ACC Media Day 2014: Syracuse Basketball Picked to Finish Fifth in Conference

The Atlantic Coast Conference media has spoken! At today's "Operation Basketball" (whatever, it's a Media Day), the conference media in attendance cast their votes for the 2014-15 regular season standings. They did not pick Syracuse to win.

This shouldn't surprise anyone at all, really. We weren't picked first last year, nor did we finish first. And with the losses we sustained to the starting lineup, it makes sense that we're nowhere near the top. So we're fifth. But the Orange received two first-place votes. Someone want to do some research as to who those non-#disloyalidiots may be?

Full projected standings (with total votes and first-place votes) are below:

1. Duke Blue Devils: 935 (41)

2. North Carolina Tar Heels: 870 (12)

3. Louisville Cardinals: 847 (3)

4. Virginia Cavaliers: 824 (7)

5. Syracuse Orange: 706 (2)

6. Pittsburgh Panthers: 592

7. Notre Dame Fighting Irish: 515

8. Florida State Seminoles: 506

9. NC State Wolfpack: 478

10. Miami Hurricanes: 442

11. Clemson Tigers: 330

12. Wake Forest Demon Deacons: 221

13. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: 195

14. Boston College Eagles: 184

15. Virginia Tech Hokies: 155

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Any surprises here? I don't really see any. Duke is slated to be the best team in the conference, and that's reflected here. The next three -- UNC, Louisville, Virginia -- are tightly grouped and could probably fall in any order at this juncture. If we're establishing a tier underneath them, Syracuse and Pitt sound about right.

Some other player-specific pre-season awards that you might care about are below:

2014-15 Preseason All-ACC Team (votes in parenthesis)

Marcus Paige, North Carolina (63)

Montrezl Harrell, Louisville (58)

Jahlil Okafor, Duke (57)

Malcolm Brogdon, Virginia (55)

Jerian Grant, Notre Dame (24)

ACC Preseason Player of the Year: Marcus Paige, North Carolina

ACC Preseason Rookie of the Year: Jahlil Okafor, Duke

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"NO SYRACUSE PLAYERS?!?! THAT'S..." fine. Really, it's fine. We're still considered one of the top 25 teams in the country this preseason, and we've lost most of our scoring from a team that already struggled to put the ball in the basket. After several years of top-10 expectations and conference title dreams, maybe easing into things will be helpful for this young group to grow into the year and build steam over time. 20-0 starts are nice and all, but they mean nothing if you don't win anything later on in the season. So let's try out this different approach and see what happens.

Any gripes at all? Share below.