ACC Basketball – Page 2 – Syndication Server

ACC basketball coaching legend retires before 2024-25 season, per reports

According to multiple reports, Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett will retire instead of leading the Cavaliers in 2024-25.

Another men’s basketball coaching legend stepped away from the ACC on Thursday night.

According to Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman, longtime Virginia head coach Tony Bennett will retire effective immediately ahead of the 2024-25 season.

Bennett spent the past 15 seasons at the helm of the Cavaliers, winning six regular-season conference titles and building a reputation for slow, defensive basketball.

His program reached the summit in 2019 with a national championship victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Discounting the shortened 2020-21 schedule, Virginia won at least 21 games in its past 12 seasons with four 30-win campaigns.

True to form, last season’s Cavaliers finished with a 23-11 record with KenPom’s seventh-best adjusted defensive efficiency rating while ranking 362nd in tempo.

Multiple reports, including one from Goodman, confirmed that Bennett’s retirement did not have to do with a sudden health scare or any health concerns at all.

Bennett’s Virginia tenure comes to a close with a 364-136 overall record and an 189-82 record in conference play.

Breaking: Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett to call it a career

Talk about a surprise just three weeks before the season starts.

In a surprising move, Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett will hang up the whistle after 15 years on the job. The Wisconsin native leaves the collegiate game with an overall record of 433-169 and with one NCAA Tournament national championship under his belt.

The announcement came as a bit of a shock with UVA set to tip off the 2024-25 college basketball season on Nov. 6 against Campbell. With the announcement of his retirement, the Virginia players now have a 30-day window to enter the transfer portal. With the season just three weeks away and the semester already in full swing, they wouldn’t be able to make a move for this year.

While no one has been named the interim as of the time of the announcement, it would make the most sense for Ron Sanchez to assume head coaching duties on an interim basis. Sanchez served on the staff for 10 seasons before taking a head coaching gig with Charlotte and returned this last offseason.

College Sports Wire will monitor the situation and provide more details as it unfolds. A press conference has been scheduled for Friday.

Virginia’s Tony Bennett, coach of Notre Dame ACC rival, retires

Big story in college basketball.

Notre Dame has part of the ACC for over a decade now, and it has gone against some legendary coaches during that time. While Virginia’s Tony Bennett doesn’t have quite the reputation of legends like Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim or Roy Williams, he has done a great job of building his own legacy.

When the Irish visit Charlottesville on Jan. 25 this season, the Cavaliers will look very different on the sidelines because Bennett reportedly has announced his retirement effective immediately. That this is happening less than a month before the start of the season is nothing short of surprising.

The Irish have gone 3-13 against Virginia since joining the ACC, and Bennett’s tenure with the Cavailers’ predates that period. But even before that, the Irish learned how good Bennett was when he coached Washington State to a 61-41 win over them in the second round of the 2008 NCAA Tournament.

Bennett retires having won one national championship, two national coach of the year awards, six ACC regular-season championships, two ACC Tournament championships and four ACC Coach of the Year awards. He has an all-time record of 433-169:

https://twitter.com/GoodmanHoops/status/1847009701877461379

Best of luck to Bennett in whatever comes next in his life.

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Caleb Foster, Maliq Brown named among ACC’s most underrated in player poll

The Fayetteville Observer asked players to name the most underrated ACC basketball stars, and two Blue Devils made the list.

All of the attention around the Duke men’s basketball team will focus on top-ranked freshman [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] this season, but players among the ACC think two other Blue Devils deserve more credit.

The Fayetteville Observer’s Rodd Baxley published an anonymous player poll on Monday asking the conference to name the most underrated basketball players across the league.

Returning starters [autotag]Caleb Foster[/autotag] and Syracuse transfer Maliq Brown came to mind for their ACC foes, two members of the Duke roster who should play a large role in the 2024-25 season.

Foster, now a sophomore, started 15 of his 27 games as a freshman in 2023-24. The 6-foot-5 guard averaged 7.7 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game, making more than 40% of his 3-pointers before a stress fracture in his ankle brought his season to an unfortunate end a few weeks early.

He and fellow returner Tyrese Proctor are expected to start in the backcourt, and Foster will be a reliable perimeter presence and ball-handler for the Blue Devils in 2024-25.

Brown has actually flown quite a bit under the radar before his first Duke season. He made 69.8% of his shots in both seasons with Syracuse, leading the conference in effective field goal percentage last year, and he scored 26 points against the Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Foster and head coach Jon Scheyer think Brown’s best asset is his defense, with the sophomore saying Brown could be the best defender in the country.

Two other names listed in Baxley’s poll should be familiar to Duke basketball fans. Stanford’s Jaylen Blakes and Virginia’s TJ Power, who both played for the Blue Devils last season before transferring, also made the underrated list.

