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ACC Roundup - Look Who’s Undefeated

And it’s not Duke, UNC or Virginia either

By JD King
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NCAA Basketball: Miami (FL) at Notre Dame
Dec 30, 2022; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Miami Hurricanes forward Norchad Omier (15) drives to the basket as Notre Dame Fighting Irish forward Dom Campbell (13) defends in the second half at the Purcell Pavilion. 
Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

In Friday’s ACC Action, Miami beat Notre Dame in South Bend 76-65, Clemson topped NC State 78-64 and Pitt nipped UNC 76-64.

The Tar Heels clawed their way back to the Top 25 at the last position but probably won’t be ranked next week.

UNC had won four straight and seemed to be back on track after a disappointing start and they started well at Pitt. But Jamarius Burton had a beautiful game, hitting 14-17 and finishing with 31. UNC tried multiple players on him and no one could touch him. It was a gold night for that guy.

Armando Bacot played well for most of the game but faded down the stretch and wasn’t much of an offensive threat in the last 10 minutes of the game.

Pitt also shut down UNC’s transition game, limiting them to six points on the break.

With the win, Pitt moves to 10-4 and, along with Clemson and Miami, remains undefeated in conference play.

Speaking of Clemson, we’ve expressed our respect for Brad Brownell in general because he’s a really good coach, but consider this: how many programs do a better job developing talent than does Clemson?

Clemson started RJ Godfrey, Hunter Tyson, PJ Hall, Chase Hunter and Brendan Galloway. It’s not something we’re going to look up right now, but we’re pretty sure none of them were seen as elite high school talents.

Normally Alex Hemenway would start but he’s got a foot problem.

But all of them are good and they have all improved at Clemson. Last year, Mike Krzyzewski called Hall the most improved player on the planet, which is pretty great.

Not in this game though: He was just 2-9 for five points and had five boards.

The guy who killed State was Tyson, who finished with 31 including 9-9 from the line, thus providing nearly half of Clemson’s 64.

Brownell is a defense-first coach and so it’s no surprise that Clemson held State to 30.9 percent. Tarquavion Smith had 21 but shot just 5-21 to do it.

Miami is probably a better team than Notre Dame right now, but it still took the ‘Canes a long time to take firm control of the game, which they finally did with about 12:00 to go in the second half.

The perimeter was again solid for Miami: Nijel Pack had 21, Isaiah Wong had 15 and Jordan Miller had 12. Norchad Omier hit 8-11 for 18 points and grabbed seven boards.

Notre Dame is now a fairly pedestrian 8-6 while Miami is a glittering 13-1 and, along with Clemson and Pitt, on top of the ACC.

Saturday is a busy day with Virginia traveling down to Georgia Tech, Louisville at hated Kentucky, Virginia Tech down the mountains to Winston Salem to meet the Deacs and Boston College at Syracuse.

We can’t see anyway the Yellow Jackets beat Virginia. And really, there’s no logical reason to expect Louisville to rise up and smite Kentucky...other than the general fan unhappiness and the pressure that UK players have to deal with (if you’re not aware of it, BBN is increasingly unhappy with John Calipari.

Virginia Tech and Wake Forest could be fun but our money is on the Hokies. We like the heart BC has, but the talent isn’t enough yet. So we’d expect the Orange to win and move to 9-5.

Saturday’s ACC Action

  • Virginia @ Georgia Tech || 12:00 PM || ACCN
  • Louisville @ Kentucky || 12:00 PM || CBS
  • Virginia Tech @ Wake Forest || 12:00 PM || ACCNX
  • Florida State @ Duke || 1:00 PM || ESPN2
  • Boston College @ Syracuse || 2:00 || ACCN

ACC Standings

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