I loathe. There's not really a more loathesome trio than Dorenzo Hudson, Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen. I mean between the three players, if you combined their IQ, they MIGHT crack triple digits. But I can't promise. The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing noobish sportswriters that Delaney is a star rather than a turd. The Hokies got real bad news in the offseason when JT Thompson went down for the season with a knee. Tech had already had injuries thin their frontline previously. Transfer Allan Chaney has a heart condition that will likely preclude him from playing, and sophomore Cadarian Raines got Jerome Burney'd. It seems like a few times in recent years VT has had three or four players good enough for them to compete for the ACC title, but not enough depth to be more than a bubble team. That could be the case once again, at least unless Raines comes back strong, or Victor Davila continues improving enough to be a solid frontcourt contributor. Virginia Tech could finish a spot higher, but I have to think that it's actually more likely they drop a few spots down to their usual bubble spot.

2. North Carolina Tar Heels - Is this a tribute to North Carolina or a testament to my stupidity or the weakness of the ACC? It could be any of the three. UNC went 6-10 in the league last year, got dealt several really embarassing losses, and barely made the NIT. Then this offseason they lost their three leading scorers in Deon Thompson (graduated), Ed Davis (drafted), and Will Graves (kicked off the team). They also saw the departure of the David and Travis Wear to transfer. The Heels will really only go eight deep, but it could be an elite eight. The keys are the newcomers. Harrison Barnes was the nation's top recruit (and picked UNC over Duke) while Kendall Marshall will have to play big minutes at the point given how weak Larry Drew II's play was last season. The other player to watch is John Henson who got hyped as the next Kevin Durant/freak of nature but who played, for the most part, just like a freshman especially in the beginning and latter part of the season. If those three meet the lofty expectations folks have for them UNC could go right back to being elite. Those seem like big ifs, but for a program like North Carolina and a coach like Roy Williams, it's best to assume that a bad season is just a blip on the radar and that the good times will just keep rolling.

1. Duke Blue Devils - Could it be anyone else? Duke loses quite a bit in almost-but-not-quite ACC Player of the Year Jon Scheyerface as well as the suddenly surgent Brian Zoubek. But they also have a sick recruiting class coming in, led by point guard Kyrie Irving who everyone is slobbering over and who Dickie V will call a diaper dandy at least 234907 times in his orgasmic, dook slobbering tone. Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith will both be all-ACC, and one of the two is likely to win POY unless Virginia Tech wins enough games for Malcolm Delaney to win it. The Plumlees will be counted on to hold down the inside, and Seth Curry transfers in from Liberty to possibly be the latest Curry to take the basketball world by storm. But all bias aside, this is the team to beat in not only the ACC, but the country as well, particularly now that Purdue's Robbie Hummell tore his ACL again. And don't think for a minute that I won't root for Coach K over Michigan State. I'll fucking do it.