Saturday, March 13, 2010
Exodus to NBA should shape 2010-11 race
Delaney could be preseason ACC player of the year
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.
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While discontent may be simmering inside some fanbases, most notably at Georgia Tech and Wake Forest, chances of a coaching change or changes in the ACC are fairly remote.
There has been a head-coaching change in the ACC each of the last three years, involving North Carolina State (2007), Wake Forest (2008) and Virginia (2009). In fact, six of the 12 head-coaching positions have changed hands since 2004.
While the ACC may not be undergoing a coaching facelift this year, no one should get particularly close to the players.
Two of the top three scorers in the ACC are seniors, No. 2 Greivis Vasquez from Maryland and No. 3 Jon Scheyer from Duke. They won’t be back. Neither will No. 9 scorer Trevor Booker, a senior for Clemson.
As usual, the intrigue surrounds the underclassmen. Names I’ve heard mentioned as possible early applicants for the NBA Draft include Duke junior Kyle Singler, Virginia sophomore Sylven Landesberg, North Carolina sophomore Ed Davis, Wake Forest sophomore Al-Farouq Aminu, Florida State redshirt sophomore Solomon Alabi and the Georgia Tech trio of junior Gani Lawal, sophomore Iman Shumpert and freshman Derrick Favors.
Duke junior Nolan Smith already has indicated he will return for the 2010-2011 season, when he could contend for preseason player-of-the-year honors with Virginia Tech’s Malcolm Delaney, the ACC’s leading scorer going into the tournament this week in Greensboro, N.C.
That’s not to say that Delaney is any less undeserving of NBA consideration than the other players. It’s just that there hasn’t been much buzz about Delaney turning pro, possibly because he does not play as close to an NBA market as do, say, the Georgia Tech players.
It’s not all about the allure of the NBA. Some of these guys simply don’t want to go to school. Case in point: Landesberg. From all accounts, he did not attend one of his classes during the first six weeks of the second semester.
We won’t know Landesberg’s next step till next week but if he were to return to classes next week, there’s still no assurance that he would be eligible next year. From everything I hear, Landesberg was on academic warning after the first semester and a failing grade in the second semester probably would result in a one-year suspension.
Landesberg had to know after the first semester that he was in a zero-tolerance situation. It’s unclear what he was thinking if he was going to most of his classes but not going to one at all. Maybe he didn’t think he was going to be caught and was leaving at the end of the season anyway.
Don’t think that’s the only time that has happened. A group of Virginia football players stopped going to class as soon as their 2009 season ended and maybe before then, since it was known UVa wasn’t going to a bowl.
But back to the 2010-2011 ACC basketball season and its likely makeover. Very few of these players belong in the NBA or wouldn’t reap more benefit from another year in college than they would in the D-League or Europe. Take the case of North Carolina’s Davis, hailed as a possible top-five pick.
A coach who has observed Davis and whom I’ve respected for a long time told me, “There’s a lot more [Davis] can’t do right now than he can do.”
I’m told that all of Singler’s preparation and scheduling this year has been geared toward an early entry into the NBA Draft, but my guess is that he’ll make the right move. If it’s in his best interests, he’ll come out. If theres’s any indecision, coach Mike Krzyzewski will make sure Singler gets the best advice possible.
I’m not sure that Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt has that kind of pull or power, but there’s such an NBA culture in Atlanta that Yellow Jackets’ players are always going to find the pro life hard to resist.
Wake Forest and Winston-Salem, N.C., are farther from the beaten NBA path, but 2008-2009 Deacs Jeff Teague and James Johnson set a precedent for their future teammate, Aminu. Also, five losses in the last six games may have removed some of his motivation for staying, not that that wouldn’t be the best move.
