After practicing at the Greensboro Coliseum on Wednesday, N.C. State guard Lorenzo Brown said his balky ankle hampers him more on defense than offense. He proceeded to make a mockery of that statement Thursday.

Sore left ankle, taped-up right thumb, whatever -- Brown locked down Virginia Tech guard Erick Green, the ACC player of the year and nation’s leading scorer, holding him to 15 points, more than 10 below his average, on 5-for-19 shooting without a single assist.

Quinn Cook has played like a first-team all-ACC player through Duke's nonconference schedule. Credit: CHUCK LIDDY

Back in October, ACC beat writers and reporters gathered in Charlotte for the conference’s preseason media day. One of the annual traditions is voting on the preseason favorite to win the league and picking preseason all-conference teams. With ACC play about to (finally) begin Saturday, let’s see how my picks look at this point in the year.

Here’s what I predicated in October:

The expanded 18-game ACC schedule kicks off in 10 days.

North Carolina has an important game with UNLV and N.C. State gets a potential RPI-helper in Western Michigan on Saturday, but it's fairly safe to gauge how the 12 ACC teams did outside of league play.

Duke and N.C. State are in the top 10 of the RPI and the ACC could get another four or five teams in the NCAA tournament.

There have been some surprises (hello, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech) and some disappointments (really, FSU and Clemson?). A breakdown of all 12 teams (in order of RPI ranking, according to Jerry Palm at CBS Sports):