ACC Roundup - The Coaching Carousel Starts Early!

Good news for Jeff Capel and bad for Jim Boeheim: Pitt knocked off Syracuse 64-53 at home. Syracuse held John Hugley to 11 points but he had a huge night on the boards with 18 including eight on the offensive end. Jamarius Burton scored 21, including 17 in the second half.

Buddy Boeheim scored 25 to pace Syracuse. Former high school scoring phenom Joe Girard was 1-9.

On the bright side, foul-prone Jesse Edwards only picked up two in this game.

Syracuse is now 9-11 and restless fans will be more so.

But they won’t be anymore restless than folks at the ‘Ville: news broke Tuesday evening that Louisville has had enough and, despite having an interim AD and president, has decided to part ways with Chris Mack. It’s just a question of working out the details now. Reportedly the board of trustees is set to discuss how to get rid of him.

For Louisville, this means another interim coach and it’s almost certainly going to be Mack assistant Mike Pegues, who filled in earlier this season when Mack served an NCAA mandated six-game suspension.

Incidentally, Pegues was 5-1.

Presumably Louisville could have fired him after the bizarre Dino Gaudio incident. For anyone who might have missed it, Mack was cleaning house after a disappointing season and was going to fire Gaudio but the former Wake Forest coach wasn’t having it. He tried to extort Mack, who taped the interview, over NCAA violations (hence the suspension).

For whatever reason, they chose not to.

Among the revelations that followed the Gaudio mess was that Mack had threatened to pull scholarships from his players.

That may have played a role in how his team responded when he returned from suspension: Mack’s record this season is 6-8 and after the last loss, to Virginia, center Malik Williams declined to comment when asked if Mack had lost his team.

Well, he has. And now he’s lost his job too.

It’s a great job. Louisville is a basketball city in a basketball state in a basketball conference. The fans are deeply passionate. Someone will be very happy to take it.

Louisville legend Butch Beard, who has distanced himself from the school, is urging it to hire a Black coach and preferably Kenny Payne. Payne played at Louisville and was a John Calipari assistant at Kentucky. As Beard notes, he’s a tremendous recruiter, but as many people, most recently Anfernee Hardaway remind us, that’s only part of the job. If that’s all they want we have a Doherty to recommend.

Louisville is searching early and interestingly, so is Maryland. Presumably they’ll be interviewing some of the same candidates. Stay tuned.

Wednesday’s ACC Action: Miami at Virginia Tech, BC visits UNC, NC State takes on Notre Dame and Florida State heads up to Atlanta to take on Georgia Tech.

Wednesday’s ACC Action

• Miami @ Virginia Tech || 7:00 || ACCN
• BC @ UNC || 7:00 || ACCNX
• NC State @ Notre Dame || 9:00 || dACCNX/ESPN+
• Florida State @ Georgia Tech || 9:00 || ACCN

ACC Standings

• U of L calls board meetings as speculation centers on Chris Mack’s job
• What to know about Chris Mack’s future with Louisville basketball
• Negotiated settlement makes more sense than U of L firing Mack
• Louisville Cardinals in talks to separate with men’s basketball coach Chris Mack, sources say
• The Chris Mack era at Louisville appears to be coming to an end
• Sources: Mack, Louisville discussing his future as coach ahead of Wednesday’s trustees meeting
• Syracuse’s offense dreadful in 64-53 loss to Pittsburgh
• Panthers notch one of their best performances of the season in 64-53 win vs. Syracuse
• Paul Zeise: The fall of the Syracuse and Pitt basketball programs has ruined a great series
• Pitt’s William Jeffress is working through struggles to become a more complete, impactful player