Louisville basketball drops to 8th in latest ACC Power Rankings
Record wise there are worse teams in the ACC than Wake Forest, but to my naked eye there hasn’t been a team that I’ve watched Louisville or any other team for that matter go up against than Wake.
The Demon Deacons do hold wins over NC State, Pittsburgh, and Notre Dame (three teams in front of them) but they’ve lost by 15 or more on eight different occasions. With all young teams there are typically growing pains, but for Wake Forest they’ve struggled to look competitive in the majority of their matchups which likely will lead to the end of the Danny Manning era.
After picking up wins against Louisville and Florida State, Pittsburgh has gone winless in the ACC dropping games to the likes of Wake Forest & Georgia Tech, both of whom sit at the bottom of the rankings. Yikes. We knew it’d be awhile before Jeff Capel had them ready to compete.
Though they looked like they were going to arrive to the rebuild party early, the team’s young players just haven’t been able to do anything close to sustaining success during conference play. A loss at the time looked okay, and then got even better after they knocked off Florida State, but now the Cards have a blemish on their resume.
It’s weird to see Notre Dame this low in any power ranking, but this year has truly been a “rebuilding” season for Mike Brey after he lost Bonzie Colson and Matt Farrell. DJ Harvey, John Mooney & TJ Gibbs have been good, but the rest of the young roster hasn’t come along as expected.
Louisville will host ND on Saturday and they can’t afford to walk away with anything less than a 10+ win. Cards will have issues with guarding TJ Gibbs and DJ Harvey, but without much else on the roster a blowout victory on senior day could be in the Cards (pun intended).
The Eagles looked to be getting things back on track last week with wins over Pitt and Miami. However, things are trending downward again after taking losses to NC State and Clemson. Ky Bowman may be a first team all-conference player, but he doesn’t have enough consistent help from his supporting cast.
Next up for BC is a Louisville team desperate for a win. The Eagles came roaring back to make a blowout in Louisville respectable last time. They can still salvage an above .500 season if they spring the shocker this week.
Josh Pastner’s squad has played some quality opponents close, but hasn’t done enough to call this a successful season by any measure. The road for the Yellow Jackets doesn’t get any easier as they travel to Virginia this Wednesday.
This team doesn’t necessarily lack in talent, but they have not been able to put the pieces together all season. A win over Pitt early last week is a nice confidence booster, but the Panthers have now lost 10 straight. Tech will look to finish off the season strong in hopes of being able to hang their hat on a win or two transitioning to 2019-20.
Miami is probably the best of the worst of the ACC at this point. The Hurricanes have solid talent in Chris Lykes and Anthony Lawrence Jr. in the back court. Unfortunately, they lack depth in a major way. The Canes have been able to hang tough with teams like Virginia and North Carolina, and boast a recent win over Clemson. However, their road record (0-7) along with their aforementioned depth issues have kept them from being a middle of the pack team.