Not an ideal evening for the All-Coast Conference
In Thursday’s ACC Action, Virginia fell to Tennessee 64-42, Drake beat Miami 80-69, Texas took out Syracuse 70-66, Clemson knocked off Radford 79-51 and Cal grounded Air Force, 78-69.
Let’s start with Virginia.
The Cavs kind of got back into it with Tennessee, but unlike under Tony Bennett, the Cavs didn’t keep it close. And that was what he did brilliantly: he kept the score close and, in the last few minutes, Virginia usually prevailed.
Well, not this time.
The score was 22-21 at the half but Tennessee outscored Virginia 42-21 in the second. Only Dai Dai Ames got into double figures for the Cavaliers, who shot 14-49 for the game.
TJ Power, who left Duke for Virginia after his freshman season, shot 0-4 and didn’t score in 20 minutes.
So far, he’s still starting but he’s averaging just 3.7 ppg. Virginia really needs some scoring and Power could be the guy, but so far, he’s just not.
Drake, Drake, Drake....slowly it’s coming back. Why is Drake exciting this year?
Oh yeah! Because they’re the school that finally hired Ben McCollum. We talked about him literally every time a job was open because the guy was basically a D-II John Wooden and who wouldn’t want to take a chance on a 40-year old Wooden?
Well, so far so good for Drake: the Bulldogs were 3-0 coming into the Miami game and they’re 4-0 coming out of it.
Led from wire to wire, too.
Drake is killing it on defense so far - they’re fourth in the nation in scoring defense (51 ppg) and Miami was racking up 98.
Drake held Miami to 18 under their average.
Nijel Pack had 17 for the ‘Canes. Matthew Cleveland and Jalen Blackmon had 12. Hot shot rookie Jalil Bethea?
Just two.
Miami got to within four but Drake ripped off a 10-2 run and that was pretty much that.
Keep an eye on the Bulldogs. Those guys are pretty interesting.
Texas was doing a number on Syracuse early, building up a 16 point first-half lead, but give the Orange credit: they fought back, and actually took the lead 59-58 with 4:07 left, but couldn’t hold on.
Nobody shot three pointers well - Syracuse shot 5-21 while Texas was 4-15 - but UT hit 12-14 from the foul line where Syracuse was just 9-18. Obviously they could have won the game from the line, but ifs and buts and all that.
JJ Starling had 16, Eddie Lampkin 14 and Chris Bell finished with 11.
By the way, Chris Bell was bragging not too long ago that he was the best shooter in the ACC and there was no question about it.
Well, there is now: he’s shooting 22 percent from three point range and 40.5 overall.
Clemson won against Radford, fortunately. Chauncey Wiggins got 16 points and Ian Schieffelin just missed his standard double-double with 14 points and nine boards.
Former Blue Devil Christian Reeves got nine minutes and got two points and two boards. Jeremy Roach and Jaylen Blakes are doing well at their new schools, but the other guys?
Not so much.
After a poor night, with the exception of Clemson, words we never expected to type: thank God for Cal.
Beating Air Force is no big deal, or shouldn’t be, but at least Cal won, and you can’t say that for Virginia, Miami or Syracuse. And they did it with Jovan Blacksher, DJ Campbell and BJ Omot all sitting out with injuries.
Three Falcons fouled out and Cal had an 18-6 advantage from the line, which pretty much was the difference. Jeremiah Wilkinson, who we believe got a vote for ACC Rookie of the Year, had 23 off the bench on 8-12 shooting.
Andrej Stojakovic had 21. He took 19 of Cal’s 52 shots. That works out to 36.5 percent of Cal’s attempts. As for Wilkinson, he was much more efficient with 15.3 percent of Cal’s attempts.
By the way, congrats to Cal Coach Mark Madsen and his wife, as they have a new baby boy! Have fun, mom and dad!
Friday night is fun night with 10 games scheduled. The highlights: Miami vs. Oklahoma State, Pitt vs. LSU and Virginia vs. St. John’s.
Friday's ACC Action
