While UNC shows signs of life.
In Saturday’s ACC Action, Kentucky nipped Louisville, 93-85, NC State fell at Kansas 75-60, Memphis outlasted Clemson in overtime 87-82, Georgetown renewed pleasantries with Syracuse 75-71, Cal beat Northwestern State 84-66, SMU surprised LSU 74-64, UNC crushed LaSalle 93-67 and Florida State took out Tulane 77-64.
The highlight game was in Lexington and Louisville did surprisingly well. Lamont Butler went off for 33 and was perfect from the field and UK needed all of that.
Louisville is hurting with multiple injuries but still played impressively well. Chucky Hepburn got 26 and Terrence Edwards had 23 off the bench.
Former Wake star Andrew Carr had 10 points for the Wildcats.
It might not be this season, but Louisville is improving and heading in the right direction.
UNC didn’t have another slow start against LaSalle. The Tar Heels did fall behind 8-2 but after that it was Carolina. Cade Tyson hasn’t been very productive so far but he had a great game Saturday, lighting it up for 23 points, including 5-10 for his threes. Ven-Allen Lubin was somewhat productive in the post with 10 points and five rebounds. Collectively, UNC hit 53.7 percent overall and 32.3 percent on threes.
UNC still has to figure out the front court, but the perimeter is pretty solid.
NC State fell behind early at Kansas and never got particularly close again after a 15-3 start. Despite foul trouble, Hunter Dickinson racked up 21 points and 14 rebounds.
State never just got on track. The Pack shot just 36.8 percent overall but did hit 40 percent on threes.
Kudos for State for taking on Kansas in Lawrence though.
Here’s a switch: back in the day, Georgetown almost always went with man-to-man and Syracuse stuck with Jim Boeheim’s beloved 2-3 zone.
Not Saturday.
Syracuse did well inside but struggled with the zone down the stretch, not hitting a single basket in the last four minutes.
Chris Bell, self-proclaimed best shooter in the ACC, was 0-4.
Syracuse falls to 5-5 with the loss and played in front of a modest crowd considering the rivalry, with just over 17,000 in attendance at the dome. It’s too early to say that Adrian Autry is in trouble, but the signs now aren’t good.
Penny Hardaway’s coaching tenure has been wildly erratic but Saturday’s performance was the best we’ve seen from Memphis since he took over.
Clemson is a really good team and Memphis stood up to them and down the stretch and was consistently the smarter team.
Did we really write that? Geez.
Unfortunately, it’s true. Memphis played very, very well and Clemson made more mistakes. The better team won.
It’s particularly impressive considering that Hardaway fired all his assistants on October 11th and hired Mike Davis, fresh off a 1-31 season at Detroit Mercy, and former Duke star Nolan Smith. He’s done so many things wrong at Memphis that we just figured this year would be the final blow. Not looking like it, at least not right now.
Cal beat Northwestern State. Well that’s a stretch.
Andrei Stojakovic had 31. Promising freshman Jeremiah Wilkinson had 18 off the bench.
We’re a little surprised that SMU took out LSU but good for the Mustangs. SMU outscored LSU 47-31 in the second half but were still in it: the Tigers cut the lead to four with about a minute left, only to see SMU rip off six points in the last 30 seconds.
Pretty impressive. So was Matt Cross: he had 16 points and 16 rebounds to pace SMU.
Check this out - Jamir Watkins scored 29 for Florida State but only hit four shots for 10 points.
Watkins got to the line 23 times, which is pretty unusual. Whatever works works, but the ‘Noles only beat Tulane by 13 points. However, Chandler Jackson, Taylor Bol Bowen, Bostyn Holt, and Alier Maluk all missed this game, apparently due to illness.
It’s also unusual for a Leonard Hamilton team to have somebody score 29, but he had 30 against Rice earlier this season.
Four games on Sunday as Navy visits Virginia Tech, Presbyterian heads down to Miami, Georgia Tech meets Chris Collins and Northwestern in Milwaukee, and BC welcomes Stonehill to the Conte Forum.
Sunday’s ACC Action
