ACC Roundup - Not A Glorious Night For The Conference

We blame Georgia Tech.

The ACC was undefeated until the Yellow Jackets lost at Tennessee Wednesday and Thursday the gates of athletic Hell opened wide and swallowed most of the ACC as only Duke and Clemson - and the Tigers not by that much - won.

BC and Notre Dame embarrassed themselves and the conference, losing to IUPUI and Radford, respectively.

And in Notre Dame’s case, consider this: Radford played without Carlik Jones, who won the Big South tournament on a clutch shot last year.

That’s not supposed to happen to ACC schools, at least not very often and certainly not as the season is just in tune up stage.

Caleb Tanner hit six threes and finished with 20 for the Highlanders.

Irish coach Mike Brey said he saw it coming: “I’ve been worried about this one for about four days because they are old and good and they’re way better than us right now.”

It’s a huge win for Radford, one of the biggest in school history. As for Notre Dame, a young team, hopefully it was a learning experience.

Boston College?

World class overachiever Jordan Chatman (finished undergrad in two years at BYU while playing basketball) but the team missed a ton of free throws, got out rebounded badly and could not come through in the clutch.

Losing is one thing but getting pounded on the boards? By IUPUI?

Clemson played poorly too but at least the Tigers managed to beat an inferior opponent. Marcquise Reed and Shelton Mitchell righted the ship and helped Clemson prevail over Sam Houston State. Reed finished with 20 points and Mitchell had 13 points, four rebounds and four assists.

Sophomore Aamir Sims had a nice game with 12 points and eight boards.

In Raleigh, NC State already has a statue of the late great Jim Valvano outside Reynolds. Now he’ll be in it permanently too: State has decided to rename Reynolds James T. Valvano Arena at Reynolds Coliseum.

It’s a bit nebulous from here: isn't a coliseum already an arena?

Still, it’s a nice thing to do. State had a falling out with Valvano after the troubles hit, but in the end, the good has outweighed the bad. Valvano is not hear to but Pam, his wife, and his daughters are and it must be sweet for them.

On Thursday, Virginia Tech gets Ball State in the Charleston Classic, Wake Forest plays St. Joe’s in the Myrtle Beach Invitational, Pitt gets Central Arkansas on campus as part of the Barclays Classic, and in the biggest attraction, Syracuse plays old Big East rival UConn, now of course coached by rising star Danny Hurley.

It’s not Boeheim vs. Calhoun, but on the other hand, young Hurley gets a chance to make an early statement. We don't know if he has enough players to do that but betting against Hurley’s is not a wise thing to do.

• NC State honoring Jim Valvano by adding his name to Reynolds Coliseum
• UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham on Fedora’s future: ‘I don’t engage in any speculation’
• Here’s how UNC, Duke and NC State fared in NCAA graduation report
• Ed Hardin: Despite tribulation, it’s the triumph we remember of Jim Valvano
• Three games in, Xavier Johnson has been Pitt’s ‘Energizer Bunny’
• Virginia basketball notebook: Cavaliers using early season games for fine tuning