clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

ACC Roundup - Georgia Tech Takes Down Louisville

You heard it here first.

By JD King
NCAA Basketball: Louisville at Georgia Tech
Feb 12, 2020; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets guard Jose Alvarado (10) celebrates with fans after a victory against the Louisville Cardinals at McCamish Pavilion. 
Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

Every so often a game jumps out at us and screams “pick me! Pick me!”

That’s how we felt about Georgia Tech hosting Louisville. It just seemed like an obvious upset pick and we were right.

Wednesday’s ACC Results

  • Georgia Tech 64 Louisville 58
  • Miami 85 Boston College 58
  • Clemson 72 Pitt 52

No ACC Action Thursday

ACC Standings

Just 11-13 coming in, Tech was aggressive with the Cardinals from the start and pulled off a wonderful win, 64-58.

Just to be clear, that’s a 11-13 team - now 12-13 -taking the #5 team in the country to the woodshed. Okay, not exactly the woodshed but Georgia Tech led from wire to wire and there wasn’t really a point in the game where the Cards seemed likely to win.

Louisville managed just 33.9 percent from the field and took 24 threes, making just 12. Georgia Tech almost shut down Jordan Nwora entirely, limiting him to just two points.

The loss also pushes Duke back into the picture as the Blue Devils have just two ACC losses and are a half-game back of Louisville (who holds the tie-breaker having beaten Duke earlier).

The other two Wednesday games weren't nearly as close. Miami smacked Boston College 85-58 and Clemson clocked Jeff Capel’s Pitt team 72-52.

At Pitt.

The Tigers held Pitt to 31.3 percent from the floor. Freshman Justin Champagnie, so impressive lately, had just 11 points on 3-9 shooting and six boards.

Clemson got solid games from Aamir Simms (12 points and five boards), Al-Amir Dawes (18 points and five assists) and Tevin Mack (16 points and nine boards).

Like Tech, Clemson has been floating around .500 and like the Yellow Jackets they’re still dangerous.

After the game, Capel lamented that the Panthers are not yet a mature program:

“At some point, guys have to listen, they have to get over themselves,” Capel said afterwards. “They have to understand the requirements it takes to be good, consistently good, not good for a moment. As a program, we’re not there yet... We were just bad across the board. Energy, communication, execution on both sides. A really disappointing performance by us.”

Boston College is not a good team but we didn’t think they’d lose that badly. Miami has had some real issues this year, mostly with injuries, and they came through anyway. It was a major whipping.

Check this out: since getting eight at Duke, freshman Isaiah Wong has scored 19, 10, 15, 12, 23 and 21 in his last six games. That’s 16.6 ppg in his last six, production Miami seriously needs.

Chris Lykes is back in the starting lineup and scored 16. Miami moved Keith Stone and Wong into the starting lineup and brought Rodney Miller, Anthony Walker and Harlond Beverly off the bench. Any of the three could start so Miami has finally developed some depth.

Derryck Thornton shot 2-11 and finished with six points. A forgettable night for BC all things considered.

This is trivial but interesting: nine ACC teams, including perennial blue-blood UNC, are under .500 in conference play and seven are under .500 overall.

A lot of them are still dangerous - witness Tech, Clemson and Miami Wednesday and UNC Saturday - but that’s a very soft conference underbelly.

No ACC games until Saturday. Again, why have an ACC Network and not have live programming during basketball season?

More From Duke Basketball Report