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ACC Roundup - Wake Forest Piles More Pain On UNC

The Demon Deacons made road kill out of UNC.

By JD King
NCAA Basketball: North Carolina at Wake Forest
Feb 11, 2020; Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels guard Cole Anthony (2) gets fouled by Wake Forest Demon Deacons forward Ody Oguama (33) during the second half at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

In ACC action, Virginia outlasted Notre Dame in overtime 50-49. Meanwhile, it was a good night for two thirds of the Big Four as NC State won at Syracuse 79-74 and Wake Forest dominated UNC 74-57 and it wasn’t nearly that close. No, that’s not a typo.

Wednesday’s ACC Action

  • Boston College @ Miami || 7:00 || ACCNX
  • Louisville @ Georgia Tech || 8:00 || ACCN
  • Clemson @ PIttsburgh || 9:00 || ACCNX

Tuesday’s Results

  • NC State 79 Syracuse 74
  • Wake Forest 74 UNC 57
  • Virginia 50 Notre Dame 49

ACC Standings

Wake was up 24 in the second half and just basically killed UNC. The Tar Heels shot just 33.3 percent. Garrison Brooks, who played with a scratched cornea, was 0-5 from the floor but still hit 7-8 from the stripe.

Go figure.

No one shot well other than Armando Bacot (5-10) and Christian Keeling (7-14). Cole Anthony shot 5-19 and took nearly a third of UNC’s shots, hitting 26.3 percent of his attempts.

After the game, Roy Williams went off on his team although not as severely as he has previously this season. He said he told them he was tired of “coming [out] here and apologizing” and that “everything that was involved in the course of the game they had it better than we did.” He included coaching in the laundry list. He also said that Brooks has had his right cornea scratched three times this season.

Maybe it’s us but after the second time wouldn’t you think of goggles? Maybe for the rest of the season? It’s a pretty easy solution.

It did affect his vision apparently although not his free throw shooting as noted above.

Someone asked him if he was angry and he said “guys, I’ve been mad all year long. We gotta play harder, we gotta play smarter. I thought Wake Forest had more of a purpose.”

His press conferences are increasingly brutal because, in our opinion, he derives great self-worth from winning and is emotionally devastated by losing.

No one likes losing of course but he seems to take it on a deeply personal level.

He apologized more than once to the reporters for being short and rude.

You have to imagine that Saturday’s gut-wrenching loss to Duke had an effect but Williams said he wanted this game more because the last game was in the past.

Still, it takes a while to get a loss like that out of your system. This one wasn't very surprising although perhaps the margin was.

State had a solid performance at Syracuse but the Pack was certainly helped when Elijah Hughes left early with a groin injury.

Even so, State showed a lot of heart. Syracuse kept pushing and was in position to win but the Wuffies kept coming back.

There were some odd plays at the end. Most notably CJ Brice tangled with a Syracuse player on a foul shot and they drew double lane violations and the ball went back to Syracuse.

It was a dumb thing to do when the game wasn’t yet won.

State did play well overall though and overcame serious foul trouble with DJ Funderburk and Manny Bates finishing with four each and playing just 21 and 14 minutes respectively.

We have to say, even though he’s stick thin we like what Syracuse’s Marek Dolezaj brings at times. He’s a smart, tough and resourceful. It’s just too bad he’s so thin. They really haven't been able to fatten him up.

Guard Joe Girard had 30 points but missed all but one of his three point attempts. We saw that this was the first Syracuse freshman since Carmelo Anthony to score 30 in a game.

In Charlottesville, Virginia did what Virginia does and just made Notre Dame play slow and miserable. Mike Brey summed it up nicely: “We thought it would be a rock fight. I told them it would. It was, and they’re probably more accustomed to the rock fights than us.”

Virginia has struggled this year at times but at this point they do seem to be rounding into form. They’re currently seen as a bubble team but that’s ahead of where they were a few weeks ago.

Jon Mooney had his normal double-double with 11 points and 14 boards but he only shot 4-14.

Tomas Woldetensae was billed last week as UVa’s savior; this time he had just five points on 2-9 from the floor.

Three games Wednesday as BC visits Miami, Louisville hits Atlanta, and Clemson takes on Jeff Capel’s Pitt Panthers. Does anyone else think the Yellow Jackets have a chance at upsetting the Cardinals?

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