The All-ACC team was announced on Monday, with North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough, Boston College's Jared Dudley and Florida State's Al Thornton unanimous picks. Sean Singletary and Zabian Dowdell also made the first team.Josh McRoberts made second team, and Jon Scheyer was on the all-rookie team.
In our opinion, J.R. Reynolds and D.J. Strawberry could easily have been first team, but fell short.
McRoberts also made the all-defensive team.
Expansion really hurt the ACC by killing the round-robin. This allows Virginia, for instance, to finish quite high while playing a very soft schedule, while Duke, for another example, closed out with Maryland and UNC and also got Virginia Tech and then Virginia and Georgia Tech on the road. Anyway, the ACC is considering going to 18 conference games. It would be an improvement.
The ACC is lobbying for nine teams in the NCAA field, something it's not likely to get. UNC, Virginia Tech, Virginia, B.C., Maryland, Duke, and Georgia Tech should all be in, and the winner of the Clemson-FSU game could conceivably play their way in. But that's unlikely at this point.
Tyler Hansbrough will play in the ACC Tournament with a mask to protect his nose. Obviously everyone is, we would hope, happy that's he's able to play.
Clemson, earlier unhappy about a clock error at Duke, got a break at Virginia Tech in a similar situation, with the officials bringing the clock down from 3.7 to 1.7. There was no uproar about Clemson getting a break or anything like that. At some point, you would think, the suggestion that there is a Duke bias would die out. In many instances, it's precisely wrong.
Anyway, Clemson has a slight hope left for a bid, as we mentioned earlier.
Former UNC star George Karl has developed a reputation as a volatile guy, a smart coach who crashes and burns and resurrects his career somewhere else. No one questions his passion, but it has come at a price which his son to a certain extent paid. Now, though, they have reconciled their differences and have grown quite close after both were diagnosed with cancer. A sad and oddly moving story.