College Hoops: Your Digital Season Preview Begins with the ACC

OK, it's about time for the school year to start... which means it is also nearing the time to dig into the new College Basketball season previews. And to get us going, I'm going to start off by going conference by conference through D-1. I'm going to mix it up, from high-major to mid-major to low-major. I'm going to take a look at the conferences as a whole, and then team-by-team. We'll shine a light on what's amazing about each conference, and well... what isn't quite as hot.

I'm pretty excited about this project. I mean, how many of us would take a new job, across the country without taking a look at that employer's website? Or without doing a little Google search? For high school athletes (or their families), it's even more amplified. So I'll look at everything through the eyes of the 16 year old basketball player. How easy is it to get excited about a program?

Naturally there's a time bias. As we won't unveil every conference at once, the ones later have more time to evolve. But we should get a feel for a consistent snapshot of each conference.

So, I'll kick this off with a tour into the ACC.


What's good?
Take a quick look at the upper right hand part of the site -- it's super easy and intuitive to find the ACC on Twitter, or on Facebook. They leverage the Twitter and Facebook logos and colors. And these are ways fans can stay connected wherever they may go.

12 Days of ACC football is original content produced by the ACC. I'm guessing we'll see something similar when we get close to hoops season. They released a different team video each day (and, of course promoted this via Twitter).

The Twitter feed (available here) is not too bad. As of press time (can I say press time on a blog?), they had 3,167 followers.

What could get better?
When you go deeper into the site, by clicking on Men's Basketball, the Twitter and Facebook call outs disappear. There really isn't any elevated Men's Basketball connectivity here. So, you're able to stay in touch with the conference at a high level -- just not at a sport-specific level. Now I'm not saying it is easy for every sport should have their own Twitter feed... but imagine a world where they did. And at least start with the most critical sports (basketball and football)...



There's also no place, as of now, for me to connect as an ACC fan. Twitter or Facebook can offer this, but I see the conference as a place that can direct me to other sites. Maybe it is the top bloggers for each school? Or a list of all coaches in my sport that are blogging? Wouldn't it be amazing if there was even a men's basketball Twitter feed with posts from every coach in the conference who uses Twitter? That'd be crazy! And it'd make me come back!

One final call out. It's a simple thing, but one that I think could be powerful. Especially if there were sport-specific Twitter sites in the ACC. Who does the ACC follow? Imagine if those boxes in the right hand side contained images of all the ACC coaches who tweet... and all the school sites... and ACC alumni in the Pros (Chris Bosh anyone!) If I go to the ACC's Hoops Twitter feed, fill it with basketball goodness!



OK I'm going to close each conference overview with a couple of things. A pre-season poll and coach of the year. No science here at all, just my guess as to how active each school is online and which coach is the most active. Then I'll dive into each school to see how impressions go into reality.

Predicting the schools, from most to least active digitally:
1. Duke
2. North Carolina
3. Wake Forest
4. Maryland
5. Virginia
6. Florida State
7. Georgia Tech
8. Boston College
9. Virginia Tech
10. NC State
11. Clemson
12. Miami

And my pre-season coach of the year guess goes to Tony Bennett, Virginia... he is young and came from a program (Washington State) where you have to think differently in order to compete against the powers.

Stay tuned for my ACC breakdowns in the coming days...