In Tuesday’s ACC Action, Syracuse fell at Boston College 80-75, Clemson topped Louisville 70-64, NC State took care of Miami, 74-68 and Georgia Tech pulled off the upset of the year, beating UNC 74-73.
In our comments about this game Monday, we said we didn’t think that Tech could pull this one off but if they did, UNC would have to help.
And the Heels did.
UNC shot 28.6 percent from deep and just 36.4 overall. Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan both shot just 3-14. Elliott Cadeau was just 2-7 as was Seth Trimble. Armando Bacot managed 4-8 but he, again, seemed curiously passive.
UNC dominated the boards overall, with 22 offensive rebounds and 48 overall to 10 offensive for Tech and 41 total.
You’d think that 22 offensive boards would be a huge advantage, but you still have to hit them and UNC didn’t.
It didn’t really occur to us that this was a classic trap game but in retrospect, of course it was. With Duke ahead on Saturday and the Yellow Jackets having lost eight of the last nine games, it was probably easy not to expect too much.
But despite some dangerous miscues that could have cost Georgia Tech the game, Georgia Tech played with immense energy and passion. They got to loose balls before Carolina did. They defended with huge passion. And as we saw at Clemson, Naithan George is a freaking baller.
It’s not that he shot brilliantly. He didn’t. But when he’s at his best he has something special. Some people might call it rizz, but presence and awareness might be a better way to put it. And also he’s fearless.
So when he got Bacot on a switch near the end of the game, he took the 6-11 Tar Heel to the basket and hit a remarkable shot over the much taller Tar Heel. (George is 6-3).
But even so, with :07 left, the Heels had a chance to win. And this is where people should be careful what they wish for because after the way the Duke-Clemson game ended, a lot of UNC fans protested online, saying the refs should not have called a foul against Clemson, that they should have let the players on the court decide.
Well, that’s exactly what the refs did in Atlanta.
You can’t really call BC’s win over Syracuse an upset, but it was a bit of a surprise. Syracuse, we’d say, generally expects to beat the Eagles as it did earlier in the season and apparently BC hasn’t beaten Syracuse since 2018. Not this time.
The Orange took an early lead but BC roared back and was up by as much as 14. Syracuse nearly caught up at 55-53 but Boston College pulled away again and pushed the lead back up to 13. Syracuse lost by five in the end but it was not their night.
Claudell Harris had 19 points off the bench and shot 7-11. As a team, Boston College shot a red hot 60 percent and hit 10-20 for their threes.
Despite that, Syracuse might have still won if they had hit their free throws (they shot just 7-14). Malik Brown and Judah Mintz both had foul trouble with four each and obviously that didn’t help.
Poor Louisville.
The Cards stayed with Clemson for about 15 minutes before the Tigers just blew them away. In the second half, Clemson took a 55-31 lead and while that’s bad, it’s not impossible to come back from 24 down. We’ve seen it before.
And Louisville did rally, which coach Kenny Payne took pride in. And injuries were bad too – Ty-Laur Johnson was out with an ankle issue. Skyy Clark had a hip injury two minutes into the second half and Hercy Miller was out too, which meant Louisville was out of point guards. Not suprisingly, they only had four assists for the game and 16 turnovers.
PJ Hall (25), Chase Hunter (16) and Joe Girard (13) accounted for the bulk of Clemson’s scoring with a total of 54 points. Girard shot just 3-12. In his last four games, Girard has shot 11-37.
As we’ve noted all year, Miami is not a deep team and with Matthew Cleveland out, that hurt in Raleigh because other than Norchad Omier and Nijel Pack, no one else really shot well.
Kyshawn George was just 2-9 and Wooga Poplar was 3-16.
It also didn’t help that Omier was saddled with foul trouble.
DJ Horne had a big game for State with 24. Casey Morsell had 17 and Jayden Taylor had 12.
Kevin Keatts tried something different and put Michael O’Connell in the starting lineup. That means four guards with DJ Burns. Seems like an odd move but it worked against Miami. Might not work as well against Georgia Tech, Pitt and Wake Forest, State’s next three opponents.
Two games on Wednesday as Notre Dame visits Virginia and Wake Forest heads up to Pitt.
At its best, Notre Dame’s defense can really slow a team down but Virginia is the king of that game and the ‘Hoos are rounding into form.
Wake at Pitt could be really interesting. The Deacs offer some real challenges for the Panthers with Elton Redi, Andrew Carr and Zach Keller against Jeff Capel’s three slender big men, Federiko Federiko and the Diaz Graham twins. But someone has to guard Blake Hinson and that won’t be an easy matchup. We’d probably go with the Demon Deacons here.
Wednesday’s ACC Action
- Notre Dame @ Virginia || 7:00 || ESPN2
- Wake Forest @ Pitt || 7:00 || ACCN
ACC Standings