Notre Dame guard Markus Burton named to Preseason All-ACC First Team

He’s the player to watch on the Irish this season.

Although Notre Dame was rebuilding a season ago, [autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag] was a clear bright spot. He led the Irish in averages for scoring (17.5), assists (4.3) and steals (1.9). Basically, he was the men’s equivalent of [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] and [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] put together.

All of that was enough for him to be named ACC Rookie of the Year as well as Third Team All-ACC. Now entering his sophomore season, a select media panel expects to produce highly once again.

Burton has been named to the Preseason All-ACC First Team, receiving 41 votes. He joins a group that includes Cooper Flagg of Duke, Hunter Sallis of Wake Forest, Nijel Pack of Miami and RJ Davis of North Carolina, the unanimous selection for Preseason ACC Player of the Year.

The same panel has picked the Irish to finish 10th out of 18 teams in the expanded ACC. It’s an indicator that the Irish still have some work to do to get back near the top of the conference. It should be a fun season though.

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Clemson basketball ranks Top 25 in first 2024-25 KenPom ratings

Check out where Clemson landed in the initial 2024-25 KenPom ratings, released Monday.

The Clemson Tigers are hoping to build off a historic season in 2023-24. Coach Brad Brownell’s squad made the NCAA Tournament as a No. 6 seed and reeled off three straight wins to reach the Elite Eight for the first time since 1980. The Tigers fell 89-82 to the Alabama Crimson Tide with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

How far the Tigers can go after a deep NCAA Tournament run is anyone’s guess, but the 2024-25 Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings (KenPom) were released Monday.

Clemson landed at No. 24 with a net plus rating of +18.62. The Tigers are rated one spot ahead of John Calipari and the Arkansas Razorbacks and one spot below the Illinois Fighting Illini.

Coach Kelvin Sampson’s Houston Cougars topped the KenPom ratings at +29.45, followed by the Duke Blue Devils (+26.67) at No. 2 and the Auburn Tigers (+26.21) at No. 3.

Alabama (No. 4, +25.66) and the two-time defending national champion UConn Huskies (No. 5, +25.58) rounded out the top five. Aside from Duke and Clemson, the only other ACC team that cracked the Top 25 KenPom ratings were the North Carolina Tar Heels (+22.14) at No. 14.

KenPom explains their ratings this way:

“The purpose of this system is to show how strong a team would be if it played tonight, independent of injuries or emotional factors. Since nobody can see every team play all (or even most) of their games, this system is designed to give a snapshot of a team’s current level of play.”

Clemson opens the 2024-25 regular season Nov. 4 against Charleston Southern at 7 p.m. ET at Littlejohn Coliseum.

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Hubert Davis praises RJ Davis’ all-around leadership at ACC Tipoff

RJ Davis is the ultimate leader. According to UNC head coach Hubert Davis, RJ’s leadership started the second he stepped on campus.

Ever since he stepped on campus ahead of the COVID-altered, 2020-2021 college basketball season, RJ Davis has carved out a name for himself as one of the North Carolina Tar Heels’ all-time greats.

Davis is one of the best pure scorers I can ever remember playing at UNC. Davis averaged 8.4 points per game and started just 10 of North Carolina’s 29 games in his freshman year. Since then, Davis has started 108 of 109 games and is fresh off the best season of his career, averaging 21.1 points per game and winning ACC Player of the Year.

One could make the case that RJ didn’t become a leader until the 2023-2024 campaign, but according to Tar Heels head coach Hubert Davis at ACC Tipoff on Thursday, RJ has been a leader since Day One.

“It’s not a transition from last year to this year,” Hubert said at UNC’s press conference during ACC Tipoff. “RJ has been a leader in the five years that he’s been here. One of the things that we talk at great length, with each of our players is for them to be elite in three areas: on the court, off the court, in the classroom. I can’t think of anybody better than RJ, he’s checked all three of those boxes for five straight years. He’s had a historic career: ACC Player of the Year, First Team All-American. For him to stay in that spot and be disconnected with the others, his ability to reach out and connect the three freshmen, the three transfers, the four walk-ons and being able to bind us together as a team, has been something that’s been really special to all of us.”

You can bet that this coming season, especially with no more Armando Bacot, Harrison Ingram or Cormac Ryan, RJ will become an even better leader. RJ is THE veteran – both on and off the court – and UNC is extremely lucky he decided to return for one final year.

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Seth Trimble talks about his expected 2024-2025 role

Seth Trimble is back for Year Three, one that he’s expected to take an added leadership role in. Hear what Trimble said at ACC Tipoff Thursday.

