Cal, Louisville Among a Glut of ACC Teams Rebuilt with Newcomers

Back in 2022-23, the year before Mark Madsen arrived as basketball coach at Cal, the Bears suffered through the worst season in program history, compiling a ghastly record of 3-29.

Entering the start of ACC play on Tuesday night, the current Bears are 12-1.

That same 2022-23 campaign, three-time national champion Louisville was only fractionally better than Cal at 4-28.

The Cardinals -- Cal’s opening-night opponent at Haas Pavilion (6 p.m. tipoff) -- are 10-2 in their second season under coach Pat Kelsey.

Without a doubt, both programs have made Beamonesque leaps in three years.

Louisville, ranked No. 13 in the coaches poll, No. 16 in the week-old AP Top-25 and 17th in the NET rankings, is a 6.5-point favorite to beat the Bears.

It’s possibly worth nothing that Cal is 9-0 at home and Louisville is 0-2 in true road games, with losses at Arkansas and Tennessee. Still, this will certainly be the best team Cal has faced (apologies to UCLA), while the Cardinals have also faced Kentucky, Indiana and Memphis (beating all three).

In Joe Lunardi’s most recent (week-old) NCAA bracketology projections, Louisville was pegged as a No. 4 seed. Cal was among the first four teams out of the field, a promising jumping off point to the conference schedule.

Both programs have rebuilt with new players, most of them fished out of the transfer portal. In fact, that’s how the ACC has been reborn after landing just four berths in the 68-team NCAA field a year ago.

As recently as 2021, the ACC fed seven teams into the NCAA tournament. In 2018 and ’19, the league was represented by nine entries. But last year only Duke, Clemson, Louisville and North Carolina got bids, and the Tar Heels barely made the cut as an No. 11 seed playing in one of the first-four games.

Lunardi projects eight ACC teams will make it this year, behind only the Big Ten and SEC, and equal to the Big 12.

ACC fans have had to bring a scorecard to games this season to familiarize themselves with reworked rosters. Nine of the 10 teams with the highest NET rankings are led in scoring by a first-year player, either a transfer or a freshman.

Here’s how that looks (arranged in order of the current NET ranking):

Duke forward Cameron Boozer | Rob Kinnan-Imagn Images

3. Duke (11-1): Freshman forward Cameron Boozer, projected as a top-3 NBA draft pick, leads the ACC in scoring at 23.2 points and pulls down 10.0 rounds per game.

15. North Carolina (12-1): Freshman forward Caleb Wilson, also expected to be a high lottery pick, is scoring 19.6 points and leads the ACC with 10.8 rebounds per game.

17. Louisville (10-2): The Cardinals’ top four scorers are newcomers, led by guard Ryan Conwell (a transfer from Xavier after stops at Indiana State and South Florida), who is scoring 19.2 per game. Freshman point guard Mikel Brown Jr., expected back for Cal after missing two games with an injury, is producing 16.6 points and 5.1 assists and projects as a top-5 NBA pick. Isaac McKneely (Virginia) provides 11.3 points and is shooting 41-percent from the 3-point arc, and 6-11 junior Sananda Fur (who played in Germany’s Bundesliga last year) is averaging 10.7 points and 6.3 rebounds.

Virginia forward Thijs de Ridder | Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

24. Virginia (11-1): Thijs de Ridder, a 6-9 freshman from Belgium, is posting 16.1 points, 6.0 rebounds and shooting 44 percent from deep. Guard Malik Thomas is scoring 11.1 per game after 19.9 last season at San Francisco, and freshman guard Chance Mallory is also providing 11.1 per game.

31. SMU (11-2): The exception to the rule, SMU is led by returning point guard Boopie Miller, who gives the Mustangs 19.9 points and 7.1 assists per game. He landed at SMU before last season as a transfer from Wake Forest. Jaron Pierre Jr., in his first season out of Jacksonville State, pairs with Miller at 18.7 points per game.

32. NC State (9-4): First-year transfers Darrion Williams (Texas Tech) 14.8 points) and Quadir Copeland (McNeese) score 14.8 and 14.1 points, respectively.

35. Miami (11-2): Malik Reneau, a 6-9 transfer from Miami, is averaging 20.4 points and 6.7 rebounds. Tre Donaldson (Michigan) adds 15.2 points while both freshman Shelton Henderson and transfer Tru Henderson (New Mexico) contribute 13.7 points per game.

36. Clemson (10.3): RJ Godfrey (Georgia) leads the Tigers at 11.3 points per game, while Justin Porter (Middle Tennessee) and Carter Welling (Utah Valley) each score 10.5 points.

48. Cal (12.1): The Bears’ top four scorers are transfers — Dai Dai Ames (Virginia) at 17.7 points, John Camden (Delaware) at 15.5, Justin Pippen (Michigan) at 14.6 and Chris Bell (Syracuse) at 14.4.

Cal guard Justin Pippen | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

61. Virginia Tech (11-2): Amani Hansberry, a transfer from West Virginia, is producing 16.3 points and 8.4 rebounds. Freshman G Neoklis Avdalas scores 14.6 points per game.

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