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Wake Forest has been picked to finish 11th in the ACC by the media for the upcoming basketball season, receiving 378 points to finish ahead of N.C. State, Clemson, Boston College, and Pittsburgh.
Duke led the way with 1,020 votes and 57 first place votes, while North Carolina, Notre Dame, and Miami also received at least one first place vote as well.
The projections, taken from a Brian Hall of WFMY tweet is below:
.@DukeMBB 1st, @UNC_Basketball 2nd, @WakeMBB 11th & @PackMensBball 12th in preseason @accmbb hoops poll....@WFMY @ptwright pic.twitter.com/dwoaFjzYla
— Brian Hall (@bhallwfmy) October 26, 2017
In addition to picking the ACC standings, the media also selected First and Second Team All-ACC, the Preseason Player of the Year, and the Preseason Rookie of the Year.
Bryant Crawford is yet again a noticeable snub from even the second team, with voters electing to go with Jerome Robinson, Joel Berry, Bruce Brown, Jr., Josh Okogie, and Quentin Snyder over the junior for Wake Forest.
Another somewhat interesting omission freshman Chaundee Brown, who, despite being ranked 34th in the nation by RSCI in the class of 2017, and the 10th best player in the ACC managed to not receive a single vote for ACC Rookie of the Year.
Players who DID receive a vote include: De’Andre Hunter of UVA (not in the RSCI top 100), Oshae Brissett of Syracuse (not in the RSCI top 100), Aamir Simms of Clemson (not in the RSCI top 100), and Lavar Batts II of N.C. State (not in the RSCI top 100).
You could make the argument that a vote for anybody other than Marvin Bagley isn’t a great vote, but to propel those guys over Brown is dumb too.
Wake apparently needs to get more media guys who are homers to flaunt their team, because it’s obvious that’s what the other schools are doing.
While I think 11th is at least a reasonable spot for the Deacs (KenPom has Wake 11th), there is a very good chance for Wake Forest to exceed those expectations with the additions of Brown and Olivier Sarr. Especially if Doral Moore is as far along as the Wake representatives yesterday have said he is.
It’s comical that Bryant Crawford isn’t among the consensus top 10 players in the ACC, and I thoroughly look forward to him proving them wrong once again with his play this season.