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ACC Roundup - UNC Getting In Gear?

By JD King
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COLLEGE BASKETBALL: DEC 05 North Carolina at Georgia Tech
ATLANTA, GA DECEMBER 05: North Carolina guard Caleb Love (2) elevates for a dunk during the NCAA basketball game between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on December 5th, 2021 at Hank McCamish Pavilion in Atlanta, GA.
Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Georgia Tech has had some tough years recently but has managed to beat UNC fairly often. Not this time: Sunday’s game was tight at the half but UNC ran away in the second, winning 79-62.

Most impressively, UNC put together another strong defensive game, so props to Hubert Davis for teaching. Michael DeVoe has been leading the nation in scoring but got just 13 Sunday.

A smaller team, Georgia Tech probably has three major options: either score on the break, hit lots of threes or backdoor you to death.

Three pointers didn’t work out so well as Tech hit just 6-16 there and managed just 19 shots otherwise. The Yellow Jackets also didn't get to the line, hitting 6-7 there.

UNC by contrast hit 10-17 on threes and Georgia Tech could not stop UNC in general: Armando Bacot shot 7-11, RJ Davis 8-11/4-6, Caleb Love 7-18/3-5 and Brady Manek 6-10/3-6.

On the downside? Davis has said he wants to modernize the system and three point shooting is a big part of that. Part of the tradeoff for that is a traditional UNC strength; offensive rebounding.

Josh Pastner has only one player over 6-8 in his rotation and while Rodney Howard is an adequate rebounder, he’s not great.

Georgia Tech got just four offensive rebounds in this game. And UNC?

Just seven. The Heels shot well, but still, they’re way off historical standards here.

And we’ll say this too: it didn’t really look like Carolina basketball. The offense wasn’t overly patient or intelligent.

Nonetheless, Davis is making progress which is good news for the conference and great news for UNC fans.

This is not ACC news strictly speaking but it does involve a former ACC team, a former ACC coach and a former ACC player who is also now a head coach: former Duke Chris Collins and his Northwestern Wildcats knocked off Danny Manning’s Maryland Terrapins Sunday 67-61.

Stop us if this sounds familiar: Wake Forest Maryland failed to compete in the last few minutes of the game and couldn’t hold off the opponent at the end of the game.

No games until Tuesday when Syracuse and Villanova transfer Cole Swider tangle with his old team. Virginia also plays James Madison.

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