In Saturday's ACC action, UNC pounded Georgia Tech, 104-74, Florida State upset Clemson, 73-66, and Wake outlasted Virginia, 70-60.
Even though it came against Georgia Tech, UNC's performance was impressive. Perhaps irritated by the recent criticisms of his performance to date, Tyler Hansbrough had a tremendous day. He racked up 28 points, 10 boards, and also broke the NCAA career record for free throws. Not a bad day's work.
Alade Aminu pretty neatly summed up the odd combination of frustration and admiration that Hansbrough engenders:Â "You can't touch him. You can't even do anything. If you touch him, it's a foul. He's a great player, and he's worked on his midrange [game]. If you don't get close, he's got that midrange [jumper]. I have to give it to him though. He never takes any plays off, he always working hard, crashing the boards."
Tech didn't have a nightmare performance either: they shot 44.9% and hit nine three pointers (out of 25). And turnovers weren't that far apart, at 18 vs. 15. But UNC just took them apart. It was pretty clear that they took some good lessons from the Maryland debacle.
If you missed it, there was a nasty takedown at the end as Zach Peacock laid a hard foul on Wayne Ellington (we think it was anyway). It was pretty harsh.
For Tech, it's all about next year now.
We really thought the FSU-Clemson game would be a great one, but it just wasn't. Or it wasn't for Clemson, anyway. It was for Toney Douglas.
We remember there were some doubts when he left Auburn for Tallahassee, but he's turned out to be a great player and a great leader. And when Clemson crawled back in after being down and cut it to 63-60, Douglas hit six straight free throws to turn the Tigers back.
Wake's mediocre road play continues, but they beat the Cavs nonetheless, and did a nice job on Sylven Landesberg in the process, limiting the rookie star to 10 points. Jeff Teague had a bit of an off day, but he got points when Wake needed them. UVa almost took the lead in the second half, but as they have so often this season, they self-destructed and that was that.
On Sunday, Maryland visits State for the Fox evening game. They still have an outside chance at a bid, but it's getting pretty iffy. From a Duke point of view, considering the behavior in recent years of Maryland fans and, to a lesser extent, Virginia Tech fans, there's a certain sweetness to hurting their bids.
Much of the criticism of Maryland and Gary Williams has abated, but the Post, after their recent three-piece article on Maryland's woes, is back for more: apparently Under Armour, the athletic apparel manufacturer, is moving into shoes. And their founder and CEO, Kevin Plank, a former football player at Maryland, has given a million dollars to his alma mater and is also on the board of trustees.
And when Lance Stepheson visited Maryland recently, he also visited Armour All. All in all, it's a huge red flag, and the NCAA is taking a look-see.
Funniest line in the story is from Stepheson Sr: Â "To be honest with you, we really don't care for the sneaker. The sneaker sucks."
If the Post is after Williams, is Jerry Ratcliffe after Dave Leitao?
One of the nice things about college basketball is that, at least from a distance, you get to know the families. Turns out Ben McCauley's has spent a lot of time following their kid. Interesting trivia: his dad's a funeral home director. Insert your joke here.
A relatively recent ritual for struggling coaches is to see a Website appear that is www.firecoachblahbla.com. No one in the ACC seems to be in particular danger on that front. One domain is parked, one is live but not being updated (El Sid) and one blog, about Gary Williams, was removed.
- http://www.firepaulhewitt.com/ (purchased and parked)
- http://www.firegarywilliams.com/ (removed)
- http://www.firesidneylowe.com/Â (not being updated)
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