ACC Roundup – Wake Has A Near Miss But All Conference Teams Won

Wake Forest cut it a little too close to the bone against Longwood and Will Wade is not happy with his Wolfpack.

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What is the story about?

In Wednesday’s ACC Action, Wake Forest dodged an upset by Longwood 71-68. Syracuse trumped Mercyhurst 76-62, Pitt sunk Binghamton 103-63, NC State clobbered Texas Southern 108-72 and Stanford took care of UT Arlington 76-60.

All of these are exam/Holiday games and there is usually some rust to knock off. Nonetheless, there were serious issues in some of them, not least of all Wake’s.

With 1:00 to go, this game was tied 67-67. Myles Colvin hit a three with :49 to play to give Wake a small bit of breathing

room.

Wake forced Elijah Kelly to heave a 27 foot shot with the clock running down and Omaha Biliew hit one of two free throws to pad the lead to 4.

Longwood took another long three, missed, and got fouled and Johan Nziemi hit his free throws to cut it back to 3.

Juke Harris missed two free throws with :07 left and Longwood got one last chance to push the game to overtime with time running out.

It was that close – against Longwood. This is a team that pushed Michigan to the absolute limit on November 11th, losing 84-83 in overtime before losing to Texas Tech 84-83 just about nine days later.

Exam games, needless to say, are dangerous.

Harris led the way for the Deacs with 19. Tre’Von Spillers, normally pretty steady, fouled out with just 9 points.

In today’s column from Barry Jacobs, he talks about Syracuse’s atrocious free throw shooting so far, but the Orange shot better here, hitting 12-16 for 75%.

Syracuse was up 55-47 with 5:00 to play and basically coasted home from there. They did convert from the line but three point shooting ws pretty bad, hitting just 4-17 there, or 24%.

William Kyle has been plying well lately and he hit 7-8 for 15 points. He also had 10 boards. JJ Starling had 15 as well, while Naithan George tossed in 12.

If you were wondering, Mercyhurst plays in the NEC and is located in Erie, PA, within walking distance of Lake Erie.

Unlike Syracuse, Pitt hit its threes, shooting 16-27 (59%) and 36-58 overall.

The Panthers had an immense 42-9 run spanning both halves. What can you do against that onslaught?

Not a whole lot.

Barry Dunning hit 5 threes, finishing with 23 while Brandin Cummings got 17.

Normally, if you win by 36 and a guy goes off for 31 – no, wait 41 – no, wait…47! most coaches would be pretty happy.

That’s exactly what State’s Paul McNeil did, and of his 12 made shots, 11 were threes. Overall, he shot 12-18, and he also had 10 boards, which is incredibly impressive for a 6-3 guard. However, the only other player to get to double figures was Jerry Deng.

And as noted in today’s Twitter Gold, Will Wade was anything but happy. In fact, he pulled all the fire alarms and basically said the season was on the line if his team didn’t shape up quickly.

Still, while Wade may have valid points about his team, you don’t see guys get close to 50 points very often. That was a spectacular game by McNeil.

Finally, Stanford rushed out to a 21-7 lead and the Mavericks never recovered.

Star freshman Ebuka Okorie missed his second straight game with a “lower extremity injury” and is listed as day-to-day. They should have won this game, obviously – but winning without your best player is a good sign.

Chisom Okpara and Benny Gealer led the way with 17 each.

Stanford is now 9-2 with two more winnable games prior to ACC play beginning, Colorado on a neutral court and Cal State Northridge.

Colorado is 10-1 and without Okorie it could be more challenging, but they’re not Michigan or Louisville. It’s winnable.

No games until Friday when Florida State gets 1-10 Mississippi Valley State and Cal gets 2-8 Morgan State, light years removed from the Human Eraser era of Marvin Webster.