In Saturday’s ACC Action, Boston College visits Louisville, Georgia Tech jets down to Miami, NC State and Florida State tangle in Tallahassee, Syracuse is at Pitt, Stanford checks in at Virginia, Cal is at Virginia Tech, Wake Forest buses down to UNC and Clemson visits Notre Dame.
We don’t expect BC will have much of a chance at Louisville, with or without Mikel Brown. Shouldn’t matter. However, if BC does win, Louisville officially has some problems.
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Georgia Tech and Miami is marginally more interesting, but we’d still go with the ‘Canes here. Did you realize Miami has an eight-game winning streak right now? Pretty tasty! Jai Lucas is getting it done.
NC State and FSU is marginally more interesting if only to see which has more momentum: State’s decline or Florida State’s urge to overachieve.
Syracuse and Pitt is interesting on a different level. Pitt is struggling to be a good team and falling short. They have their moments though. Meanwhile, the ‘Cuse is adjusting to having Donnie Freeman back. He’s a huge asset and we’re not sure the Irish can defend him.
In Charlottesville, the Cavs have more talent but Kyle Smith is a really smart coach and he appears to have gotten a great player with a huge competitive drive in Ebuka Okorie. In his last five games, Okorie has scored 32, 30, 7, 28 and 31. That’s not normal for a freshman (the anomolous 7 came against Notre Dame). He’s really been impressive. If Cameron Boozer is the ACC’s best freshman, then Okorie is bucking for second best.
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We’d rank Cal and Virginia Tech as a toss up but if you forced us to pick? The Hokies, narrowly.
In Chapel Hill, UNC is trying to get over the loss to SMU and Wake really needs a big win. A loss here would drop them to 10-7 but a road win over a ranked team would be huge. Is UNC vulnerable? Not as vulnerable as they’d be if they had won at SMU, but maybe. This team is pretty erratic. The Tar Heels have a big advantage up front, but they’ve had that in every game.
If you go back to December, tossing out SC Upstate, ETSU and ECU as irrelevant, here’s what UNC has done: a 67-64 win over Kentucky, an 81-61 win over Georgetown, a 71-70 win over Ohio State, a 79-66 win over FSU and a 97-83 loss to SMU.
Kentucky is having a dreadful season that has BBN in mutiny mode, Georgetown is mediocre, Ohio State is okay but not great, FSU pushed UNC more than we expected (Duke too, for that matter) and we’ll see about SMU in person on Saturday.
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We’re not saying this is a make-or-break season for Hubert Davis, but is the pressure still there?
Yes, it is.
Finally, Clemson is reliably tough and Notre Dame is up and down and also missing their best player in Markus Burton. We’ve mentioned on more than one occasion how much we respect Brad Brownell. It’s possible that Micah Shrewsberry could emerge as his equal but he’s not at this point, so we’d take the Tigers not to tank.
Saturday’s ACC Action
Boston College at Louisville || 12:00 || CW
Georgia Tech at Miami || 12:00 || ESPN2
NC State at Florida State || 12:00 || ACCN
SMU at Duke || 2:00 || ESPN
Syracuse at Pitt || 2:00 || ACCN
Stanford at Virginia || 2:15 || CW
Cal at Virginia Tech || 4:00 || ACCN
Wake Forest at UNC || 6:00 || ACCN
Clemson at Notre Dame || 6:00 || ESPN2
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