ACC Roundup – Virginia Sneaks Past Miami

Virginia beat Miami 86-83 on Chance Mallory's free throws.
UNC defeated Syracuse 77-64 with Henri Veesaar's 19 points.
Cal swept Stanford 72-66, their first sweep since 2009-10.

Summarized by AI ⓘ

What is the story about?

In Saturday’s ACC Action, let’s separate the lame games from the good ones first.

Lame: Louisville 87, Georgia Tech 70, Pitt 73, Notre Dame 68, Virginia Tech 82, Wake Forest 63, SMU 94, Boston College 70.

Good: UNC 77, Syracuse 64, Virginia 86, Miami 83, Florida State 70, Clemson 65, Cal 72, Stanford 66.

Let’s focus on the good games first, or at least interesting or relevant ones.

Syracuse hit just 3-17 on three-point attempts against UNC as Adrian Autry’s seat grew a little hotter. UNC wasn’t a whole

lot better from deep, hitting 6-16, but the Heels got Henri Veesaar back and the big guy had 19 points on 9-13 from the floor.

UNC’s guards, who were atrocious against NC State, were a lot better here, with Seth Trimble, Derek Dixon and Luka Bogavac combining for 33 points.

The three point shooting was notable, but so was this: only one Syracuse starter (JJ Starling) hit double figures. Donnie Freeman only got eight shots off and had just 9 points.

With the loss, Syracuse drops to 15-13 and as noted, pressure is building on Autry. However, Syracuse has other issues: Chancellor Kent Syverud is off to Michigan in June, AD John Wildhack is stepping down in July, so even if Wildhack fires Autry, who would hire the next guy? More to the point, who would take the job if he didn’t know who his boss would be? Syracuse is, as they say, between a rock and a hard place.

We should probably be talking more about Chance Mallory. The freshman point guard is only 5-9 and he’s not starting for Virginia, but that kid is a gamer. He was fouled on a three-point attempt with 3.6 to play and hit all three to give the Cavaliers an 86-83 victory. He’s been great all year and an underrated factor for the Wahoos.

It’s too bad because Miami outplayed Virginia in many ways. The Canes won the boards and got 18 second-chance points to Virginia’s 2. Miami had won four straight games prior to this and are showing great signs of stubbornness that may help them a lot in the post-season.

As for Virginia, after the game, Ryan Odom said his team keeps finding ways to win, which is true and also good…but we’re not sure they’re playing as well as he might like.

Since losing to Wake Forest 69-68 on January 17th, Florida State is 6-2…and the two losses were to SMU by three and Virginia by three.

The ’Noles went into Littlejohn and took care of Clemson, 70-65.

The Tigers were up, 65-63 with 2:44 left, but didn’t score another basket. That’s four straight losses for Los Tigres, which may put them on the bubble. What’s gone wrong for Clemson?

It’s getting pretty late to fix it, whatever it is.

Cal held freshman sensation Ebuka Okorie to 6-14 from the floor and while he scored 17, the Bears led from wire to wire. Chris Bell had 20 to pace Cal and John Camden had 18. Cal swept Stanford for the first time since 2009-10 and moves to 19-8 on the season.

Georgia Tech hasn’t won in almost 5 weeks and that didn’t change against Louisville, but it was a turnover fest: the Yellow Jackets had 17 but Louisville, determined to win in all things apparently, topped that with 18 of their own. Didn’t matter: they still won by 17. Here’s an interesting question: what’s the highest number of turnovers any one team has had where they still won the game? Or maybe this is the question: after a certain point, say 15 turnovers, how fast do your odds of winning go down with every turnover?

Mikel Brown had 19 for the Cards and Baye Ndongo had 17 to lead Tech. Louisville hit 19-20 free throws. The only miss was by Aly Khalifa.

Pitt’s Roman Siulepa is one of the most intriguing freshmen in the ACC. He racked up 22 points against Notre Dame Saturday. Cole Certa is not a freshman, but he’s really heated up lately, scoring 34 against Virginia, 18 against Louisville, 14 against Florida State, 16 against SMU, 37 against Georgia Tech and now 16 against Pitt.

He’s been averaging 20.2 ppg for the last 7 games which is pretty good. Keep an eye out for him when Duke visits on Tuesday.

Wake Forest started off well against Virginia Tech, going up 11-10, but then they missed 14 straight shots and never recovered.

Neoklis Avdalas and Tobi Lawal led the Hokies with 17 each. All five starters hit double figures.

Wake Forest ended up shooting just 20% from the bonusphere and 38% overall. Juke Harris had 17 for the Demon Deacons but shot just 7-17.

Finally, BC seems to be playing out the Earl Grant era, falling again, this time SMU.

The Eagles were in it in the first half, down just 40-36, but SMU pulled away in the second, outscoring Boston College 54-34 after the break.

Jermaine O’Neal Jr. had 16 off the bench to lead SMU while Fred Payne had 20 for the Eaglets.

Just a stray thought, but what would it be like if the ACC did relegation? Just asking.

There seem to be rumors connecting Will Wade back to LSU. Boy, would that piss State fans off. It’s almost worth it just to see what that reaction would be like.

No games until Monday, when Louisville visits Chapel Hill and we get to see two erratic teams challenge each other. Mikel Brown could always go off again but Henri Veesaar will get more attention than Syracuse was able to give him.

ACC Standings