Dan Collins uses a little blog space to look at how Wake Forest is doing at the halfway point of the ACC conference schedule. His tool to measure them is the ACC Stats page and I agree with his assessment:
This is not a pretty team. Teams that miss a bunch of shots and turn the ball over rarely look good, at least not until the game is over.
But defense and rebounding statistics reveal effort. And it’s hard to argue that any team in the ACC has given more effort so far this season than Wake Forest.
Dan doesn't dig into the other ACC teams, but after watching UNC the last couple of weeks I'll offer one observation that I think the stats clearly back up: right now the young Tarheels can't guard their own shadows. That's not really shocking given their relative youth (most young college players don't defend well), but they better learn how to defend soon or it won't just be a long season, it will be a long couple of seasons.
