ACC Basketball Notes
by homertuck
on Jan 5, 2009 9:08 AM EST
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To echo what Ben said, the lack of posts is also my fault, as I've been in the process of moving into a new house and didn't post nearly enough content while Ben was MIA, so a lot of that blame should go to me....
But onto ACC Basketball...
The main portion of the ACC regular season got underway over the weekend and there were a few surprises along the way.
First and foremost, UNC was defeated at home by Boston College, 85-78. This ends some of the ridiculous talk of UNC possibly going undefeated this season. Rice and Sanders had 25 and 22 points, respectively for BC, and Tyler Hansbrough had 21 to lead UNC. Remember, the early season polls (which, by the way, I think are quite possibly the stupidest things in the world) had BC finishing 11th in the 12 team ACC. Looks like the ACC could be similar to football in that every game is going to be a bloodbath, although basketball does seem to have 3 dominant teams in Duke, UNC, and Wake, something football lacked this season. But BC proved Sunday night that UNC isn't unbeatable. And Duke, as always, lives and dies by the 3. When Maryland faces UNC and Duke, I think they could win. We just need a big game out of Vasquez and one other player. We'll see what happens though...
In other ACC news, Duke downed Va. Tech, 69-44 at Cameron Indoor. The game was close in the first half, with Duke only leading by 8. But in the second half, Duke's defense clamped down on the Hookies, allowing them to only score 13 points.
UVA was expected by most to have a down year, but I don't think a lot of people expected UVA to be 6-5 after just 11 games into the season. Even more surprising is that UVA has a win in the ACC already, on the road against Georgia Tech.
Georgia Tech has been up and down all season, losing to University of Illinois - Chicago and to UVA, but defeating good Vanderbilt team.
Clemson has yet to lose, going 14-0 thus far.
NC State has quietly gone 9-3 thus far this season.
Miami is 10-3, with one of those loses coming against Clemson. The Hurricanes take on the Terps in just over a week.
Florida State has gone 13-2 so far this season, a surprise to a lot of people who didn't put too much stock in the Seminoles at the start of the season. FSU has won a lot of close games so far, which caught up to them in their losses to Northwestern and Pitt.
8 of the 12 ACC teams have at least 10 wins, so it will be interesting to see if 20 wins and 8-8 in the conference is good enough to punch a ticket to the NCAA Tournament this year.
Who do you think will win the ACC this year? Could a team surprise Duke, Wake or UNC?
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If Maryland is 12 - 2
Heading into conference play, and they go 8 – 8 to end up at 20 – 10, they’re going to need to win at least one in the conference tournament, unless they somehow go 4 – 1 against Wake, Duke, and UNC, which I’m not seeing. Some of those 10+ win teams are going to fall off, much like how the Big East is not going to get 22 teams into the tournament either.
Insert clever and witty remark slash pun here!
UMD 8/04 - 5/08: Go Terps!
by ES46NE10 on
Jan 5, 2009 10:34 AM EST
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I have trouble seeing anyone other than UNC taking the ACC title, at least in the regular season. They just have too much depth. The ACC really is stacked this year, hopefully we finally get some good press.
To echo ES46NE10, Maryland will need at least one tourney win with an 8-8 record in conference, but I think they’ll be able to get it. The team seems to have a better sense of must-win games.
by bbroman on
Jan 5, 2009 3:47 PM EST
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