Hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend and hope you remembered the sacrifice of those who fought and died to keep our nation free. Some things you may have missed while you were at the beach or the barbecue:
** UNC’s baseball team made the NCAA tournament despite not even making the ACC tournament. The ACC got a record 8 bids, but the Heels got in ahead of Boston College, with whom they tied in the regular season. Carolina and BC did not play this season, so the Eagles made the ACC tourney on a tiebreaker.
Carolina helped their case for an at-large bid by winning 12 of their 15 games and maintaining an RPI in the 20s. BC, on the other hand, lost 8 of their last 11, including two quick losses in the ACCT.
You would think that the those around the league would be happy at the record eight bids, but NC State coach Elliott Avent, whose team was in a dogfight for the last two ACCT bids until the final weekend, thinks UNC should not have gotten in over BC because the Heels didn’t make the ACC tourney, despite a superior overall record and an amazing RPI. Avent thinks being able to earn an NCAA bid without making the ACC tourney devalues the tournament. Welcome to the world of ACC basketball, Coach Avent. Should a basketball team have to make it to Friday to qualify for the NCAAs?
Avent also gets in a dig in saying the Heels have had a week off to rest their pitchers and their injuries while other teams (meaning his, who lost in the ACCT finals and suffered key injuries along the way), played three or four. It is ridiculous that the ACC does not come up with a way to include all 12 teams, and since UNC and BC did not play head-to-head, UNC was excluded on a tiebreaker. Besides, Carolina finished exactly one game behind NCSU and took 2 of 3 from the Wolpfack, so Avent would be well-served to keep his yap shut.
UNC is in the Norman, Oklahoma sub-region and will play California in the opening round Friday at 8:00 PM. Oral Roberts and host Oklahoma make up the rest of the bracket as Carolina looks for a 5th-straight trip to the College World Series.
**The UNC women’s lacrosse team fought the good fight, but fell to Northwestern 15-10 in the Final Four in front of the largest crowd to ever watch women’s lacrosse in the USA.
**The Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions was in town this weekend with a lot of Carolina hoops flavor:
- Justin Knox is just happy to be here and hopes he can help the ball club.
- 2011 commit P.J. Hairston is looking good.
- Baby Zeller and Baby Plumlee play on the same AAU team and both may go where their big brothers play – or maybe not.
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Have we seriously recruited Plumlee? Oh goodness I hope not. I’d really rather have Cody.
“It is ridiculous that the ACC does not come up with a way to include all 12 teams, and since UNC and BC did not play head-to-head, UNC was excluded on a tiebreaker.”
It’s sad the ACC, like the Big East, has a tournament that doesn’t include the whole conference. I’d be much happier if the conference was small enough to offer every school at least a play-in game in every sport.
Avent is probably just mad that the ‘Pack made it all the way to the championship game but didn’t win. After all, Fowler has been sacked. Doesn’t that mean State will win every game, every time from here on out?
The obvious answer is for the conference to expand to 16 teams. That way basketball would get a balanced schedule—teams would only have time to play each other once during the regular season. Football teams wouldn’t have to play the eight teams in the other division at all—unless they met in the ACC championship game. And, baseball would let everybody in, simply doubling what they do now, plus the extra game. Oh yeah, and think of the cash all this would generate!!! Wait, why not 32 teams? ACC + SEC = ACSEC. Who’s with me?
Seriously though, I’m very happy the Diamond ‘Heels get to play at least 2 more games. They were really playing–and pitching–well the last 20 games or so. Hope the 2-week hiatus didn’t grow any rust.
(I feel like I should reiterate that the first 2 paragraphs were sarcasm. Are we clear now?)
Crystal.
Yeah, the Pack finally has a little success in a major sport and their lips start wagging. Just like all the talk surrounding their basketball team. They get one great class in 20 years (something the Heels and dook do about every year or two) and suddenly they are crowning themselves ACC champs. Yet, their freshmen have yet to lace up their State sneakers. If there is anything that State should have learned from the Heels this year, that is don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
And boy the number of NC State bumper stickers, shirts, and hats that I’ve seen have increased dramatically since CJ Leslie signed.
There would be no issue with the Heels making the NCAAT had BC named to the tourney as well. IMHO
^Heel Yeah. “And boy the number of NC State bumper stickers, shirts, and hats that I’ve seen have increased dramatically since CJ Leslie signed”
But, Pack fans are just a lot more passionate than other fans and are never engage in “bandwagon” behavior. Yea, right……
Well, at least they haven’t reached Gavin Grant’s level of stupidity… like the time he said State was a final four team.
^Wrong, CJ Leslie said NC State was a guaranteed “Top 5 team next season” during his signing of his LOI, so unless he was talking about the state of North Carolina he has already approached Grant’s level of stupidity….
I went to the UNC/State baseball games and what I saw was an absolute train wreck, he’s lucky they won any games much less made it so far in the ACCT. I know it was just a series and yes they won the 2nd game big but they just fell apart in the other two games, it was tragic. He’s all hat and no cattle from my viewpoint.
ok, so whats this about McAdoo?