Defending regular season and tournament champion Miami will have to rebuild from the bottom of the even tougher ACC. UNC’s season could rest on if PJ Hairston is able to play. NC State’s TJ Warren is the top Value Add player and a 1st Team All-American, but Duke has three of the five All-Conference Players in Rasheed Sulaimon, Jabari Parker and Quinn Cook. Beginning Tuesday, the ACC will try to take the ACC-Big Ten challenge back from the Big Ten for the first time since 2008.

NEWCOMERS. Syracuse already solidified their status as a front-runner along with Duke, while fellow newcomer Notre Dame was knocked out of the rankings by a double digit loss to Indiana State early. Value Add loves Pitt, and while the No. 7 projection seems ridiculously high, they so far have backed it up with a 7-0 start that included an 88-67 drubbing of a very good Stanford team.

Likewise, Virginia’s projection is way too high, and they will have very tough games at home against Wisconsin and at Tennessee before ACC play starts. Florida State is looking better than their 46th projection, as they destroyed VCU on a neutral court 85-67, and have been almost perfect with a two-point overtime loss to Michigan on a neutral court and one-point loss at Florida.

UNC shocked then No. 3 Louisville 93-84, but let Belmont come in and beat them before going into UAB Sunday and being stunned again. Duke’s losses to Arizona and Kansas were not unexpected, but did show where some improvement was needed.

The PROJECTED Value Add projections below for Conference teams and players are meant to give a GENERAL idea of how good each could be. They are by no means an exact science like the ACTUAL www.valueaddbasketball.com figures: Rank, Atlantic Coast, Value Add

7, Pittsburgh, 36.34

9, Virginia, 37.69

14, Syracuse, 32.55

15, Duke, 46.67

19, North Carolina, 28.31

46, Florida St., 20.63

53, Notre Dame, 24.79

58, Boston College, 27.6

61, Maryland, 19.28

63, North Carolina St., 29.96

76, Clemson, 14.95

78, Georgia Tech, 19.4

102, Virginia Tech, 16.07

105, Wake Forest, 13.54

145, Miami FL, 11.77

ACC Preseason All-Conference/Projected Value Add Rank (based purely on average progression from stats prior to this season)

3, Warren, TJ, North Carolina St.-SF NBA

17, Sulaimon, Rasheed, Duke-SG NBA

25, Hanlan, Olivier, Boston College-NBA Pros

27, Parker, Jabari, Duke-SF NBA

29, Cook, Quinn, Duke-                                                        

33, Hairston, PJ, North Carolina-SG NBA

38, Fair, CJ, Syracuse-SF/PF NBA

39, Mitchell, Akil, Virginia-

60, Patterson, Lamar, Pittsburgh-PG NBA

79, White, Okaro, Florida St.-

99, Hood, Rodney, Duke-SF NBA

299, Wells, Dezmine, Maryland-NBA Pros

302, Grant, Jerian, Notre Dame-PG/SG NBA

336, McDaniels, KJ, Clemson-NBA Pros

359, Ennis, Tyler, Syracuse-NBA Pros

426, Tobey, Mike, Virginia-NBA Pros

445, Johnson, Brice, North Carolina-NBA Pros

450, Leslie, CJ, North Carolina St.-SF/PF NBA

538, Grant, Jerami, Syracuse-NBA Pros

818, McAdoo, James Michael, North Carolina-SF/PF NBA

1638, Miller, Ian, Florida St.-PG NBA

1709, Coleman, DaJuan, Syracuse-NBA Pros

2087, James, Joel, North Carolina-NBA Pros

About these rankings: The player rankings references are the projections (2014 Proj) at www.valueaddbasketball.com. During the season the updated Value Add for each player, which represents how much he has improved his team’s offense and defense, will appear on under the “2014 Act” search no www.valueaddbasketball.com. The team rankings are based 51% of the sum of each players’ projected Value Add rankings and 49% on the team rankings at www.kenpom.com as of November 29. You can follow the inventor of Value Add on twitter @jpudner.