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Pitt started off the season on a distinctly negative note as Durand Johnson, who missed last season with an ACL injury, has been suspended for the entire year. There's no official explanation yet. Cameron Wright is also out for a few weeks with an injury.
| Saturday's ACC Action | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teams | Time | TV | |||
| Duke vs. Fairfield | 8:00 | ESPN3 | |||
| FSU vs. Manhattan | 1:00 | ESPN3 | |||
| ACC Standings | |||||
| Conference | Overall | ||||
| rank | schools | W-L | PCT | W-L | PCT |
| 1. | Boston College | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 2. | Clemson | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 3. | Duke | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 4. | Georgia Tech | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 5. | Louisville | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 6. | Miami | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 7. | NC State | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 8. | N. Carolina | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 9. | Notre Dame | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 10. | Pitt | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 11. | Syracuse | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 12. | Virginia | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 13. | Virginia Tech | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 14. | Wake Forest | 0-0 | .000 | 1-0 | 1.000 |
| 15. | Florida State | 0-0 | .000 | 0-0 | .000 |
| Friday's ACC Results | |||||
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Didn't matter much against Niagara as the Panthers ran out to an early lead and never looked back.
Coach Jamie Dixon said he had expected to redshirt freshman Cameron Johnson, but he has significantly exceeded expectations and scored 11 in his debut. He'll get a lot more time than anyone thought now.
In Chapel Hill, we thought UNC would probably blow NC Central out, but it didn't happen that way: Central went down early but crawled back in and ultimately lost to the #6 team in the country by 16.
On the road.
Really, that's pretty solid. Central fans should be excited, although if this keeps up, someone somewhere will hire coach LeVelle Moton away from the Eagles.
UNC shot just 44.3%, still better than Central's 32.1%, but the Heels have a vast size (and overall talent) advantage.
Carolina is currently starting Brice Johnson, Kennedy Meeks, Justin Jackson, Theo Pinson and of course Marcus Paige.
The bench minutes went to JP Tokoto, Isaiah Hicks, Desmond Hubert Nate Britt and Joel Berry. The versatile Tokoto got 24; the others between 12-14 each.
Over in Raleigh, a rebuilt State squad cruised by Jackson State. Cat Barber had a career high 25, while Trevor Lacey added 22 in his State debut.
Warning sign: the Pack shot just 65.6% from the line. That's a concern.
In Winston-Salem, Danny Manning did Job #1 and won his debut.
Not to say it was pretty. Wake had 24 turnovers - against Asheville? - that's fairly astounding.
Devin Thomas finished with 25 points and 11 boards.
Underreported: second leading scorer was Greek import Dinos Mitoglu, who had 17 points and eight boards. He also hit 9-10 from the line.
Up in Blacksburg, Buzz Williams started off his Virginia Tech with a win as well.
Unlike Wake, Tech took care of the ball: the first turnover for the Hokies came with 8:24 left in the game. For the game, Virginia Tech ended up with six, but they were all in garbage time. That's pretty solid.
In Jim Christian's debut, BC fell behind early but came back and beat New Hampshire by eight.
Good news for BC: Dennis Clifford is well enough to start. He didn't do much, but it's progress. Good for him.
Aaron Brown, who came over from Southern Miss as a grad student, led the way with 21. Olivier Hanlan had 17.
Eddie Odio and Patrick Heckmann both started and combined for...four points.
If Brian Gregory is under pressure at Georgia Tech, he started the season right by beating Georgia.
In his Tech debut, Maryland transfer Charles Mitchell had 20 points and nine boards. Sophomore Quinton Stephens ( 6-9/187) had 22 points and six treys.
Tech is starting Travis Jorgenson at point guard and basically four forwards.
Remember how shaky Miami was last year at the start of the season? Not this time: the 'Canes jumped all over Howard, winnin 84-49.
Texas Transfer Sheldon McClellan had 19 in his Miami debut.
Jim Larranaga ran a three guard offense with K-State transfer Angel Rodriguez, who got 16, and Manu Lecomte, who added 14.
Also starting: Tonye Jekiri, who had 11 boards in 26 minutes and Joe Thomas, who finished with just four points.
In his return for the Irish, Jerian Grant had 14 on 6-13 from the floor as Notre Dame whipped Binghamton 82-39. Demetrius Jackson added six assists and 10 points.
In Louisville's opener against Minnesota in Puerto Rico in the Armed Forces Classic, there were 60 fouls called and 75 foul shots attempted. The game took three hours and by the time it ended, a lot of the servicemen and women had wandered off looking for fresh diversions.
Montrezl Harrell shot 9-12 from the floor and 9-10 from the line to finish with 30.
Afterwards, Rick Pitino spoke of how unhappy he was to have to defeat his son's team: "It was a nice event, but I really didn't want to play this game. I hate the fact that we won. We don't want to open up 0-1, but I didn't want my son to open up 0-1. So for all the exposure, it was great until the end of the game. I rather have not played it, because my son lost."
Clemson has a rather big job in replacing KJ McDaniels, now with the Sixers, but the Tigers put five guys in double figures, led by Landry Nnoko's 15. Florida A&M had 24 turnovers and shot just 33.3%, which might win a game with 60 fouls. Otherwise, it's a recipe for disaster, which is what FAMU got, losing by 45.
Virginia Tech had little trouble with James Madison, winning 79-51.
Madison shot just 28.3% to UVa's 58%.
Virginia is starting Mike Tobey at center, Anthony Gill at forward, and Malcolm Brogdon, Justin Anderson and Devon Hall at guard (London Perrantes, you will recall, was suspended for this game).
Syracuse played without Duke transfer Michael Gbinije, who was suspended for the Kennesaw state game without explanation.
The 'Cuse absolutely owned the boards, 56-26 and scored 50 of 89 points in the lane.
Rakeem Christmas scored 21 points for the Orange.
Quick football note: in yet another case of possible Tallahassee corruption, police let PJ Williams and Ronald Darby off with a ticket after the football players fled the scene of an accident on October 5th.
No alcohol test, not even a question about drinking.
FSU President John Thrasher had this to say afterwards:
We want to assure you that, as FSU Police Chief David Perry made clear to the reporter, the department’s officers acted entirely appropriately and followed department procedures. We are disturbed that a newspaper with a distinguished reputation would print such a speculative story. Four experienced law enforcement officers were on site and none saw any indication of the driver being under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The implication that anyone involved in the accident had anything to do with a burglary is totally unsupported and offensive. Finally, there is no indication of any special treatment of the student-athletes by the officers involved.
Elijah Stiers,a Miami attorney who helped write a Florida law which raises the penalties for hit-and-run accidents, said this: "Two-thirty in the morning, people fleeing on foot — at the very least you’ve got to charge them with hit and run.You don’t get out of it just because you come back to the scene."