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ACC Roundup - Wake Keeps Winning As State Misses A Big Comeback

Keep an eye on the Demon Deacons

By JD King
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NCAA Basketball: Wake Forest at Virginia
Jan 15, 2022; Charlottesville, Virginia, USA; Wake Forest Demon Deacons guard Alondes Williams (31) celebrates with Demon Deacons forward Jake LaRavia (0) against the Virginia Cavaliers during the second half at John Paul Jones Arena.
Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

In Wednesday’s ACC Action, Virginia Tech nipped NC State 62-59, Wake Forest stung Georgia Tech 80-64, Louisville took out Boston College 67-54 and Virginia topped Pitt 66-61.

Give the Pack credit: the Hokies were firmly in control, up 35-21 at the half. State had to fight hard to come back and nearly pulled it off, getting to within one with 21 seconds to go.

In a spectacular sequence that sums up his immense promise, Dereon Seabron rebounded a missed foul shot, hit a jumper, then stole the inbounds and dunked that. Last person we saw pull of a sequence like that was Len Bias who did it to UNC, and not the suck-ass version of UNC you see today.

Teams are starting to focus on him and slow him down but his relentless energy can’t be fully stopped. He’s really special.

Remember us ragging on Virginia Tech’s Nahiem Alleyne after the Duke game? Dude had five straight turnovers. That must have been incredibly painful for him.

For all the talk of a weak ACC, Wake Forest is now 15-4 and clearly, Steve Forbes is doing a great job (he’s also wonderfully unpretentious. We love the guy for that). But he wasn’t at the game Wednesday; he had to sit out with an unspecified illness.

Alondes Williams had 19 points, nine assists, seven rebounds and three blocks. The Deacs shot 57 percent and in another bit of good news, ETSU transfer Damari Monsanto is back from an Achilles injury.

Wake Forest is now tied for sixth which may not sound huge but they’ve been in the bottom three consistently for some time now. And they have a legitimate star in Williams.

They have a fascinating game on Saturday as UNC comes in. Given how weak the Heels have been, this could be really interesting.

Talk about bad optics: before the Louisville-BC game could start, a leak in the KFC Yum! Center had to be fixed. That program has been taking on water for sure, but not against the Eagles.

BC kept it respectable but never really seriously threatened the Cards. Louisville got Sidney Curry back and he helped seven board and 13 points on 6-6 from the floor.

Louisville is still not in a great place but at least they got some breathing room to try to fix things.

Virginia has struggled but Tony Bennett is such a good coach that you can’t count his teams out and they have owned Pitt for a while now.

Nothing changed on that front Wednesday as the Cavs took out Pitt on the road. Surprisingly both teams shot 50 percent but Virginia outscored Pitt from the three point line 12-3 and forced 15 turnovers. Pitt is having a tough year but John Hugley continues to excel individually. He had 23 points and seven boards against UVa, which impressive. Less impressive though: seven turnovers. Ugh.

Only one game Thursday as a juiced-up FSU takes on Northern Florida after the big win over Duke with a highly unusual start time for a Thursday game. If it’s already snowing where you are, and it may be, well, there you go.

Thursday’s ACC Action

North Florida @ Florida State || 12:00 || ACCNX

ACC Standings

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