Man I love ACC Basketball
The #3 Team in The ACC Is....Boston College?: Perhaps. No disrespect to Clemson who broke their ACC OT game streak with a win over NC State but BC hosted Miami and was quite impressive in dispatching the 21st ranked Hurricanes to move to 3-0. At this point I am trying to figure out if this is the usual strong ACC start always gives or if they indeed have the chops to sustain it. BC is very capable of defending and Tyrese Rice is a legit offensive threat at the point.
FSU and Duke Really Hate Each Other: Duke beat FSU in a wild game which made more headlines for the renewal of bad blood between the two. Incidentally Greg Paulus was involved in both situations. The first was Paulus crashing the board after the whistle and FSU's Ryan Reid knocked him to the ground. A few minutes later Paulus gets involved in a scrum going after the ball on the floor. With FSU players surrounding him, Paulus decided to starting kicking like a four year old at which point Reid came over, reached down and pressed his forearm against his face. The result was a double technical and a day's worth of national blogs like Deadspon and Awful Announcing calling Paulus a flopper and comparing him to an Italian soccer player prone to exaggerated injury feigns. Anyway, the win was a good one for Duke although the concerns about the half court offense seen last season are still present. It basically becomes non-existent in the 2nd half and had FSU actually ran some semblance of an offense in the first half instead of driving to the basket and throwing up wild shots they might have stayed in the game.
Wake and UVa Battle For Worst Team: Virginia Tech got a tip in from Deron Washington at the buzzer to knock of UVa at home and hand the Cavs an 0-2 start in the ACC. UVa might want to think about getting busy since whatever quality wins they have under the belts are not going to mean much is they are 7-9 in the ACC. Wake gave Maryland their first win which temporarily stops the bleeding in College Park, that is until they travel to Chapel Hill on Saturday.
NCSU In For the Long Season: The Wolfpack look out of shape, out of sync, disinterested and completely checked out for this season. On top of that key players keep getting injured. I do not think a turnaround is possible for this team given the depth of their problems.
Weekend Schedule: The big game of the weekend is Clemson's trip to Duke which may or may not include Clemson bringing their own timekeeper. BC goes on the road to UVa in what is probably a must win for the Cavs and a chance to really establish position for BC. Georgia Tech will try to avoid a letdown versus VT and win their first ACC game. UNC entertains Maryland which should be an easy win for the Heels. Miami travels to NCSU and needs a win to attempt to hold on to what they have built so far. FSU travels to Wake Forest and will try to shed the bad taster from the loss to Duke
Saturday, January 19th
VT at GT, 1 PM
MD at UNC, 3:30 PM
Clemson at Duke, 6 PM
Miami at NCSU, 8 PM
BC at UVa, 8 PM
Sunday, January 20th
FSU at Wake, 1 PM