ACC Roundup - UNC Wins, Virginia & Florida State Rising
An interesting evening around the conference
In Wednesday’s ACC Action, UNC took out Louisville 86-70, Virginia Tech fell at Virginia 65-57 and Miami lost to Florida State 84-75.
UNC’s win over Louisville was no surprise of course. The Tar Heels are playing at a very high level and Louisville has struggled mightily in the Kenny Payne era.
However, while the Cards lost the first half 46-29, they played UNC pretty much even in the second, 41-40.
Too little, too late and all, but still.
RJ Davis continues to play very well, hitting 4-7 on threes and scoring 21. Best of all, he took just 12 of UNC’s 60 shots. At times this season he has taken a full third of UNC’s shots and that’s a lot for one guy, especially with Armando Bacot working down low.
Bacot had 19 here but just seven rebounds. Not bad normally, but he has always been an exceptional rebounder. Davis nearly got more with six.
Jae’Lyn Withers, who transferred from Louisville after last year’s disaster, had 10 rebounds and 15 points of his own.
UNC continues to play very well. Louisville, though, has shown improvement. Not enough, but they are clearly better now than they were earlier.
Is Virginia putting it together? The Cavs have struggled and had some very uncharacteristic losses this season. Not just to teams they’d usually beat but bad losses: Wisconsin by 14, Memphis by 23, Notre Dame by a shocking 24, NC State by 16 and Wake Forest by 19.
It’s just so strange to see that from a Tony Bennett team.
Didn't happen Wednesday.
Virginia held the Hokies to 57 points and 38.9 percent from the floor.
Bennett has made some adjustments. First Jordan Minor is starting now. This is his second game at center. At 6-8 and 242, he gives Virginia a bruiser inside. He made Lynn Kidd a non-factor, helped limit Virginia Tech’s big man to a single basket.
And secondly, Dante Harris, the Georgetown transfer who missed 10 games with an ankle injury is back. He helped on both ends of the court and added a nice element to Bennett’s defense.
But the real mastermind here was Reece Beekman who harassed Sean Pedulla into seven turnovers. Pedulla has been red hot lately, scoring 91 points in his last three games. He had 18 in this one.
Virginia still needs help on offense but if you can limit teams’ scoring it’s not as important. We’ll see how they do after this but it’s encouraging.
Florida State looked like they might be in trouble too but since losing to Lipscomb, the ‘Noles have won five straight and are tied for second in the ACC. That’s a pretty nice recovery.
Win #5 came over Miami as the ‘Canes were bothered by Florida State’s length and size. Florida State led from wire to wire and was actually up by 16 before Miami rallied.
Matthew Cleveland, who transferred from FSU to Miami after last season, was held to just two points by his former teammates, hitting just 1-8.
We’ve mentioned Miami’s thin bench before - they came up with just 14 points to 40 from FSU’s reserves.
Norchad Omier had his typical double-double (15/15) but picked up four fouls too.
The conference race is getting interesting. UNC is alone in first at 6-0. NC State and Florida State are tied for second at 5-1, Duke is 4-1 and Wake Forest is 4-2. Virginia, Miami and Syracuse are in the next tier at 3-3. Clemson is falling behind at 4-4. Those schools can still have realistic post-season hopes. The others are in a bind.
BC, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are all 2-4, Notre Dame is 2-5 while Pitt and Louisville bring up the rear at 1-5.
Yet the only teams with losing records currently are Notre Dame and Louisville at 7-11 and 6-11 respectively and other than arguably Louisville, every team in the conference is pretty damn competitive. It’s still too soon to say this for sure, but it looks like Georgia Tech and Notre Dame made smart hires because both of those teams are capable of ruining your season.
As you probably noticed, NC State’s DJ Horne gave the double bird to an official Tuesday night.
Wednesday, the ACC reprimanded him. Thus ends a bit of ACC frivolity but the memes are going to last forever.
No games until Saturday but there are some good ones to talk about on Friday.
- No. 4 UNC basketball keeps rolling. Three takeaways from Tar Heels win over Louisville
- Louisville basketball: Slow start dooms Kenny Payne’s team vs. UNC
- UNC basketball’s Jae’Lyn Withers, RJ Davis discuss Tar Heels’ win vs. Louisville
- UNC Men’s Basketball Fights Off Louisville’s 2nd-Half Rally to Win 7th Straight Game
- No. 4 UNC improves to 6-0 in ACC after 86-70 win over Louisville
- First-Half Woes, Turnovers Hurt Virginia Tech In Loss At Virginia
- UVa F Minor on big game against Virginia Tech
- Five takeaways from UVA basketball’s bounce-back rivalry win over Virginia Tech
- Tony Bennett after victory over Virginia Tech
- Florida State men’s basketball downs rival Miami on the roa
- Florida State Seminoles defeat Miami Hurricanes 84-75 in ACC basketball
- Florida State Storms Into Watsco Center And Captures A Win Over The Hurricanes 84-75
- Florida State basketball wins at Miami with wire-to-wire victory