This Week in ACC Hoops

Best win of the week: North Carolina winning at Duke 79-73

      A win against Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium isn’t as big as it used to be,

but it’s still pretty sweet, especially if you’re UNC. For the first 22 minutes or so, it looked like Duke was going to get a big win against their archrival. The Blue Devils were playing with high a high level of intensity, and UNC looked like they didn’t really care if they won the game or not.

      A microcosm of UNC’s effort in this game came very early in the 2nd half. Brandon Wright didn’t run full speed to get back on defense, when Duke’s Gerald Henderson stole the ball, and dribbled by him down the court. On the game

telecast, Billy Packer even called out Wright in saying, “Wright’s kind of jogging… not a good effort by Brandon Wright” .

      Then, it happened…….UNC flipped a switch and kicked it into another gear.

The 2nd half was a slow, painful death for Blue Devils, as UNC slowly kept chipping away at the Duke lead until they took the lead for good.

      The funny thing is that I was watching the game for the specific reason of trying to find a weakness to UNC’s game. Guess what? The Tar Heels don’t really have a weakness, except if you count that fact that Tyler Hansborough can’t seem to score or rebound if he’s going against a quality opponent.

      I came away from this game very impressed that UNC could play in scrimmage mode for more than a half and still walk

out of Cameron with a win. It worked on Wednesday, but Roy Williams needs to

fix this before March.

Runner Up: Virginia Tech destroying Virginia 84-57

      What a difference seven days off can make. After playing ugly for two straight weeks, the Hokies finally played a good game from beginning to end. Perhaps the most impressive part of this win was that VT built a 20+ point lead in the 1^st half with Zabian Dowdell on the bench in foul trouble.

Worst loss of the week: Duke losing at home to North Carolina

      I realize Duke gave UNC everything they had, and you have to commend them

for their effort. However, the fact remains that they had UNC on the ropes, and couldn’t put them away. There were two sequences in particular that really killed the Blue Devils.

      1) Around the 7:00 mark, Duke was up 57-54 when Jon Scheyer was fouled taking a 3-pointer. Perfect scenario right? After all, the freshman had hit 40 straight free throws to that point. Just as if it looked like the Blue Devils would take a 6-point lead he missed not once but twice. Yikes.

      2) Just a few minutes later after Scheyer’s missed free throws the score was tied at 60 apiece. Greg Paulus had the ball, and a double team was thrown his way. The point guard did a nice job to get away from the defenders, but then inexplicably, with 10 seconds still left on the shot clock, Paulus threw up an off balance 3-pointer. The shot was a missile off of the backboard, and was rebounded by UNC, who took the ball up the court and scored to take the lead. Duke never got the lead back after this bad decision by Paulus.

      If you want the definition of momentum swings, those two plays were good examples. The similarity in these two sequences has to bother Coach K, because it seemed like his players became unraveled in the pressure of the game, something that’s very uncharacteristic of his team teams. It’s the damn of a new day when Duke players are making mental mistakes in costing their team the game.

Runner-up: Duke losing to Maryland 72-60

      I hate to keep pouring it on Duke, but this was really a bad loss by them. It wasn’t so much that they lost (Comcast Center is a tough place to play), but how they looked losing that was the troublesome part. The Blue Devils played from beginning to end like they were still reeling from their loss to UNC. After Maryland built a double digit lead, the closest the Blue Devils could cut it to was 6.

ACC Power Rankings

1. North Carolina (2/13 vs. VT, 2/17 @ BC)

2. Virginia Tech (2/13 @ UNC, 2/18 @ NC State)

3. Boston College (2/14 vs. Duke, 2/17 vs. UNC)

4. Virginia (2/13 vs. Longwood, 2/17 vs. FSU)

5. Florida State (2/13 vs. GT, 2/17 @ Virginia)

6. Duke (2/14 @ BC, 2/18 vs. GT)

7. Clemson (2/14 @ WF, 2/18 vs. Maryland)

8. Maryland (2/14 @ NC State, 2/18 @ Clemson)

9. Georgia Tech (2/13 @FSU, 2/18 @ Duke)

10. Miami (2/17 @ WF)

11. NC State (2/14 vs. Maryland, 2/18 vs. VT)

12. Wake Forest (2/14 vs. Clemson, 2/17 vs. Miami)

ACC player of the Year Standings

1. Jared Dudley- BC

2. Al Thornton- FSU

3. Sean Singletary- Virginia

4. Zabian Dowdell- VT

5. Tyler Hansborough- UNC

6. JR Reynolds- Virginia

7. Josh McRoberts-Duke

8. Javaris Crittendon- GT

9. James Mays- Clemson

10. Tyrese Rice- BC

      My player of the year standings aren’t based on just statistics alone. Besides stats I consider how each player plays against the strongest competition, and how valuable each player is to their specific team. Also, I don’t consider a player up for this award if their team isn’t in the top 10 off the conference.

Game of the Week: North Carolina at Boston College 2/17

      The ACC Championship could be decided by the outcome of this game. Heading into the week, both teams are tied in the loss column, with BC currently getting the edge because they have one more conference win than the Tar Heels do. This is the only time that these two teams will meet, so the winner of this game gets a leg up on their opponent.

Runner-Up: Virginia Tech at North Carolina 2/13

      For starters, this game is going to be really entertaining, as some of the best talent in the ACC will be going head-to-head.

      More importantly though, don’t forget that VT defeated UNC earlier in the season. If the Hokies beat UNC again, then they’ll be tied in the standings. That means inn the event that VT and UNC end the season with the same conference record, VT would have the advantage over UNC.