Ranking the ACC: Losses in the triangle shake up the rankings

I'll have a final football power rankings later, but for now we stick with basketball.

1. Syracuse (1) -- 14-0 (1-0) -- #2 in the country

A close call against Miami over the weekend, but they have Virginia Tech on Tuesday night to get back on track. Maybe? Do they even need to get back on track? I don't know, teams have bumps all the time.

2. Duke (2) -- 11-3 (0-1) -- #16 in the country

Not a good loss against Notre Dame, even on the road. Duke was supposed to be closer to Syracuse than they were North Carolina -- still, they remain 2nd in the rankings.

3. Pittsburgh (5) -- 14-1 (2-0)

A soft non-conference schedule and they opened up with NC State and Maryland in conference -- and won convincingly. Pittsburgh is somewhere between the second-best and fourth-best team in the conference. For now, we'll call it in the middle and say third.

4-9. UNC/Notre Dame/Wake Forest/Clemson/NC State/Virginia

This could go any number of ways and I wouldn't tell you that you were wrong. This isn't a copout so much as confusion. They all have flaws: UNC has the best wins, but some mind-boggling losses. Ditto for Notre Dame. Wake has one of those wins against UNC, but little else in the way of wins. Clemson, NC State and VIrginia all could go either way, they are probably the bottom three in this grouping.

10-12. Florida State/Georgia Tech/Maryland

Again, I have no idea. Maryland beat Georgia Tech. Florida State has two helpful wins, but losing by double digits to Virginia is questionable.

13. Miami (13) -- 8-6 (0-2)

They played Syracuse close. That's about all I got for this.

14. Virginia Tech 8-5 (1-0)

I have little faith that this team is as good as their record. The Hokies will struggle against Syracuse I would assume.

15. Boston College 4-11 (0-2)

They have lost seven of their last eight, but were close against Clemson.