In Tuesday night's ACC action, Miami took down a fading Virginia, 74-62, although Virginia kept it close for about 34 minutes. In the big picture it doesn't really matter as neither team will be in the NCAA field unless it runs the table in the ACC Tournament.
With the regular season winding down, bubble watching is heating up, and for the ACC, the bubble is still slippery. Duke's in, and we think Maryland and Wake are, too. Virginia Tech should be, unless they blow it down the stretch. Their non-conference schedule works against them (ranked 337th!), so despite 21-5 and third place, they're not in yet. Duke would have been huge for them; next best thing would be to beat Maryland.
| Wednesday's ACC Action! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Teams | Times | TV | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Florida State @ North Carolina | 7:00 | ESPN | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Virginia Tech @ Boston College | 7:00 | ESPNU | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Clemson @ Maryland | 9:00 | Raycom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Clemson and FSU are close, and Georgia Tech could be. There's still a lot of uncertainty though.
Georgia Tech has games at home with BC and Virginia Tech and a trip to Clemson. They need two of those, preferably all three and one in Greensboro to remove all doubt. The losses to Miami, FSU and Maryland, all by two, really could come back to haunt them.
FSU has a game at UNC coming up, Clemson and Wake at home, followed by Miami at Miami. Two should do it, but they could win all four.
Clemson may have the toughest closing stretch with three road games - Maryland, Florida State and Wake on the road, with only Georgia Tech at home.
And Wake, pretty rotten in the last two games, gets UNC at home Saturday and a road trip to Florida State before closing out with Clemson at home. Win two and all doubt is removed.
There will be a lot of nervousness between now and Selection Sunday.
Except of course in Durham and Chapel Hill. In Durham, the main questions revolve around diversifying the offense and how high a seed Duke can get. In Chapel Hill, the questions revolve around whether they can get an NIT bid and what Ed Davis's plans are.
A lot of people seem to be overlooking this, but the NBA and the union will have to work a new deal and the NBA is looking to cut payroll expenses. If you're Davis, do you jump now on the assumption that a contract next summer will be less lucrative? Tough call.
Hmmm....Seth Davis has this quote up on Tech's Gani Lawal and Derrick Favors by an anonymous coach. Well, maybe:
The biggest problem with Georgia Tech is that the Jackets invent turnovers. They play faster than they need to play at times, and thatâs why they turn it over. Theyâre playing [Gani] Lawal and [Derrick] Favors, who are two mountains masquerading as men, but thereâs not a lot of room when you play those two guys because theyâre both low post players. Theyâre almost better when they play [Zachery] Peacock because now they have a four who opens them up a little bit. [Iman] Shumpert is very tough, but it looks to me like heâs trying to be in the NBA right now. [Mfon] Udofia doesnât understand at this point how to play the point guard position. Theyâre so aggressive that they put you on the line. Lawal is an unbelievable rebounder but heâs a terrible passer out of double teams. Favors is a lottery pick but heâs unskilled labor right now. Heâs a lot like that kid from Texas A&M, DeAndre Jordan â explosive, long and quick, but still learning how to play. They donât have a guy that just knows how to get him the ball.
Hmmm...hmmm...now where have we heard this recently..."Theyâre playing
[Gani] Lawal and [Derrick] Favors, who are two mountains masquerading as men.."
Oh yeah...now we remember:
â[Brian Zoubek is] a mountain masquerading as a man. The guy is a huge human being. He gives you a little pop and he creates space to rebound the ball and heâs not too far from the basket once he rebounds it.
Anonymous no more!
In Wednesday's ACC action, Florida State goes to UNC to see if they can pile on to the misery that is UNC basketball right now, Virginia Tech hits B.C., and Clemson buses up to Terptown.
It's hard to pick UNC right now, so we'll assume FSU keeps the train rolling over them. Given Tech's tendency to get up for big games but not lesser ones, we could see an upset here. And Clemson? Well, they won down there without Demontez Stitt...still, that's a tough game in College Park. Terps by five?
| The DBR App! |
| The Next Step For DBR |
| DBR Is On Twitter! (DBRTweetz) |
| Blue Devil Tip-Off! |