In Saturday’s ACC Action, SMU survived Florida State, barely, 83-80, Clemson topped Georgia Tech 77-63, Louisville hammered Virginia Tech 85-71, NC State got by Pitt 81-72, Miami got back on track at Syracuse,
85-76, Notre Dame survived Boston College 68-64, Cal KO’d Stanford 78-66 and UNC took down Virginia, 85-80.
The Wahoos started out great and had a 43-34 lead at halftime. UNC got hot though, shooting 63.3% in the second half, with Jarin Stevenson hitting all 17 of his points after halftime.
It was the sort of win that could revitalize UNC’s season because Virginia is no joke. That’s a deep, talented team and winning in their home barn is not easy.
Arguably UNC’s best win of the season.
Mikel Brown is back and you’re gonna be in trouble! Hey law, hey law, Mikel is back!
Apologies to The Angels for that.
Brown has been out for eight games with a back injury and Louisville has had a bunch of other guys with less critical injuries, but Brown was the key. He’s a terrific young point guard and in this one, he lit the Hokies up for 20 points and 6 assists. Add him to Ryan Conwell and the Cards are looking pretty scary again.
Sananda Fru was also a pain with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
For Virginia Tech, Jalen Bedford had 22 and Ben Hammond had 18 but Tobi Lawal and Neoklis Avdalas were both held to 2 points. Jaden Schutt had 9 on 3-5 attempts, all threes.
We were looking forward to Monday’s Duke-Louisville rendezvous in Cameron but that may or may not be rescheduled.
Clemson struggled from the field in the first half but in the second the Tigers hit 7-12 for their threes and that helped push them past Georgia Tech.
We thought that Baye Ndongo would be a lot farther along than he is, but he only scored 5 points here, although he did have 10 boards. Georgia Tech shot just 37% overall and Mouhamed Sylla, who got off to a really nice start in the early part of the season, came off the bench here and played just eight minutes. We think he may still be struggling with an injury though.
Kowacie Reeves led the Yellow Jackets with 19.
Pitt has had a couple of basic problems this season: they don’t do well around the basket and they’ve been bad from the line. The Panthers missed 18 free throws. That’s really dreadful. Roman Siulepa is coming along nicely – the Aussie was said to be highly athletic and that’s true – but he shot just 3-7 from the line. Damarco Minor was 3-9 and Brandin Cummings was 1-4.
The 14 turnovers didn’t help either.
NC State moved to 14-6 with the win and the Panthers fell to an unfortunate 8-12. Four starters for the Pack finished in double figures but Darrion Williams hit for just 8. Has anyone had the nerve to ask Will Wade about him again since his recent blow-up?
Syracuse lost its third straight with the loss to Miami. The ‘Canes hammered Syracuse on the boards, 37-21, and couldn’t guard either: Miami shot 54% from three point range and 61% overall.
It was so bad that former Syracuse player Eric Devendorf, who was on camera for the ACC Network, wondered out loud if Syracuse had just given up since they didn’t even try to foul to give themselves a chance, however unlikely, at the win.
Supporting evidence: not one Syracuse player got more than four rebounds.
It’s fair to ask, given fan expectations, fair or not: is the Red Autry era in danger? Things are not looking good and this is a team with some talent. For whatever reason, they just can’t seem to play defense and the fans have noticed.
Sharp contrast with that game and the SMU-FSU contest, where the ‘Noles, who are suddenly a never-say-die team, was down 14 in the first half, took a 72-69 point lead with about 4:00 to play.
SMU won, but Florida State showed immense heart down the stretch and made SMU earn every bit of it. FSU was highly impressive, not least of all consdering how bad they were early. Luke Loucks has really improved that team rather dramatically.
Jaron Pierre scored 28 to pace the Mustangs who were of course favored to win. The story here though is just how much the Seminoles have improved. They’re going to have some tough games the rest of the way, but the improvement is obvious, and that suggests one thing: Luke Loucks is a very good coach.
Boston College gave Notre Dame a pretty good game and fought up until the end.
The Eagles led for about 33 minutes but Notre Dame eventually caught up and kept a narrow lead. Give BC credit though – they never gave up and Fred Payne cut the lead to 66-64 with two seconds on the clock. Naturally, someone called timeout. The announcers immediately invoked Chris Webber’s all-time bonehead play in the 1993 national championship game.
They might not have won it and in fact the odds were against them. But they had a chance.
Bummer, dude.
There was significant choppiness at the end involving BC’s Jayden Hastings. Not sure what that was about but he was not happy.
