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ACC Roundup

By DBR Archives

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In Tuesday night's ACC action, B.C not surprisingly beat Miami, and Virginia surprised Maryland, 103-91. Maryland is in a bit of a hole at 1-3 in the conference, a scenario they have seen more than once in the last few years.

Virginia put Maryland in a bind when D.J. Strawberry picked up his second foul eight minutes in and had to rely on freshmen Greivis Vasquez and Eric Hayes.

Virginia ran up a 20 point first-half lead, and when Maryland rallied and cut the score to seven by halftime, the game was intriguing, despite considerable foul trouble for Maryland.

The Terps crawled back to within three at 58-55, but Virginia pretty much locked the game away with a 12 point run.

In many respects, it wasn't a pretty game: 39 turnovers, 52 personal fouls, and a certain amount of, well, let's call it malpractice.

But give Virginia credit: despite a considerable disadvantage up front, UVa outrebounded Maryland 46-33.

In his post-game comments, Gary Williams came as close as possible to laying blame for the loss at the feet of the officials, saying there were only so many factors that could affect fouls called: "It can be Virginia. It can be Maryland. It can be..."

No great surprise that B.C. throttled Miami. The 'Canes are pretty much decimated at this point, with Anthony King, Jimmy Graham, and Adrian Thomas are all out with injuries, with King and Thomas out for the season.

B.C. logically pounded the ball inside to Sean Marshall, and the talented big man scored the first nine points for the Eagles.

It's probably fair now to say that Jack McClinton's early scoring prowess came against weak teams, and in more serious settings, he has fallen off considerably, with his eight points against B.C. only the latest example.

Wednesday night sees UNC visiting Clemson and Virginia Tech taking their shiny new ranking to Tallahassee, where the 0-3 'Noles await. Virginia Tech is happy and confident, but FSU beat Florida, could have beaten Clemson, and hung with UNC for a good bit of the game despite being considerably smaller. It'll be a good game.

So will UNC and Clemson. Clemson shares the traditional ACC loathing for UNC, and after losing to Maryland, they're spoiling for a fight. Of course, so is UNC, where Ol' Roy Williams has shelved the cornpone routine for the time being and ridden his young charges mercilessly all week in practice. Williams is not a bad man or anything, but the smile-and-humble-pie Ol' Roy the media shows us bears no relation whatever to the demanding taskmaster in practice. The Heels know they'd better deliver in Littlejohn; Clemson knows this is not just redemption for the Maryland loss, but a chance to stake a claim as the best Clemson team ever. It should be really, really good basketball.

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