No big surprises in ACC play Tuesday night: UNC crushed Penn, 106-71, B.C. thrashed St. Louis, 61-39, and Virginia Tech also held UNCG to 39 points but scored 67 to B.C.'s 61.It looks like Rick Majerus has his work cut out for him at St. Louis, but he's a masterful coach and the talent will get better.
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| ACC Standings As Of March 5th | |||||||||||||||||||
| Duke | 0-0 | .000 | 8-0 | 1.000 | |||||||||||||||
| North Carolina | 0-0 | .000 | 8-0 | 1.000 | |||||||||||||||
| Clemson | 0-0 | .000 | 7-0 | 1.000 | |||||||||||||||
| Miami | 0-0 | .000 | 7-0 | 1.000 | |||||||||||||||
| Boston College | 0-0 | .000 | 6-1 | .857 | |||||||||||||||
| Virginia | 0-0 | .000 | 6-1 | .857 | |||||||||||||||
| Wake Forest | 0-0 | .000 | 5-1 | .833 | |||||||||||||||
| Florida State | 0-0 | .000 | 8-2 | .800 | |||||||||||||||
| NC State | 0-0 | .000 | 4-2 | .667 | |||||||||||||||
| Maryland | 0-0 | .000 | 5-3 | .625 | |||||||||||||||
| Virginia Tech | 0-0 | .000 | 4-3 | .571 | |||||||||||||||
| Georgia Tech | 0-0 | .000 | 3-4 | .429 | |||||||||||||||
Rookie Cory Raji scored 13 and is averaging 9 ppg so far.
UNCG has a better-than-their-level player in Kyle Hines, who has gotten some NBA interest, and he scored 15 of their 39 points as Tech held them to 26.5% for the game.
And perhaps the biggest surprise in the UNC game is that Penn didn't lose by 50. They're not the Penn of old, the equal of any of the Big 5. The Quakers are 2-7 and that's not much to brag about, although the rest of the Big 5 may not be a whole lot better.
On Wednesday, Clemson has an interesting opponent in ECU, where Mack McCarthy has, for the second time in his career, proven to be a coach-in-waiting. The guy was a solid winner before taking some time off and then turning up as an assistant at VCU, where he took over for Sonny Smith when he retired. When Terry Holland went looking this year after Ricky Stokes resigned (cough, cough), he found a ready-made head coach on the bench just waiting to take over.
It's a weird employment strategy, but it's worked out for McCarthy. If we're Oliver Purnell, we're not taking a well-coached team lightly. And they did just beat George Mason, not as easy as it used to be. Why would they go to Greenville, though? Why is State heading there this weekend? Poor decisions! Nothing to gain, much to lose.
Incidentally, speaking of Clemson, so much for the Bowden-haters getting their way: Tommy Boy has re-upped.
Georgia Tech takes on Georgia State, and if they lose that, don't be surprised if there are calls for Paul Hewitt's head (and realistically, they shouldn't lose this one).
In Real Games, Wake takes on Vandy as the Commodores enter the Top 25 and are playing with great confidence and with more athleticism than Vandy teams usually have, and UVa takes on Syracuse, which should be fun. In a funny note, at least from a Duke mano point of view, the other day Jim Boeheim said he was backing off zone D because his team was too young to execute it properly. He's been playing more man than he has in years.