Notre Dame broke a 5-game losing streak, no surprise since their best player, Markus Burton, had surgery. As noted previously, Jalen Haralson is having a really good freshman year. He finished with 17 here.
Finally, Cal and Stanford put on a fairly entertaining nightcap. Cal limited freshman sensation Ebuka Okorie to 1-16/0-9 from the floor and he still finished with 14 points.
Check out what Cal did to Stanford’s starters:
- Donavin Young – 2 points
- AJ Rohosy – 0 points
- Okorie – 14 points
- Benny Gealer – 4 points
- Ryan Agarwal – 12 points
Good thing Jeremy Dent-Smith continues to play well off the bench. He had 20 of the 34 the Cardinal bench produced. Good news/bad news: the bench outscored the starters.
Stanford shot just 27% overall and 19% from behind the line. Stanford – don’t these guys have a good alternative nickname? – missed 48 shots.
John Camden is not a great player but he is an excellent shooter and he shot the Cardinal full of holes. Camden lit them up for 25 points on 8-13/5-8.
A bit of potential bad news for Cal as big man Lee Dort came up hurting near the end of the game.
As for Stanford, keep in mind that Chisom Okpara, arguably their second-beset player, is out for the season with an injury. That makes it easier to crack down on the other guys and Stanford’s margin for error is not huge.
No more games until Monday and that’s iffy: Duke and Louisville are scheduled to play in Cameron, but given the ice storm expected here, there’s a reasonable chance it is postponed.
Incidentally, there are still a lot of games to be played but some bracketologists see the ACC getting nine teams in the tournament. That suggests Duke, Clemson, Virginia, Miami, NC State, SMU, UNC and Louisville and possibly Virginia Tech. Cal and Stanford are probably below the cut line right now and from there, Syracuse, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Boston College, Florida State and Pitt aren’t going anywhere barring a surprising run in the ACC Tournament, and in the new era, some of them won’t even get a chance to do that.
- REACTION: North Carolina Tar Heels HUGE Comeback Win Over Virginia for First ACC Road Win
- No. 22 UNC men’s basketball comes back to beat No. 14 Virginia, 85-80, on the road
- David Teel: Defense dooms No. 14 Virginia in 85-80 loss to North Carolina
- Seedy K’s GameCap: Virginia Tech
- Mikel Brown Jr. helps No. 23 Louisville down Virginia Tech
- 4 notable observations as Mikel Brown Jr. leads Louisville in big win over Virginia Tech
- Louisville Freshman Mikel Brown Jr. Highlights vs. Virginia Tech
- No. 18 Clemson Tigers are road warriors with 12 straight ACC victories away from home
- No. 18 Clemson gets hot from long range, beats Georgia Tech 77-63
- Opinion: After deflating loss for Georgia Tech, Damon Stoudamire says ‘it’s a ‘me’ thing’
- Clemson’s Turnover Woes Erased in Win Over Georgia Tech
- N.C. State pulls away late as Pitt suffers 6th ACC loss in 7 games
- WOLFERETTI: NC State escapes a noon snoozefest at Pitt, but a win is a win
- Free Throw Shooting Woes Continue to Doom Pitt
- Free Throw Shooting Woes Continue to Doom Pitt
- Syracuse basketball defense is horrid vs. Miami, losing streak at 3, fans are fed up
- Miami snaps two-game skid with road win over Syracuse
- Watch: SMU’s Jaron Pierre Jr. throws down huge poster dunk over … his teammate?
- Seminoles Fall Just Short In Road Game Against SMU
- FSU basketball strong second half comes up short on the road against SMU
- Jaron Pierre Jr., SMU thwart Florida State’s comeback attempt
- Florida State Nearly Erases 12-Point Deficit but Falls to SMU
- Irish Erase 13-point BC lead as Eagles Lose 68-64 to Notre Dame
- BC men’s basketball outscored in second half of loss to Notre Dame
- Could Notre Dame basketball finally figure a way to an ACC win?
- Notre Dame Snaps Five-Game Skid with Gritty 68–64 Win Over Boston College
- ACC basketball: Cal snaps losing streak to Stanford with win at Maples Pavilion
- Camden hits 5 3s, scores 25 to help Cal beat Stanford 78-66, snap 5-game skid in series
- After slow start, Cal finds its stride in win over Stanford at Maples Pavilion
- Cal Basketball: Bears Roar Back For Big Win at Stanford, 78-66
- Cal Rallies From 16 Down, Wins at Stanford For 1st Time Since 2016-17
