UNC is not as far away as you might think though.
In Wednesday’s ACC Action, Miami fell at Boston College, 78-68, Pitt canned Cal 86-74, Clemson cut down Stanford 85-71 and Louisville topped UNC 83-70.
We’ve said several times that we have faith in Pat Kelsey’s ability to get Louisville back on track and indeed, this looks like a very different Louisville team than the one Duke saw recently.
To a large extent, Louisville won on grit. It certainly wasn’t three point shooting - the Cards hit just 6-26 - or the free throw line (25-39).
But Louisville ran well, took care of the ball, and punished UNC defensively.
The Tar Heel problems are familiar: the frontcourt is inadequate and Seth Trimble is still out.
Jalen Washington had seven points and six rebounds. Ven-Allen Lubin had five points and nine boards and Jae’Lyn Withers had two points and five boards.
Imagine for a minute if Khaman Maluach were a Tar Heel. His offense would still be a work in progress but the defense would instantly improve.
There’s no quick fix for UNC’s frontcourt. We know what Rick Pitino would do: he’d just embrace Small Ball, have his players fanatically conditioned and press everyone, everywhere and all the time.
Hubert Davis is not going to go Pitino, UNC will just have to muddle through.
On the bright side, Ian Jackson is cranking up: he’s had 24, 26 and 23 points in his last three games. UNC has four outstanding guards when Trimble is back and five if you count Drake Powell, at least as a perimeter player. It may be a tough season, but when these guys get hot, UNC is going to be dangerous.
Imagine for a second that Mike Krzyzewski had this roster. Just as a mental exercise, what if he started Jackson, Powell, RJ Davis, Elliot Cadeu and persuaded Jae’Lyn Withers to just focus on defense? What if he got that group to just attack, attack, attack?
UNC will get better, but they have to figure out a solution to their frontcourt woes.
Look at what’s happened to basketball in the state of Florida: Todd Golden is in a bizarre situation with the Gators. Leonard Hamilton is being sued by his own (former) players. Jim Larranaga just threw in the towel on his career a few days ago. Dusty May has left FAU. Central Florida’s Johnny Dawkins may be the last man standing.
In the first half, it looked like Miami might ride an emotional wave after Larranaga’s abrupt retirement, running out to a 19 point first-half lead. The ‘Canes had 17 rebounds, six blocks, three steals and dictated the pace of the game.
But they only did it for 20 minutes.
Didn’t last.
Boston College was vastly better in the second half and Miami shot poorly, finishing at 5-23 (21.7 percent) for threes and a meager 39.7 percent overall. Donald Hand was a bit off his recent standard, but it didn't matter. Josh Beadle stuck the knife in with two late threes.
It was a tough debut for interim coach Bill Courtney but what can you do? He inherited an opportunity but it’s not a great situation.
Remember big-time recruit Jalil Bethea?
Eight points and three minutes.
Miami has now won just once since November 17th.
We honestly thought both Stanford and Cal might get seriously clobbered, and while neither won, both did well, particularly in the first half.
Former Blue Devil Jaylen Blakes returned to the ACC (the first game was against Cal and doesn't really count in this sense) and had 13 points, five assists....and seven turnovers.
Ouch.
Maxime Raynaud, who has had some big games against weaker teams, finished with 14 points (7-17/0-6) and 13 rebounds.
Clemson forced 17 turnovers and nearly doubled the Cardinals at the foul line with 21-11.
Whether it was Stanford or just a bad outing, Ian Schieffelin shot just 1-6, finishing with four points, and just four rebounds. That’s way below his normal contribution.
Former Blue Devil Christian Reeves got four minutes in his reunion game with Blakes, grabbing one rebound.
Pitt lost Ish Leggett to a leg injury which opened things up for freshman Brandin Cummings, who followed in big brother Nelly’s footsteps to play for former Duke star Jeff Capel.
He helped Pitt survive a solid first half by Cal, which saw the Bears up 42-38 at the break.
The Panthers owned the second half though, 48-32. Jaland Lowe had 27 points. Cam Corhen finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds and one summons (just kidding. He’s not one of the players suing Leonard Hamilton, at least not yet).
Cumming tossed in 15.
Cal’s impressive freshman Jeremiah Wilkinson came off the bench to knock in 24.
The Bears finished with just six turnovers, which is better than we expected, frankly.
After Wednesday, Duke, Clemson, Pitt and SMU are the only ACC teams to remain unbeaten in conference play.
There are no games on Friday but on Saturday it’s a full house with nine games. Interestingly, Cal and Stanford have maintained a frugal and practical PAC-12 tradition of flying out for long road trips and then swapping opponents. The PAC-12 used to do this by sending, say, Arizona and Arizona State to Oregon to play Oregon and Oregon State. Now we’ll see Stanford play Pitt and Cal move on to Clemson.
The most interesting game though is likely to be Duke’s first trip to SMU’s Moody Coliseum.
