ACC Roundup

Better late than never: UNC Chancellor Carol Folt finally took a stand on what's happened at UNC. Saying that the university "accepts responsibility" for the scandals including academic fraud.

Did she hit a home run? No. But at least the university is on record as taking responsibility for what happened. As the chancellor said, "[a]ll of those students who were involved in those courses deserved better from us. We also accept the fact that there was a failure in academic oversight for years that permitted this to continue. This, too, was wrong and it has undermined our integrity and our reputation, and created a very unhealthy atmosphere of distrust.

"I think we all know that to move forward we have to make sure that everyone understands that we absolutely feel accountable and we’re going to learn from that painful history."

She somewhat undercuts herself by saying that "no evidence that the anomalous courses were initiated in order to benefit athletes." Perhaps not, but it certainly wasn't done for the benefit of the rest of the student body, now was it? Does anyone seriously believe that it just happened organically for no reason? Of course not: the motivation laid with the athletic department and their academic lackies. The other kids were there by chance or because they got wind of an easy grade.

At any rate, at least someone in Chapel Hill has taken responsibility and pledged - we should say made a meaningful pledge - to clean things up.

It might have been nice if she had had a chance to speak to Larry Fedora before he spoke at halftime of the UNC-Boston College game.

Fedora took the floor and talked...football. It's what you'd expect from the football coach, but given what football has put the university through, you'd think he might have put in a plug for, well, school.

You'd have thought wrong. There wasn't a word about doing things the right way, about the "Carolina Way," about integrity or ethics or any of that sort of thing. It was just about bowl games and winning. That was it.

So the university might want to get everyone on the same page. Then again, as we've noted before, PR has not been a strong point in Chapel Hill lately, so there's no reason to expect it to be consistent.

Speaking of consistency, nothing in the ACC, or college basketball for that matter, is more consistent than Clemson's losing in Chapel Hill. Could this year be different?

Well......maybe...but probably not, according to Barry Jacobs.

Here's the thing. Not only is UNC the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, Clemson can really confound an offense. Not that they did it to Pitt, but that should just give them some extra motivation.

Clemson's defense so far this year has been tremendous: the Tigers have held opponents to just 54.8 points per game and 37.2% from the floor.

UNC's offense has bogged down lately. Against Wake, the Heels scored just 67, against Miami just 57 and against Syracuse a mere 45.

In the BC game, with an opponent also lacking on defense but wanting to run too, UNC managed 82. But Virginia brought that back down to 61, which is right about what they've averaged in ACC play - 62.4%

So what happens Saturday? Well, UNC will likely win, but this could be one of Clemson's best chances to pull off an upset and so break the streak.