And NC State stuff is back
In Friday’s ACC Action, UNC topped #20 Arkansas 87-72, Wake Forest knocked off Charleston Southern 71-55, Pitt beat Oregon State 76-51, Virginia Tech got by Iowa State 71-62, Clemson hammered Alcorn State 90-69 and BYU ended State’s undefeated season 95-86.
UNC played without Cormac Ryan, who injured his ankle against Villanova Thursday. The starting lineup Friday was Harrison Ingram, Jae’Lyn Withers, Armando Bacot, RJ Davis and Elliot Cadeau.
Partly this was because of Ryan’s absence, but Hubert Davis limited his rotation to three subs: Seth Trimble, Paxson Wojcik and Jalen Washington.
Cadeau played 26 minutes and might have played more - who knows - but fouled out for the second game in a row, leading some credence to our sense that he lacks confidence on defense.
RJ Davis led the way with a career high 30, but he again took a full third of UNC’s shots.
Meanwhile, Armando Bacot had his third straight poor offensive outing. He did have 18 rebounds against Villanova, but a) that’s a smallish team and b) in the Bahamas, he scored 10, 8 and 9 points and shot 10-27 overall. He also only got to the line eight times. Not sure what’s going on there.
Worth noting: Razorback Tramon Mark, who scored 34 points, was taken out on a stretcher near the end of the game. The hospital ran an MRI and fortunately he seems fine.
Cameron Hildreth is one of our favorite ACC Players. A 6-4 Brit, he’s capable of playing bullyball inside. He’s just tough.
He had 21 against Charleston Southern and helped the Deacs pull away in the second half and also picked up seven rebounds and three assists.
Wake shot 20-22 from the line which really helped, and they outscored Charleston Southern 43-24 in the second.
Kevin Miller scored 14 while Andrew Carr added 12 points and 10 boards.
Pitt bounced back from a loss to Florida in the NIT Season Tip-Off with a solid win over Oregon State.
Pitt won the boards 44 to 31 and offensively 17 to 8. They also forced 14 turnovers. That works out to 41 shot attempts that Pitt denied, which makes it hard to win. Oregon State also shot just 2-21 from three point range. Zack Austin had 19 while Blake Hinson added 17. Solid performance in general for the Panthers.
Virginia Tech’s backcourt seems to be rounding into shape with Sean Pedulla and Hunter Cattoor hitting for 17 and 18 points and combining to hit 8-14 from deep. There were some people who had Iowa State as a strong favorite here so it seems like a solid win.
Size will still be a concern but this looks more and more like a typical Mike Young team.
You know how you know when Clemson plays a dog in a buy game?
Ian Schieffelin gets close to double figures.
He’s a great role player but scoring only happens in an easy game.
PJ Hall had 29 points and nine boards while Chase Hunter had 18 and Joe Girard knocked in 13.
Alex Hemenway, who played a fair amount before plantar fasciitis took a toll last season, really hasn’t been playing that much. It might be because Girard has been starting, but Hemenway’s a useful senior who is near the bottom of the rotation now. Maybe he’s still having foot problems.
You know how Kevin Keatts likes to have a defensive focus for his NC State teams? Yeah...not so much against BYU, at least in the second half.
At halftime, the score was 43-38 in favor of the Pack. In the second half though, BYU ripped off 57 points and shot 70 percent. That includes 9 of 15 threes.
Big fiasco as Casey Morsell, Ben Middlebrooks and Kevin Keatts Jr. and Sr. were all ejected. Has there ever been a father/son ejection before?
Watch out for the Cougars - BYU makes more threes than any other team in the country and that could be big in March.
Only two games on Saturday. Louisville welcomes New Mexico State to the Yum! Center. Remember that that program crashed and burned in scandal last year and that one followed this one.
They probably won’t be very good after all that happened so it should be a very winnable game.
Virginia Tech’s game is much more interesting: they play Florida Atlantic. The Owls were memorably upset by Bryant after its own (much milder) scandal that saw Jared Grasso resign recently. That upset is really, really impressive.
But this is still a very good team and a win for Virginia Tech would be a big deal.
Saturday’s ACC Action
