With Georgia Tech taking on Kansas, there's a good chance the
ACC could get a black eye to match the one given by St. John's. No
offense to Tech, but they haven't shown the fire and passion last year's team
showed, and Paul Hewitt has had to do some fairly extreme things, including
benching B.J. Elder at one point and turning to freshmen for offensive
punch. On a team which has a ton of returning (and very successful)
seniors, that is probably not a good sign. It could be like UNC was when
Wallace, Stackhouse, and McInnis showed up, and the freshmen are just much more
gifted than the upperclassmen, but that seems unlikely.
School | Conference | Overall |
North Carolina | 1-0 | 11-1 |
Maryland | 1-0 | 8-2 |
Duke | 0-0 | 8-0 |
Wake Forest | 0-0 | 11-1 |
Georgia Tech | 0-0 | 9-1 |
Virginia | 0-0 | 8-1 |
NC State | 0-0 | 10-2 |
Miami | 0-0 | 8-2 |
Clemson | 0-0 | 9-3 |
Florida State | 0-1 | 7-6 |
Virginia Tech | 0-1 | 6-5 |
On the other hand, Kansas hasn't exactly set the world on fire either, and
Wayne Simien is hurt again. Yes, they're undefeated, but Vermont gave them a
game, Pacific was within ten, and South Carolina only lost by four.
Anyway, consider it a bellwether game for Tech. They could soar, or
they could crash. Badly.
Either way, it's a 1:30 start.
N.C. State
is disturbed and confused by what happened in the Garden - as they should
be. And quickly. West Virginia is coming to town with a brilliant coach and a perfect record.
It's
been a tough haul for Wake Forest in some respects, but 11-1 is 11-1, and
losing to Illinois is no disgrace this year (they trounced undefeated Cincinnati
Friday night). Skip Prosser seems reasonably happy at the moment, though
he was so mad after the Elon game that he broke the locker-room door. You
know, we're guessing it's not a really cheap door. Can you imagine, you're 6-8
or 6-9, and this relatively normal-sized, middle-aged guy slams that hard enough
to break it? It's not like he's going to rip it off the hinges and hit you
with it, and even at that moment the nature of the relationship, where authority
trumps physical superiority, is still clear, but that's bound to make an
impression.
It reminds us of a Bill Foster story we heard years ago, and we'll likely get
the details wrong, but it's funny enough to repeat.
He was really angry after a poor performance and was showing film to the
team, with a sarcastic musical accompaniment suggesting, say, ballet. At
one point he got disgusted and spiked his chalk on the floor. It bounced
up and landed directly in the black board's chalk tray. "I did that
on purpose," he deadpanned, or words to that effect. Great stuff.
Wake opens conference play on Sunday at UVa, which is a huge opportunity for
Virginia to prove their renaissance isn't just due to good scheduling. And
it'll be fun to see what Sean Singletary can do with Chris Paul, and vice-versa.