ACC Roundup – Conference Play Starts Tuesday

SB Nation

On Tuesday, ACC play starts in earnest with Florida State at UNC, Pitt at Miami, Louisville at Cal and Notre Dame at Stanford.

Obviously there’s no way that Florida State should compete with UNC. FSU is

in a serious rebuild while UNC has put together a pretty solid roster, not least of all up front with Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar. It should be a beatdown, frankly.

Pitt and Miami is at least interesting. Both headed by former Duke assistants, Miami is coming together quickly in Jai Lucas’s first season while Pitt has struggled, losing to Quinnipiac and Hofstra. However, Pitt’s last two games were big wins over Binghamton (103-63) and Penn State (80-46). Still, we’d go with Miami here.

Cal has been better than we expected, and without point guards Mikel Brown and Kobe Rogers, the Cardinals have been vulnerable. However, both are practicing so we’d expect them to play. The road trip works against Louisville, but the talent works against Cal.

Stanford has played well too and freshman Ebuka Okorie is playing like a star. He’s averaging 22.8 ppg and has 62 in his last two outings.

Notre Dame, meanwhile, is still without Markus Burton and smarting after losing to Purdue Fort Wayne before Christmas. How will they react?

Both Notre Dame and Louisville also have to deal with long flights. We’re inclined to go with Stanford here but it could be a close call.

Tuesday’s ACC Action