LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - DECEMBER 12: The Louisville Cardinals mascot performs in the game against the Grambling State Tigers at KFC YUM! Center on December 12, 2024 in Louisville, Kentucky. | Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images
This ought to be a fun day!
Saturday is a really big day around the ACC with some potentially great games lined up. Let’s take a look!
Memphis is visiting Clemson, Georgetown is at Syracuse, Cal hosts Northwestern State, NC State is at Kansas, LSU plays SMU, LaSalle treks down to Chapel Hill to take on the Tar Heels, Tulane is at FSU, and Louisville is at Kentucky.
We don’t know this for sure, but it might be the first time in at least a long time that both schools play each other with new coaches. Kentucky would be favored under any circumstances but with the injuries Louisville has, winning here would be hugely impressive.
Sub-theme! Louisville has two of Mark Pope’s BYU players, Noah Waterman and Aly Khalifa, and they’ll know what’s coming.
Clemson gets another chance at an impressive win following the ACC/SEC Challenge win over UK with Memphis in the house. Again, people don't realize how much of a pit Littlejohn can be, so we’ll take the Tigers here.
The glory days of Georgetown and Syracuse are over but it’s still a rivalry game and you never know. Georgetown is off to a 7-2 start but the only half-decent teams that they’ve played are Notre Dame and West Virginia. Tough call here but we’ll go with the home team.
Cal should beat Northwestern State but it’s not really an ACC team yet, so don’t bet the rent money on that.
We wouldn't have given State much of a chance at Kansas earlier but now? It’s possible. They’ll need to deal with Hunter Dickinson and Dajuan Harris. Winning in Lawrence won’t be easy but possible? Yeah. But if we were betting we’d bet on Kansas.
It’s hard to take SMU over LSU. They're not atrocious, but LSU is pretty good. However, they’re getting used to playing without Jalen Reed who was lost for the season against FSU.
There was a time we’d see LaSalle on the schedule and just assume it was an easy win for UNC. Can you say that now? With confidence?
This team is still uneven and has a weak front court so far. The backcourt should carry them again, but we could see LaSalle getting all scrappy and pushing the Heels - probably not to the wire, but giving them some trouble anyway.
Can’t see Florida State losing to Tulane. Well, at least they shouldn’t. We have seen some ugly losses by ACC teams this year.
Like a lot of people, we were amazed and appalled by how bad Virginia was against Bethune-Cookman. How bad was it?
This kind of sums it up: play-by-play man Anish Shroff said it was so bad that “[s]o far this game has the feel of a third grader playing the recorder for the first time.”
