Linky: CBS Sports

According to this metric, Wake is predicted to finish 4-14 in conference next season, which would be last. This based on a number of things: a low percentage of possessions used returning (55%, tied with Virginia for 9th in the conference), a low percentage of freshmen possessions from last year (12%, tied with Miami for 7th in the conference), and a good but not great incoming class of players (three top 100 newcomers by this metric, conference average is about two per team).

Interestingly, Wake is tied for the best team in the conference (with Florida State) in terms of the offensive efficiency of returning and incoming talent.

Still, this is insufficient to move Wake from the basement for a couple of reasons.The rating is based off measuring last season's team, and thus Wake's poor showing last season puts us in 11th place to start. Moreover, the other teams near the bottom of the heap have as many or more legit claims to improvement as we do.

Boston College got a bump because it played so many freshmen last season (73% of its possessions were used by freshmen, the second most in conference was Virginia Tech at 34%). That and a return of 79% of its overall possessions were enough to bump the Eagles past the Deacs.

Georgia Tech, the other awful team, played less freshmen last season than Wake (7% to Wake's 12%), but returns a much higher amount of experience (79% of possessions used to Wake's 55%). In addition, Georgia Tech added three more top 100 newcomers, bringing their total to seven on next year's team. Given the transfers, Wake will have four such players on next year's team, with three of them being freshmen (to be fair, C.J. Harris is not considered a top 100 recruit). Since the Deacs were already behind the Jackets to begin with, there isn't enough to justify a jump. However, if I'm reading this right (and I like to think that I am), Wake is predicted to close the margin between these two teams considerably (last year GT finished ranked 177th, Wake was 210th).

One other thing worth noting: Maryland, which last year was 9th in the ACC according to efficiency rankings, got a sizable bump in this metric due to a full year of Alex Len. Eschewing larger data samples for smaller is generally frowned upon within the efficiency community; there is a decent chance that the Terps (predicted to in 8th at 9-9) finish with a worse-than predicted record.