Wolfpack ready for higher hoops expectations
There are four teams from the state of North Carolina in the Atlantic Coast Conference. For the first time since 1975, North Carolina State -- not Duke, not North Carolina -- is the preseason pick by coaches and league media to win the league.
The Wolfpack are pollster darlings these days. They debuted in the coaches' poll at No. 6, the highest position in the rankings since USA Today began publishing them.
The junior duo of preseason player of the year C.J. Leslie and Lorenzo Brown were all-conference picks, as announced Monday, after Leslie carried the Wolfpack to a regional semifinal in St. Louis in March. The season ended with a loss to eventual national runner-up Kansas, and Leslie pondering his future. He shunned a chance to be a projected top-10 draft pick to make another run at the rest of the ACC and a national title.
Until they've done it on the floor, Leslie and the Wolfpack aren't getting wrapped up in heightened expectations.
"That's all great," Leslie said. "There's nothing bad about that but, you know, what we really have to do is we have to let that go out of our head and really focus in and get better little by little. It's fine to be preseason ranked (No. 1) and all of this, but at the end of the day it really doesn't mean too much."
Duke was eighth in the USA Today poll and North Carolina 12th. Florida State landed at No. 24.
North Carolina, an Elite Eight team in March that lost four starters who were top 20 picks in the 2012 NBA Draft, will be young and inexperienced, but talented.
"We have to teach them what to do, and then demand that they do it at 100 percent," coach Roy Williams said of the Tar Heels' outlook.
North Carolina's roster no longer includes Kendall Marshall, Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller or Jon Henson. The 12-man roster has nine underclassmen.
"People are really ... I think selling us short," said sophomore James Michael McAdoo, who emerged during the NCAA tournament run as an all-around contributor. "That's fine. We're not worried about that. ... It's not even added motivation because we know at the end of the day, we're North Carolina basketball."
Defending ACC champion Duke has four starters back, but the one loss from the starting five was conference freshman of the year Austin Rivers. Senior forward Mason Plumlee isn't worried about the absence of Rivers' scoring and said senior guard Seth Curry, senior forward Ryan Kelly and several newcomers -- he named freshman forward Alex Murphy -- can help fill that gap.
"Seth has solidified himself as a go-to scorer. And Ryan was playing really well until he got hurt. You saw the effect that losing him had on us going into the ACC tournament and NCAA Tournament," Plumlee said. Scoring isn't going to be our problem. We'll get our points. We always have."
Of all ACC teams, none will find out as quickly as Maryland how ready they are for the season. The Terrapins kick off the 2012-13 season against defending national champion Kentucky. The Wildcats had another epic recruiting class to reload in the months following player of the year Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist going from freshman starters cutting down the nets in New Orleans to the top two picks in the NBA draft.
Coach Mark Turgeon said the game came about because of his friendship with Kentucky's John Calipari, who wanted to "help our program." Until two weeks ago, when the Harrison Twins -- top 2013 point guard Andrew and elite class of '13 shooting guard Aaron -- chose Kentucky over runner-up Maryland, the two coaches have rarely been foes in a direct competition.
Picked fifth by the league's coaches and fourth by the media, Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton expects the defensive-minded Seminoles to be more than competitive. He's back along with preseason All-ACC guard Michael Snaer after publicly being courted for other coaching jobs. Hamilton said the Seminoles can compete with ACC royalty again, but with a qualifier -- if they avoid injuries.
