ACC Roundup

In Wednesday’s ACC action, Virginia beat MTSU 74-52, Tennessee took down Louisville 92-81, Creighton dumped Clemson 87-82, Pitt nipped St. Louis 75-73, Syracuse pounded Colgate 77-56, Georgia Tech got a rare easy win over UT Rio Grande Valley, 72-44 and BC bopped last year’s Final Four entrant Loyola 78-66.

Obviously Virginia should have won its game so we won't dwell on it much other than to note De’Andre Hunter’s near triple-double: 15 points, nine assists and eight rebounds.

The Ky and Guy backcourt is superb but not athletic. Hunter is immensely athletic and a game changer for Virginia.

Incidentally, at least for now, Mamadi Diakite has replaced Jack Salt in the starting lineup, so presumably he’s now worth his salt.

Between Hunter and Diakite, Virginia suddenly got pretty athletic.

Tony Bennett is also starting Alabama transfer Brandon Keys.

Standard Virginia stuff: MTSU shot 39% and barely scored over 50.

Well break up the Panthers! Who would have thought that Pitt would have a longer win streak than Duke?

Even so, it came down to this: St. Louis has a guy who is shooting - get this 12.5% from the line.

He airballed and Pitt hung on to win. If he keeps this up Capel can run for mayor soon.

Louisville competed with Tennessee but came up short. Still, a shattered and rebuilding program came reasonably close to knocking off a Top Five team. That’s encouraging.

Jordan Nwora has emerged as Louisville’s best player lately and he was the leading scorer again with a 23/10 double-double output.

Given that it’s a Rick Barnes team, no big surprise that Tennessee tried to pound it inside (and did).

Clemson is built on defense so you know it drove Brad Brownell crazy to see Creighton’s Ty-Shon Alexander go off: he had 36 points and racked up seven treys.

The Tigers stayed close but Alexander basically killed them. It wasn’t just him though - Creighton shot 55.8% and hit 10 treys, most obviously by Alexander the Great (at least for one night).

Brownell will likely hone in on defense but perhaps turnovers as well: Clemson had 19.

The good news for BC? The Eagles won with Ky Bowman not being the dominant player.

This time it was Jordan Chatman - and BC had a decent rotation of eight guys (lately it’s been five).

BC even had a 16 point lead in the second half.

Looks like Syracuse is still struggling: the ‘Cuse led mighty Colgate at the half by...three.

Frank Howard is back and that should help but this is a program with some apparent issues, perhaps relating, as Seth Greenberg has suggested, to guys auditioning for the NBA.

A bit of bad news: Paschal Chukwu left with an apparent leg injury.

Josh Pastner has mixed things up a bit and is now starting Abdoulaye Gueye, Moses Wright, Curtis Haywood, Shembari Phillips and Brandon Alston.

That means Jose Alvarado, one of our favorite ACC players, is coming off the bench.

So did Michael DeVoe, who had 14, and Texas transfer James Banks, who had eight rebounds and three blocks.

Four Thanksgiving games as Miami tilts with LaSalle, Virginia takes on usually dangerous Dayton, UNC sees Texas in Vegas and Florida State takes on UAB.

• Pitt basketball tops Saint Louis, moves to 6-0
• Jeff Capel wants Pitt to play ‘an old Big East team’ every year
• Louisville basketball drops first game of season to Tennessee
• U of L basketball’s aggressive style pays off at foul line
• Steven Enoch finally finds his comfort zone with U of L basketball
• FSU looking for more energy, intensity ahead of AdvoCare Invitational
• Syracuse basketball gets going in 2nd half to knock off Colgate