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ACC Roundup

By DBR Archives

Like Miami, Florida State's season has gone south: Florida State has gone 1-5 over their last six games; Miami has lost four of their last five.

Wednesday Night ACC Action!
Teams Times TV
Virginia @ Maryland 7:00 ESPN
ACC Standings
Duke 5-0 1.000 17-1 .944 5
North Carolina 4-1 .800 19-1 .950 4
Boston College 3-2 .600 12-6 .667 84
Virginia Tech 4-3 .571 13-8 .619 70
Clemson 3-3 .500 15-5 .750 27
Wake Forest 3-3 .500 13-6 .684 72
Georgia Tech 3-3 .500 10-9 .526 54
NC State 2-3 .400 13-6 .684 49
Maryland 2-3 .400 12-8 .600 82
Miami 2-4 .333 15-5 .750 32
Florida State 2-5 .286 13-9 .591 71
Virginia 1-4 .200 11-7 .611 108
FSU - it's happening again

Virginia Tech just rolled right over Florida State and it wasn't particularly hard. FSU had 22 turnovers and sent the Hokies to the line 45 times. Virginia Tech led at the half 42-24.

Florida State gets UNC next, and even if things were going perfectly, that would be a very tough matchup. Their annual slide to irrelevance is almost complete. They've had injuries, to be fair, but Leonard Hamilton has been in Tallahassee for some time now with no meaningful results. There are young, hungry guys like Anthony Grant who would take the job and do well. Given the decline the football team has suffered, and the fact that FSU is currently shopping for an A.D., the temptation to clean house is going to be overwhelming. There is a succession plan in place for football, to be sure, with Jimbo Fisher in line to take Bobby Bowden's job. A new boss may be tempted to make it a clean sweep.

Say what you will about Tech, and there's a lot to say that's not nice given what Seth Greenberg tolerates on the court, but the guy is a solid coach. Despite youth, despite an anemic offense, he has Tech in fourth place. Not bad.

On the other hand, he apparently didn't realize how damaging some of that on-court behavior is. Deron Washington talked about how Jeff Allen had caused himself problems with officials, who will be watching him closely. But Washington's own behavior, which was compiled by ESPN, just made Greenberg mad.

According to the Richmond paper, Greenberg said the "attacks" were "sickening."

From his point of view, perhaps. One of his strengths, and simultaneously a weakness, is his quickness to circle the wagons. He's a loyal guy, but not many people outside of the circled VT wagons saw it as an attack. It was documentation, and Washington apparently didn't fully understand it, either. During the Duke game, the announcers correctly predicted that he'd be booted soon just to get him off the court.

Washington, who said his kick to Lee Melchionni cost him credibility with officials, also says this: I know the little tricks of it. It's timing, just knowing what time to fall if you're going to flop, just knowing how to brace yourself on impact, and then selling it a little bit. [The officials] always keep an eye on it. They always tell me to stop flopping and get up sometimes when they don't call it. It's hard to get a call sometimes."

It might be easier if you didn't have a bad reputation with the refs, Deron.

In Winston-Salem, Miami, like their neighbors to the north, went down again, this time to the Deacs, although they showed a lot more fight than FSU did. The game went down to the wire, and while Ishmael Smith's shot with three seconds left was obviously huge, that Harvey Hale subesquently stripped Jack McClinton was no less of a big deal.

Jeff Teague scored 27 for the Deacons, which is pretty darn good for any freshman.

On Wednesday, Maryland and Virginia tangle. Virginia could move out of sole possession of last place with a win; Maryland could move to a three-way tie for fifth.

One of the really appealing stories in the ACC, not far behind the remarkable success of Georgia Tech's Matt Causey, is that of Bambale Osby. Maryland's big man is doing a reasonable impression of Ben Wallace, and he's a likable kid. He's turned out to be a major coup for Maryland and underscores Gary's knack for finding talent where other guys don't see it. In the conference, only Al Skinner approaches that knack.

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