This Week in ACC Hoops

Last week marked the official “beginning” of the college basketball season. No, not because football season is almost over, but because now teams are finally starting to hit their stride, and thus we are seeing some great games.

Due to some outstanding performances, and fantastic finishes this past week, there were about five games I could’ve chosen for “biggest win of the week”. Here are my selections:

Biggest win of the week: North Carolina’s beat down of Arizona 92-64

Lute Olson has been coaching the Arizona Wildcats since Ronald Reagan was in office. Throughout that span of time, Olson has had a lot more ups than he’s had downs, but last weekend was probably one of the low points of his career. UNC handed Olson the largest home court defeat of his tenure, as the Tar Heels showed that they are the class of the ACC, and maybe even the entire country.

The most impressive part of the victory is that UNC was playing without one of their top scorers and rebounders, Brandon Wright, and without arguably their best defensive players, Marcus Ginyard. If the Tar Heels gave a pounding like this without those players just imagine what they could’ve done with them. Yikes.

Runner Up: Boston College over Florida State 85-82 at the buzzer

There are many reasons why that was a huge post-Williams win for the Eagles, but let me quickly mention two of them. On the surface, BC’s ACC schedule was extremely frontloaded, so Al Skinner’s club really needs to be winning any and all of their games in which they're favored the rest of the way. Trust me, there won’t be many of them with the brutal schedule they have.

Secondly, on an emotional level, this win was big because it was the first game that BC won since Sean Williams and Akida McLain were kicked off the team. If they didn’t know it already, the remaining players definitely now know that they don’t need those two guys to keep being competitive.

As for the game itself, where do you start? Sean Marshall’s “3-pointer” at the buzzer is what you saw on SportCenter and is one of the best finishes of a college basketball game this season. However, I came away the most impressed with the play of Tyrese Rice down the stretch. Rice carried the Eagles with 26 points, and scored many of his hoops by driving to the basket and ending the drive with an acrobatic lay-up. Somehow, all of his circus shots seemed to go in. This was only topped off by his 3-point shot late in the game. The ball hit where the rim and backboard meet, and bounced off like an old, flat basketball into the hoop. It was one of the strangest 3-point shots you’ll ever see.

Worst loss of the week: Clemson blowing a big lead to Virginia and losing 64-63

A memo from myself to Clemson fans: Don’t make plans to attend March Madness just yet.

I’m sending out this memo after Clemson inexplicably blew a 16-point lead with under 9:00 left at home over the weekend. I’m also sending this memo based on Clemson’s 1-4 record in their last 5 games.

The real question to ponder is: did the Tigers hit a wall, or is this just a bump in the road during a long season? That’s tough to say, but one thing we do know is that the NCAA Selection Committee takes heavily into account the performance of teams during their last 10 games of the season. Clemson is now 0-2 to start the stretch of their last 10 games. With only two “gimmies” against the bottom three of the ACC remaining, the Tigers have a lot of work ahead of them.

Runner-up: Clemson losing to Duke 68-66 at the buzzer

I guess when you take the award for the two worst losses of the week, you are officially having a terrible week.

I just mentioned the meltdown against Virginia, so now let’s talk about what happened at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Thursday night. Clemson was practically handed overtime, when Josh McRoberts in-bounded a pass right to Vernon Hamilton with only seconds remaining in the game, and the Tigers down 3. Hamilton was standing at the 3-point line when he received the sloppy pass, and consequently buried a trey to tie the game with just over 4 seconds remaining.

I was just about feel the wrath of my girlfriend because I was preparing to tell her that she’d have to wait another “couple” minutes to watch her TiVo’d episode of The Office. Luckily for me, the Tigers bailed me out by not only letting David McClure get wide open to receive a pass, but also to let him get a wide open lane to the basket to score a hoop at the buzzer. Phew, that was a close one!

ACC Power Rankings
1. North Carolina (1/31 vs. Miami, 2/3 @ NC State)
2. Virginia Tech (1/31 vs. NC State, 2/3 @ BC)
3. Duke (2/1 @ Virginia, 2/4 vs. FSU)
4. Clemson (2/3 @ GT)
5. Boston College (1/31 vs. Hartford, 2/3 vs. VT)
6. Virginia (2/1 vs. Duke, 2/3 vs. Miami)
7. Florida State (1/30 vs. Maryland, 2/4 @ Duke)
8. Maryland (1/30 @ FSU, 2/3 @ WF)
9. Georgia Tech (1/30 @ WF, 2/3 vs. Clemson)
10. NC State (1/31 @ VT, 2/3 vs. UNC)
11. Miami (1/31 @ UNC, 2/3 @ Virginia)
12. Wake Forest (1/30 vs. GT, 2/3 vs. Maryland)

All-American 1st Team

G - Aaron Brooks - Oregon
G - Chris Lofton - Tennessee
F - Kevin Durant - Texas
F - Alando Tucker - Wisconsin
F - Nick Fazekas - Nevada

All-American 2nd Team

G - Darren Collison - UCLA
G - Dominic James - Marquette
F - Mario Boggan - Oklahoma State
F - Aaron Gray - Pittsburgh
F - Jared Dudley - Boston College

My All-American list is determined using the following criteria:

1. Overall performance - Obviously this is the most important criterion. If you don’t have an elite level of individual success then you’re not on the list. What that means to me is you have to be Top 10 in your conference in at least two categories (PPG, APG, RPG, FG%, 3-PT%). That bumps off a one trick pony like Arron Afflalo.

2. Team success - Is the player’s team considered one of the top 50 in the country so far? If not, then it’s tough to justify your presence on this list. That bumps off someone like Al Thornton of FSU from consideration.

3. Player’s importance to his team - If we removed a player from their team could they keep up a similar level of success, or would they probably be ranked at least 10 spots lower in the rankings/RPI? This bumps a player like Tyler Hansborough off my list, as I think UNC would be dominant without him too.

Game of the Week: Duke at Virginia 2/1 This is a match-up of two of the hottest teams in the ACC, as Duke comes in winners of 5 straight, while Virginia has won 4 straight. This will be a classic battle of the high powered offense of Virginia (2nd in ppg in ACC play) versus the stingy Duke defense (1st in pg allowed in ACC play).

A few weeks ago I would’ve thought it was nearly impossible for the Cavaliers to beat a team with any kind of presence down low, and thus I would’ve predicted Duke to win easily against Virginia. However, after wins against Maryland and Clemson I’ve changed my stance on this. I think Virginia can do enough to contain the Duke forwards, especially since Josh McRoberts is still now calling for the ball enough when he has a mismatch. Look for Virginia’s guards to dominate Duke’s guards in this game in what will amount to a good home win for Virginia.

Runner-Up: Clemson at Georgia Tech 2/3

This might indeed be the last stand for the Yellow Jackets this year. GT has lost three straight coming into the week, and in those losses the closest defeat they had was by 8 points. Yikes.

GT has quality wins over Memphis, Purdue, and Duke so far this year. Clemson would be another nice notch for the ‘Jackets, especially if they can beat WF on 1/30. If GT drops either game this weekend then they most likely have to have a few upsets down the stretch, coupled with at least 2 wins in the ACC Tournament.

As for Clemson, they are on a dangerous slide that needs to stop immediately. Their NCAA tournament seed is sliding faster than Paris Hilton’s popularity over the past year. A road win at GT would put them back on track.

For what it’s worth, I think GT gets a much needed win over Clemson.