John Gasaway, ESPN Insider 9y

How non-tourney ACC teams can bounce back

Insider Men's College Basketball, Miami Hurricanes, Syracuse Orange, Pittsburgh Panthers, Florida State Seminoles, Clemson Tigers, Wake Forest Demon Deacons, Boston College Eagles, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Virginia Tech Hokies

My colleagues at ESPN.com are in the process of looking ahead at what next season may bring in the ACC, and I've decided to pitch in and help out on that score. That being said, you'll notice I'm seeing this particular glass as half-empty rather than half-full. For now I'll leave it to other observers to fret about what the future will hold for heavyweights like Duke, Virginia or North Carolina. Today I want to look at how the ACC's other half lives, so to speak.

Here are the ACC teams that missed the 2015 NCAA tournament (listed in the order in which they finished in league play). At the risk of being rude, if you're missing the tournament there's a problem -- so for each program I've offered one number that speaks to the main issue that needs to be addressed.

Miami Hurricanes
Problem number: -0.04

I don't want to be too hard after the fact on an inexperienced Miami team that no one expected to do much last season. This is, after all, a group of Hurricanes that beat eventual national champion Duke by 16 at Cameron Indoor Stadium. You won't often see a team go 10-8 in the ACC only to be left out of the NCAA tournament, but the fact that the Canes lost to Eastern Kentucky by 28 in Coral Gables likely had a good deal to do with that particular snub.

Still, to the extent that Jim Larranaga could pinpoint one performance factor behind his team's trip to the NIT, it may have been the fact that in ACC play the opposing teams actually shot better from the field (posting 50.4 effective FG percentage) than did Miami (50.0). Better defense from Sheldon McClellan, Angel Rodriguez and Tonye Jekiri can erase this shooting differential and put Miami back in the tournament again (last trip: 2013).

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