ACC Roundup - Miami Raising Cane

The other day we talked about Northern Iowa and said that there are a lot of schools around the country which may not be elite but which see themselves as basketball schools.

Two ACC teams encountered teams like that Sunday with pretty different results.

Butler is not quite elite but everyone knows the story by now. You don't take Butler lightly. Good thing Miami didn't and the 'Canes won the Puerto Rico Tipoff as a result.

Miami won by 10 but Butler made a pretty nice comeback and had the lead down to four with 3:06 left.

But Miami...we thought they'd be a dangerous team this year but they looked better than that. Miami looks like the quickest team in the ACC, and we're not sure it's even close.

The 'Canes have experience, a solid center, scoring, good defense and a really good point guard in Angel Rodriguez.

Rodriguez not only got to play in his hometown, he was MVP of the tournament. It was a special night for him.

And this may be a special season for Miami. The Hurricanes knocked off Ben Howland's Mississippi State team Thursday, #16 Utah Friday and #22 Butler Sunday.

Expect Miami to enter the national conversation with the new poll.

And by the way, in case you forgot, former State guard Tyler Lewis is at Butler now and apparently doing quite well.

Butler's a well-known basketball school. ETSU is much less well known, but ETSU has a nice tradition too. In the 1980s Les Robinson did a sensational job with the Buccaneers and Alan LeForce continued it.

ETSU upset Iowa in the NCAA tournament.

Most of Tennessee is football country but Johnson City managed to build a passion for this program and basketball took root there. It's a dangerous program which has had periods of greatness.

Georgia Tech found out the hard way as ETSU upset the Yellowjackets on a last-second three - and in Atlanta, no less.

Ge'Lawn Guyn, who started at Cincinnati, nailed a three with  just three seconds left. And then to wrap it up, Guyn stole the ball with just a second left.

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We didn't realize it but ETSU has some serious talent, probably better in some respects than what Tech has: aside from Guyn, the Bucs have Peter Jurkin, who transferred from Indiana and Deuce Bello, who came over from Mizzou. Tevin Glass came from Wichita State, as did head coach Steve Forbes. And Hanner Mosquera-Perea, who like Jurkin was a Hoosier, is redshirting.

Only about 4,600 showed up, which can't be good.

One measure of BC's decline was an extended inability to beat Harvard. No one realized at first that Tommy Amaker was building a NCAA regular but even so: BC is ACC and Harvard is Ivy. BC got an annual humiliation.

Well not lately: BC has won the last two matchups and won Sunday's by 13 - and with a very, very young team.

And no surprise, Virginia took out George Mason 83-66 to win the Charleston Classic.

On Monday, Clemson plays UMass, FSU Ohio, Wake takes on Indiana in Hawaii, UNC takes on Chris Collins' Northwestern squad and NC State plays Bobby Hurley's Arizona State team.

UNC and Northwestern will play in Kansas City and we'd expect the Tar Heels to be annoyed after losing to Northern Iowa. As for State, the Pack travels to New York to take on ASU in the CBE Hall Of Fame Classic.

As for the State vs. State game, it probably depends on how fast Hurley's new players adapt to his system. The general expectation is that Hurley's going to be great (we concur). We just don't know enough about what Herb Sendek left him, or what he's brought in, to make any kind of educated guess.