Doesn’t Seth Trimble, undoubtedly the UNC men’s basketball team’s defensive ace, scream everything it means to be a Tar Heel?

Though Trimble has only three starts over the past two seasons, he’s never complained once about his role off the bench. Trimble loves North Carolina so much, he even decided to withdraw his name from the transfer portal earlier this offseason and return for his junior year.

Trimble’s role increased significantly last season, as his minutes nearly doubled (9.7 to 17.1 minutes per game) and he set career highs in points (5.2) and rebounds (2.1) per game.

On Thursday at the ACC Tipoff event in Charlotte, N.C., Trimble spent a few minutes talking about his evolution and expectations for an even greater role this coming season, a role which is expected to include additional leadership on a younger team.

“To me, to step into a role of being a much bigger leader than I was last year and just to play a more complete game this year,” Trimble said during UNC’s ACC Tipoff press conference. “To play my game, that’s one thing that me and Coach Davis discuss all the time, is just to do me, play free, play whatever it is. I think the biggest thing I have to do this year is lead. RJ is our guy, is our leader the one we look up to. But he can’t be the only one. If he’s the only one this year won’t go well. So I really gotta step into that role.”

I witnessed a bunch of great leadership from Trimble on the court last season. When RJ Davis went out and took a breather, or when Cormac Ryan, Armando Bacot or Harrison Ingram took a breather, Trimble stood out. He acted as North Carolina’s unofficial Sixth Man, pointed where his teammates needed to be on defensive assignments and was always one of the first to celebrate a big play.

Trimble loves the Tar Heels and the Tar Heels love Trimble. We’re extremely grateful for at least one more season with the pride of Menomonee Falls.

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RJ Davis praises freshman teammate for maturity and skill at ACC Tipoff

RJ Davis spent part of his day at ACC Tipoff praising one of his freshman teammates. Who exactly was RJ talking about?

Even if he doesn’t want to admit it, RJ Davis is the grandpa on this year’s UNC men’s basketball roster.

Davis, now entering his fifth year on Chapel Hill, is coming off his best season in which he was named ACC Player of the Year. Davis averaged a career-high 21.2 points per game, became one of the nation’s top perimeter shoots and, most important, showed he was the Tar Heels’ go-to guy when they needed a clutch bucket.

On Thursday, Oct. 10, Davis spent his day at the ACC Tipoff event in Charlotte, N.C. alongside teammate Seth Trimble and head coach Hubert Davis. Instead of choosing to focus on his veteran leadership within what will be a much younger North Carolina squad, Davis spent some time praising one of his freshman teammates: 4-star center James Brown.

With Armando Bacot and Harrison Ingram leaving for the NBA, Brown will be counted on to provide some big minutes down low.

“James Brown has been tremendous, just in practice he’s been asking questions, he’s been learning on the fly,” Davis said in UNC’s press conference at ACC Tipoff. “One thing that I love about him is his eagerness and his competitive edge. He’s always willing to learn, but he’s always willing to compete. Even if he makes mistakes, he’s going to do it by going hard. James has been great, he’s great defensively, he’s able to guard guards on the perimeter and bigs down low. He’s going to improve and progress throughout his years of playing here, but it’s kind of just taking him under my wing a little bit: telling him how to set the screens and whenever I snake, kind of just being there on the roll.”

Brown comes to UNC from Link Academy in Branson, Mo. Brown averaged 7.3 points and 4.6 rebounds per game, but most appealing to Tar Heel fans, perhaps, is his team-best 29 blocks and impressive .571 field goal percentage.

If Brown is this hyped by the Tar Heels’ best player, expect to see him plenty on the court this coming season.

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Jon Rothstein: ACC needs Notre Dame to be good for March Madness spots

Can the Irish play their part this season?

Few if any people in the country love college basketball as much as CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein. If you follow him on social media, you know he puts absolutely nothing in sports above college basketball. If a college football fan tweets something at him, he’ll play dumb and frame his response in college basketball terms.

Rothstein has released his ACC preview, and Notre Dame gets only one mention, which isn’t unexpected given that it has a lot to prove. However, it’s how Rothstein references the Irish that makes this interesting.

The ACC has been going through a bit of a dry spell as far as the number of berths it gets in the NCAA Tournament. The Irish last made the tournament in 2022, but some conferences teams have even longer droughts. Rothstein particularly signals out Louisville, Syracuse and Florida State.

Rothstein’s point is that all of these high-profile programs need to get their act together in order to restore the ACC’s reputation as the best in college basketball and have more than the five March Madness berths it’s gotten in each of the past three years.

We’ll see how the season plays out, and hopefully, the Irish can help make the ACC truly intimidating again.

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