In Saturday’s ACC Action, Notre Dame handled Georgia Tech 89-74, Cal beat up on BC 86-75, FSU pounded Virginia Tech 92-69, Syracuse nipped SMU at the buzzer 79-78, Wake Forest surprised Stanford 68-63, Louisville took care of Baylor 82-71, Virginia got by Ohio State 70-66, UNC thumped Pitt 79-65 and Miami shocked NC State 77-76.
News flash: the Basketball Gods, who have toyed with NC State since Jim Valvano was forced out after the season in 1990, aren’t quite done yet: State had a 7-point lead with 1:06 lead and had ripped off an 11-0 run to get that.
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Didn’t score another point.
Miami was tougher and smarter down the stretch, cutting the lead to 76-74 with 3.2 seconds left…then Darrion Williams fouled Tru Washington on a three-point attempt.
Miami ripped off an 8-0 run in 49 seconds, culminating in those foul shots.
As we’ve seen earlier, Will Wade’s pressers after a bad game are unusually entertaining. Check this out: “We’re a long way from the NCAA Tournament. This team, shoot. We lost to Georgia Tech. I mean, damn. You’re skipping way ahead, worried about the NCAA Tournament. I hope we can get to Dayton.”
He’s got a point: Miami got 20 offensive rebounds and scored 56 points in the paint.
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UNC faced a tough problem with Caleb Wilson out with his wrist injury, then that was compounded when Henri Veesaar had to sit as well with an injury of his own but also an illness.
Didn’t matter against Pitt.
Hubert Davis went with a frontcourt of Jarin Stevenson, Luka Bogavac and Zayden High.
UNC really didn’t have any issues with the Panthers. The Heels had a 14-point lead at halftime and it was too much for Pitt to overcome. High ended up with 15 points and 7 rebounds, Stevenson had 19 points and 3 boards, while Bogavac got 15 and 3.
Those guys combined to shoot 19-33/3-6.
It won’t work every time, but it worked well enough against Pitt.
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Roman Siulepa continues to play well with 14 points on 6-10/0-2 from the floor.
We might be wrong about this, but we don’t think Syracuse led until the last shot of the game against SMU. The Mustangs were in control for most of that game until the very end. Nate Kingz hit a layup with 0:02 left. However, like NC State, Syracuse left the door wide open when they couldn’t score in winning time.
Kingz finished with 13 points and 5 boards. Donnie Freeman had 18 points and 4 blocks.
For SMU, Jaden Toombs had 19 points and 5 rebounds. It’s a huge win for a struggling Syracuse and a painful loss for SMU.
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Speaking of painful losses, Virginia Tech followed up a huge road win over Clemson with an ugly loss at home to Florida State.
The ‘Noles were legitimately awful earlier in the season but that’s over. Florida State has improved radically. They had a five-game losing streak in December that was hard-core losing. None of those games were remotely close.
They lost four more soon after, to UNC, to Duke, to NC State and to Syracuse, and only the loss to State was really a blowout.
The losses to Miami and SMU were by two and three points respectively. The loss to Virginia was by just three. This team has improved as much as any in the ACC. And against Virginia Tech, they just cooked, winning by 23.
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The ‘Noles shot 52% on threes and 62% overall. And the Hokies?
They shot 50% on threes – excellent – and 44% overall.
FSU also had superb ball security with just 5 turnovers. They also had four players with at least 17 points, which is impressive.
He’ll never get Coach of the Year, but Luke Loucks has done a tremendous job with this team. Seriously: who has improved more? Who has done more with the roster he has to deal with?
No one. He’s done an amazing job and the future certainly looks bright in Tallahassee.
With 10 games, we’re not going to detail everything. However, we did not expect Wake to knock off Stanford. That’s a good win for the Deacs. We certainly didn’t expect Cole Certa to rack up 37 points for Notre Dame.
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And the two non-conference games worked out pretty well, with Louisville getting by Baylor and Virginia nipping the Buckeyes.
Neither of those teams are really killing it, but those are still good out-of-conference wins. Mikel Brown followed his astonishing performance against NC State with 29 points against the Bears. It wasn’t a crushing win but a win is still a win.
As for Virginia, the Cavaliers won despite getting just 10 points and 8 boards from their Euro bigs, Thijs De Ridder and Johann Grunloh. And Bruce Thornton racked up 28 for Ohio State. However, as noted, an imperfect win is still a win. No one will care in a few days.
No games until Monday when Syracuse visits Duke, but on Tuesday, UNC visits a soft NC State (Will Wade’s words, not ours), Louisville hits Dallas, and Virginia Tech jets down to Miami to take on the surging ‘Canes, and BC heads to FSU.
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