ACC Roundup - Another Big Saturday

Four games on Saturday as the regular season winds down: Florida State visits Clemson, UNC jets up to Pitt, Virginia heads down to Raleigh for a date with State and Virginia Tech will be in Beantown to play Boston College.

At first glance it’s hard to see any upsets, but that’s first glance. Florida State has never been a great road team and Littlejohn is tough. We admire how Clemson has persevered in a season of so many near misses.

Pitt nearly knocked off UNC in Chapel Hill and the Panthers are much better since that encounter even if they remain erratic.

Virginia has lost six out of eight while State has dropped seven of the last eight. We’ll be interested to see how Dennis Smith handles the ‘Hoos defense. If Malcolm Brogdon was still around we’d bet the farm on Virginia. Even now we’d take Virginia.

And BC’s losing streak is worse: the Eagles haven’t won since January 11th, falling 11 straight times.

Yet as we’ve said before, BC is much improved over last season. It’s just that so is just about everyone else.

Ol’ Roy Williams has a certain flair for coming up with odd terms to describe things but his latest is really a classic: he compares coaches to mushrooms: “I think we’re like mushrooms. Just keep you in the dark and throw the crap on and hope it grows. … That’s the way you make a mushroom grow, (and) that’s what I think we are as coaches. We don’t have a say in anything.”

You have to admit, that’s pretty good and he does have a point.

State’s season is now a search for dignity and redemption and that could give them what they need against Virginia.

Meanwhile, speculation about the coaching search continues. The N&O has a column up about Archie Miller and the odds of his returning to Raleigh. The upshot? There are better jobs and they may have a stronger lure for Miller.

• Dennis Smith seeks to end NC State’s freshman-of-the-year drought
• UNC’s Roy Williams compares ACC coaches to mushrooms in the dark
• Tobey’s on time for Swarm’s latest setback
• Smith could be State’s first solo winner of freshman of the year award
• Stephen Schramm: Race to be ACC's top team, player come down to Duke, UNC
• Doughty column: Pressure is on Cavaliers
• Virginia Tech-BC preview capsule
• Three to know: No. 18 Virginia at NC State
• UNC at Pittsburgh: Where to watch and what to know
• Gillon called his shot a day before Duke game
• 2017 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament bracket: TV schedule and game times
• Virginia's London Perrantes can't shoot these days and darn if he knows why