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In Tuesday’s ACC Action, Georgia Tech and Louisville both registered solid wins with the Yellow Jackets knocking off #16 Virginia Tech 69-53 and Louisville taking down Notre Dame 69-57 - despite not having David Johnson, who had a good old fashioned illness but thankfully not Covid.
Despite not having arguably their best player, Louisville never trailed and was never seriously threatened. Notre Dame took a ton of threes - hitting just 7-28 - and shooting just 36.8 percent overall. Nate Laszewski (rhymes with Krzyzewski) was 0-8 and only scored from the foul line, finishing with two. Only Juwan Durham (9-15 for 18 points), Prentiss Hubb (5-11 for 14) and Cormac Ryan (4-9) shot reasonably well and only Hubb hit more than one three, which is disastrous in Mike Brey’s offense.
Almost as bad, the Irish only had five offensive rebounds. Was Laszewski sick too?
Carlik Jones had 18 for the Cards while Samuell Williamson and Jae’lyn Withers added 12 each.
It was a great bounce back game for the ‘Ville after just getting crushed by UNC this past weekend and of course they visit Duke on Saturday. Presumably Johnson will be healthy by then.
We could be wrong, but back home in South Bend, we’re getting the sense that columnist Tom Noie is losing faith in Mike Brey.
After the win over Virginia Tech, Moses Wright said the Yellow Jackets wanted to prove they belonged with the better teams in the league. That was a pretty good statement if so.
This was a low-scoring tie game at the half - 24-24 and 17 of those for Georgia Tech by Wright - before the Yellow Jackets cracked it open in the second half.
Mike Young is a brilliant offensive coach so holding the Hokies to 57 points is an accomplishment or would be a bigger one if his team wasn’t coming off a Covid pause, having not played since February 9th. So far, to the best of our knowledge, only Michigan has come off of a Covid pause and still been tremendous.
Also, this game marked the return of Tyrece Radford, Young’s terrific guard who was suspended after DWI and weapons charges. The case has since been resolved, for better or worse.
Four games on Wednesday as Clemson visits Wake Forest, NC State buses up to Virginia, Florida State goes to Coral Gables to take on the injury-ridden Hurricanes and UNC has scheduled a quickie with Wojo’s Marquette.
We’d be surprised if Clemson lost at Wake, assuming the defense shows. Virginia has lost two straight and it’s hard to see them losing three straight. They’ll be focused. And while Miami has shown a lot of heart this season, Florida State’s calling card is depth and that’s like kryptonite to the very limited ‘Canes right now.
For anyone who might not know, Wojo is what Steve Wojciechowski was universally called when he played for Duke. We’re not sure anyone called him Steve until he took the Marquette job.
Like UNC, Marquette needed a quick schedule to keep their guys fresh and so Wojo returns to the Dean Dome for the first time since he took the Marquette job back in 2014. That means he took a trip every year for 20 years. He might have missed the first year after his graduation but otherwise, he’s been there enough to know the rivets in the beams. So has he (or will he) miss anything Wednesday?
Getting booed. That’s pretty cool.
Of course, it could have been different. After one game against UNC, Dean Smith complimented Wojo greatly, saying that he hoped people could see why he had ardently recruited him out of high school.
We’re happy he gets booed over there.
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