ACC Roundup

In Saturday's ACC action, there's no question that the Big Four, long the heart of ACC basketball, took a pasting - and it's becoming a trend.

UNC hung with Syracuse for a bit in the Carrier Dome, but ultimately the Orange peeled away and clobbered the Heels.

Like a lot of people, we were curious how UNC would do against Syracuse's 2-3 zone, and as it turned out, not well at all.

James Michael McAdoo did well in the beginning of the game before Syracuse shut him down, and he did score 15, but eventually the Orange just collapsed the middle and dared UNC to shoot outside.

As usual for this year's team, only Marcus Paige stepped up.

In fact, Paige and McAdoo scored 32 of UNC's 45 points

The Heels could have made it close if they had hit free throws: UNC was just  3-9 from the charity stripe. If they had hit 8-9 it could have been a four-point game.

With the loss, UNC falls to 0-3 for just the second time ever. Williams acknowledged that losing was bugging his team: "Right now, it’s a tough time in that locker room. Kids are feeling it. They felt some stress. They’re going to continue to feel that. And you’ve just got to be tough enough to mentally put that stuff aside."

Tell it the other three schools Duke we covered elsewhere on this site, but what about State? The Pack just got picked apart by visiting Virginia.

Remember that scene in Finding Nemo where Marlon and Dorie are looking at the light on the front of the Anglerfish?

Good feeling gone.

State's improvements came to a screeching halt against Virginia, with the Pack losing by 31 at home.

Mike Tobey was off the hook for the Cavs: the sophomore big man had 16 points (6-11), seven boards (5/7) a pair of blocks and an assist.

He and Akil Mitchell combined for 24 points and 19 boards.

Mark Gottfried was understandably down after the game: "In the first half, I don’t know that they can play better and I don’t think that we can play any worse. We were pitiful in the first half and offensively, basically, the whole game."

TJ Warren more or less took the afternoon off. He didn't score a basket until there was just 5:12 left in the first half and didn't score at all in the second.

And while Wake's train wreck at Pitt was predictable, it just compounded the day's disaster for Tobacco Road.

Devin Thomas knew what happened:

"We just didn’t play any (defense) or rebound the ball. We didn’t make them miss shots. We really didn’t rebound. We gave them too many second shots.

"And that was the outcome of the game right there. We didn’t play bad on offense. We just didn’t play good on defense."

That pretty much sums up Saturday for the Big Four.

Georgia Tech nearly blew a 15-point lead but held on to beat Notre Dame, 74-69, in the first ACC road game for the Irish. Trae Golden and Daniel Miller led the way, Golden with 20 and Miller with 10 points and 13 boards.

BC finally got a win, with Lonnie Jackson hitting a three with just under 30 seonds to go.

Before this, BC had lost seven of eight.

Only one game on Sunday as Maryland visits Tallahassee for the last time as an ACC member. Given the rather pronounced trend of crushing defenses in the ACC, we'll have to go wth FSU here.