ACC Roundup - Virginia Escapes, UNC Takes A Beating, NC State Triumphs

Saturday was indeed an entertaining day around the ACC, as we predicted, but it was even more so than we thought.

Take UNC-Pitt. From the opening tip, Pitt was more alert, taking the ball and running past a startled Nate Britt, who didn't appear entirely sure that a basket that fast was actually legal.

Theoretically you could make a shot from a jump ball, but other than that, :03 is about the fastest basket you're ever likely to see.

From there, Pitt ran out to a 10-0 lead before UNC recovered and tied the game at 16.

And then Pitt got hot.

The Panthers took a 14 point lead into halftime, kept all but one point of that to the end and shot just under 65% for the game.

Pitt even hit 53.3% from three point range About the only thing that went wrong was the Panthers could only manage 53.8% from the line.

UNC did a lot of things right - the Heels had 29 shots; 25 of them resulted from assists. UNC had just four turnovers.

They just couldn't stop Pitt from scoring, and a lot of that was self-inflicted, because too often, UNC just didn't get on Pitt's shooters.

This didn't get past Ol' Roy. When asked what could have been done, he said "you can guard them better."

Marcus Paige echoed his coach, saying that "[w]e just couldn’t stop them defensively to save our lives."

UNC has now lost three of its last four games, falling to Syracuse, Virginia and Pitt while beating BC.

We wouldn't quite put State's win down as stunning but certainly very impressive. Didn't think the Pack could pull that off.

Rick Pitino, and not for the first time, put the blame on the players rather than coaches saying that "defense "is not important to this team as it was to (previous Louisville teams)."

Louisville only managed two steals and given Pitino's fondness for running off turnovers, that's fairly surprising.

State also controlled the boards, held Louisville to 33% and, as Pitino also said, dominated Louisville at every position.

As for Wake Forest...poor Codi Miller-McIntyre. He's always seemed like a good kid. Wake Forest is still limited so the fact that the Deacs kept up with Virginia until the very end is incredibly impressive.

Miller-McIntyre had the ball at the end, with Wake down one point, and committed his only turnover of the game.

Malcolm Brogdon, a superb defender, saw a moment of weakness and swooped in, saving UVA from a huge upset.

We asked some of the guys from the newer ACC teams how they thought the leagues were different. They generally said having been part of the Big East, the ACC was no big deal, pretty much the same.

But in the old Big East, the bottom was absolutely the bottom. In this league, Wake, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and BC are the bottom teams and all of them are capable of beating any other team in the league. We're not sure that's true in many other conferences.

Clemson also won, beating Virginia Tech and moving to 15-10.

It's sort of under the radar, but Donte Grantham is becoming a pretty reliable player. The freshman is is averaging 9 ppg and five boards. He could be a load by next year.

Jordan Roper was the standout here: the Tiger's guard had 21 points on 8-11 shooting.

There is almost a rule in the ACC this year that Georgia Tech has to play close but be frustrated.

In the words of Yul Brinner: so it is written, so it shall be done, and this time by FSU.

FSU is on a quiet roll, having won five out of eight. Xavier Rathan-Mayes had 20 to pace the Seminoles.

Only one game on Sunday as Miami braves the snow to take on Boston College - if they get there that is.