ACC Roundup: The ACC Is Definitely Better

SB Nation

In Tuesday’s ACC Action, SMU raced by Murray State 102-91, Notre Dame roughed up Eastern Illinois 78-58, Clemson knocked off Morehead State 83-56, Boston College fell to Central Connecticut, 60-59, UNC

got by a tougher than expected Radford 89-74, Florida State nearly got Florida, falling 78-76, Wake Forest took Michigan to overtime before barely losing 85-84, Virginia hammered Hampton, 91-53, and Louisville took it to Kentucky before the Wildcats made a game of it late. The Cards still won, 96-88. But Pat Kelsey will take issue with the win.

Why? At least two reasons.

Because while Louisville looked brilliant early, they let Kentucky get uncomfortably close down the stretch, and then went catatonic at the line, missing seven straight before finally hitting one in the closing seconds.

Despite that, for most of the game, Louisville thoroughly outplayed the Wildcats. Wasn’t close. Freshman Mikel Brown hit 29 points and 5 assists.

STG (Serial Transfer Guy) Ryan Conwell had 24. It’s early obviously, but this is a very dangerous team.

There’s a sense that the ACC is vastly improved and Wake Forest and Florida State tried their best to prove it.

Wake took Michigan to the wire and then again in overtime before former Tar Heel Elliot Cadeau put them away at the line. Note to Hubert Davis: Cadeau finished with 17 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.

Juke Harris played well again for the Demon Deacons, scoring 19 and grabbing 6 boards.

Wake did hold Yale Lendenborg to 9 points but Aday Mara had a terrific game with 18 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 blocks. Nice!

The ’Noles took Florida to the absolute wire as well, with the game coming down to the last few seconds before Florida could feel comfortable. You may remember when Leonard Hamilton conceded and NCAA tournament game to Michigan, telling a baffled interviewer that “that game was over”

Luke Loucks is so not doing that. He played to the last possible chance, which means that FSU is a very different program now.

Also different, but possibly not by design but rather necessity: Loucks is not subbing frenetically. He has a standard eight-man rotation and, so far, no collection of one-dimensional 7-foot stiffs. We were really impressed.

Also deviating from the Fightin’ Hammies playbook: Robert McCray played 34 minutes and had 29 points.

It’s a new era in Tallahassee.

In Chapel Hill, UNC had to play without Seth Trimble, who has a broken arm, and while it wasn’t a perfect game, it wasn’t a big deal, at least not yet.

Euro import Luka Bogavac got the start and had 19 points and five assists. The enormous frontcourt of Henri Veesaar (7-0), Jarin Stevenson (6-10) and Caleb Wilson (also 6-10) was a major factor, as you’d expect against Radford.

Veesaar had 18 points and 7 rebounds, Stevenson 15 and 7 and Wilson 13 and 14.

A frontcourt that gets 28 rebounds is a pretty good asset.

Former ACC players Del Jones (Clemson) and Dennis Parker had a chance for a little payback. Jones, who has looked great against lower-level teams, had just 4 points here. However, Parker had 23 points and 6 rebounds.

Trimble’s absence will be a hit and we’ll have to see how UNC adapts.

Can we just say that while it probably annoys Tony Bennett, it’s fun to see Virginia basketball getting up and down the court?

So far, Ryan Odom’s team has put up 87 (Radford), 81 (NCCU) and now 91 against Hampton.

And while we’ll have to see how Virginia does against tougher teams that force them to do different things, this team is impressive.

They won easily despite a weak game from Thijs De Ridder, who had just 5 points and 3 rebounds. Johann Grunloh had 9 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 blocks. Ugonna Onyenso came off the bench for 18 points, 10 rebounds and 5 blocks of his own.

Chance Mallory, all 5-9 of him, came off the bench and got 16 points.

Virginia is a big, athletic team that is going to make some noise this season. If you haven’t seen them, you’ll be surprised. This is a very different bunch of Wahoos.

We didn’t expect Morehead State to give Clemson much trouble and they didn’t. RJ Godfrey had a double-double with 13 points and 11 boards. Jake Wahlin had 14 and Dillon Hunter just 5. Ace Buckner, whose father Greg played at Clemson and uncle Andre at Duke, had 12 off the bench.

BC fell to 1-2 with a one point loss to Central Connecticut on a late layup. Normally losing to the Blue Devils is no big deal, but, well, wrong Blue Devils. Losing to FAU? Not bad, but at least they have a rep. Losing to Central Connecticut is not good. That’s going to hurt everything about the program.

If this is where BC is, it’s a real problem for coach Earl Grant’s future.

Eastern Illinois wasn’t a serious problem for Notre Dame. The now-experienced backcourt of Markus Burton and Braeden Shrewsberry racked up 21 and 18 points respectively. Carson Towt had 11 rebounds, continuing his strong board work. There’s not a lot to learn here, so we’ll come back to Notre Dame when there are more insights.

SMU got by Murray State but it wasn’t a dominant win or anything. Boopie Miller had 28 points and 6 assists. BJ Edwards had 20 points and 5 assists of his own.

We still need more games to know where everyone is, but as of now, we’d sort of divide the ACC as follows:

Tier One: