ACC Roundup!

Monday, you might say, was a tale of two leagues: Virginia and Miami were successful, perhaps in more ways than one, while Boston College and Wake Forest had bad losses.

Virginia and Tony Bennett took a game from old PAC-10 rival Trent Johnson, and best of all, they were pushed, winning just 57-52 when Sammy Zeglinski and Joe Harris hit late three pointers.

Zeglinski finished with 17, Harris with 14 and Mike Scott had 12 points and nine boards.

Virginia by the way has now won 11 straight.

In Miami, the 'Canes had a bit of a struggle as UNCG, now coached by former Heel Wes Miller, came to play.

Miami won 99-89, and just as importantly, got a spectacular game from the fast-rising Kenny Kadji.

The Florida transfer racked up 30 points on 10-15 from the floor and 10-13 from the line.  He also grabbed 12 rebounds and had two blocks.

Reggie Johnson, once again struggling with fouls (four in 15 minutes) finished with just six points and two boards.

Durand Scott finished with 17 points and seven rebounds, and rookie Shane Larkin had 18 points and six rebounds.  Both also finished with three assists; Scott took three steals while Larkin had four.

Here's where Kadji is currently:

Compare it to Reggie Johnson's season last year:

If they can get 21 points and 14-15 boards out of these guys, Jim Larranaga is going to be a very happy coach.

Odds are Jeff Bzdelik's not. Check out what he had to say after the Deacs lost 56-52 to Wofford: "You know what, I've done a horse crap job — and you can write that.  I've done a horse crap job getting my team motivated and disciplined on both the offensive and defensive end. And somehow I've done a horse crap job of getting them to rebound the basketball. Throw it all on me.''

Man. Bad day at the office, Jeff?

CJ Harris was out with a strained groin, but still: no one was happy with this game, or at least no one in the Wake locker room.

ACC action starts on the 7th for Wake with the Hokies, and Virginia Tech has, for a welcome change, played a rugged schedule and will be ready. The thing about this conference is there's absolutely no pity. As a matter of fact, part of the ethos is to run over a weak sister as thoroughly as possible. Wake has a very short time to regain their dignity and if they don't, in the words of Walter Sobchak, they're in for a world of hurt.

For BC, at least an echo of the ACC existed in their game with Rhode Island, and that was UVa refugee Billy Baron, who hit a key three in the second overtime to help lift the Rams to a 78-72 win.

Small factoid, if irrelevant: VCU is called the Rams because someone in authority there was a Rhode Island grad and just lifted the nickname.

Somewhat insanely, Steve Donahue insists he's excited about ACC play, starting with a dead-certain loss in Chapel Hill on Saturday.

On the bright side, Ryan Anderson had a nifty double-double with 18 points and 14 boards. Like his coach, he says he's excited about ACC play:

"I feel like it is going to be another growing period for us with most of us going through it for the first time at this level of play. But I feel coach Donahue is really preparing us, and we are talking about our next game already. I feel if we can execute our game plan that coach Donahue gives us we have a great chance to win a game."

Pretty minimal expectations, and it won't happen Saturday.  Consider this: 3-12 Rhode Island outrebounded BC 45/21 to 31/5: what will UNC do to them?

Perhaps though it's also worth noting that either BC's defense or Rhody's ineptness held the Rams to 30.9% from the field, although they did go 27-35 from the line, while the Eagles were just 11-16.

Speaking of UNC and rebounding, we've gotten a lot of e-mail criticizing us for pointing out that Harrison Barnes isn't exactly a world-class rebounder.  So we thought we'd look a bit closer.

Barnes is averaging a rebound every 5.49 minutes.  Compare this to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who gets one every 3.9 minutes, or his old high school teammate, Creighton's Doug McDermott, who grabs one every 3.5 minutes.

Rebounding, they say, is primarily a question of heart, which explains why a guy like Dennis Rodman, who was roughly the same size as Barnes, became a phenomenal rebounder. Same for Charles Barkley.

Barnes is currently averaging 4.7 boards per game, down from 5.8 last year. In 1993-94, 5-3 Muggsy Bogues averaged 4.1.

In the NBA.

Just sayin'.

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