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What an awful West Coast swing for the Tar Heels

In Saturday’s ACC Action, Virginia slipped by SMU 72-68, Louisville hammered Pitt 100-59, Clemson dispatched Miami 69-59, Virginia Tech took down Notre Dame 89-76, Georgia Tech surprised NC State 78-74, BC knocked off Syracuse in overtime 81-73 and Wake Forest survived Florida State 69-68.

Oh, and Cal slapped UNC around for most of the game before UNC came back late, only to lose, 884-78.

That’s a typo, and it was actually 84-78, but it sure seemed accurate for much of the game. There were a lot of strange things in this one.

Some of this is from various posters and we’re not 100% sure all of it is true, but…well…it is kind of truthy.

One poster said Cal had never not trailed in an ACC game since joining the conference…until Saturday. Another said that Caleb Wilson didn’t get a shot for about the last 10:00 of the game. That’s easy to check: he made his last basket with 15:54 to play.

This is certainly true: Duke held Cal to 56 points Wednesday; the Bears had 54 at halftime against UNC.

The Heels gave up 84 points to Cal after giving up 95 to Stanford on Wednesday.

And this is indisputably true: the Bears shot 54% from three point range (14-26) and 50% overall (29-58).

UNC’s defense is just not there. John Camden is a good player, but he shot holes in their defense. Against Duke, he scored 11.

Dai Dai Ames had 19 here; against Duke, he had 9.

The bigger mystery though is this: why has UNC lost track of Wilson? How? This is the second game recently where he hardly got any second-half touches. You don’t have to love the Tar Heels to recognize that Wilson is a rare talent. Why are they wasting him like this?

Despite all the flaws, despite falling behind by 20, UNC still could have won if it had hit a few more free throws: Carolina got to the line 28 times, hitting just 17 (61%). If they had hit 5 more, they might have won. We say might because when you start messing with time, you don’t know what might have happened differently otherwise. Maybe Cal gets mad and hits six more threes. But strictly numerically, you could argue that UNC lost this game at the line.

But anyone who watches know they lost it on defense.

The faithful are gathering online and they are not happy with coach Hubert Davis. Yes, he’s a member of the family, but the fam doesn’t like losing and judging by social media posts, they’re ready to throw him overboard. Nobody hates Hubert; he’s a very nice man. But the fan base appears eager to move on from him and, most likely, from the family that Dean Smith built.

When he came to Raleigh, Will Wade promised an NCAA bid this spring and implicitly set up expectations that State would equal or surpass UNC.

That’s more inserting now than it was in the spring. State has blown a lot of opportunities: here are the teams the Pack has lost to so far: Seton Hall by 11, Auburn by 10, Kansas by 1 (in overtime), Virginia by 15 and now Georgia Tech by 4.

Oops, we missed Texas by 5.

Any of those games would have helped State’s resume and no offense to the Yellow Jackets, but that one will hurt.

Coach Will Wade sounds pretty dejected. The certainty of his introductory presser has worn off and now he’s saying stuff like this: “We’ll see if we can respond. I can’t guarantee you that’s going to happen. I can’t guarantee you with this group that that’s how we’re going to respond. I don’t know, I wish I could, but i’m not sure. Hopefully we do, we have it other times this year, but hopefully, we can get off the mat and play well Tuesday night [at Clemson].”

Things can always change, but early it looked like UNC and Louisville would be Duke’s biggest challengers in the ACC, but right now, it looks like Clemson and Virginia.

Both won Saturday, of course. Clemson beat Miami like a little brother.

The ‘Canes hadn’t lost since November 27th, falling to BYU 72-62.

Malik Reneau has been terrific for Miami but he’s also had a tendency to get into foul trouble and that happened here too, as he fouled out with 7:05 left with only 11 points. He also had 5 of Miami’s 16 turnovers.

Shelton Henderson shot 8-12 and led the Hurricanes with 22 points on 8-12/2-3 from the floor. Miami however, shot just 25% from deep and 39% overall. It was a good reality check for a developing program: Miami is good but not great. They have work to do.

The 10-game win streak is snapped, but Clemson has a nine-game winning streak of their own and it could be 10 after NC State’s visit on Tuesday.

Virginia, meanwhile, won a tough road game at SMU. the Cavaliers are really impressive overall. In this one, Malik Thomas had 23 points and 11 rebounds. Thisj De Ridder had 17 points and 6 rebounds. Dallin Hall missed all 8 of his shots but defended well enough to stay on the court for 31 minutes.

SMU put four starters in double figures but didn’t shoot very well, hitting 5-13 threes (38%) and 26-61 overall (43%). Like UNC, SMU is now a pedestrian 2-3 in ACC play.

Louisville beat Pitt, in the old phrase, like a rented mule. How bad? This bad, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette puts it:

“Louisville started the game on a 13-0 run, held Pitt to single digit points for 14:15 of game time and never allowed its opponent to get closer than 30 after the 3:00 mark of the first half.”

Coach Jeff Capel called it “embarrassing,” and it’s bound to be.

Injuries have hurt the Cardinals, but it didn’t matter here: no Mikel Brown, no problem: Louisville was up 39-8 and that generally means dominance you can’t come back from. And that’s exactly what Pitt got. It was just an ugly loss.

In the other three games Saturday, Notre Dame’s tough season continues. The Hokies have Tobi Lawal back now and are still bringing him off the bench. They potentially have a terrific frontcourt with Lawal, who had 22 points (14 from the line) and 11 rebounds, Amani Hansberry (21 points and 6 rebounds) and Neoklis Avdalas, who has been up and down but who can be explosive.

Boston College upset Syracuse, taking the game to OT on a Donald Hand shot from the lane and just owning Syracuse in the extra frame.

Donnie Freeman had another strong game with 19 points and 14 rebounds. Nate Kingz had 27 points on 8-12/5-6.

Wake’s perimeter continued to thrive in the win over FSU. Nate Calmese had 18 while Juke Harris and Myles Colvin both had 15. The frontcourt was much more limited: Cooper Schweiger had 8 points, while Omaha Biliew whiffed. Tre’Von Spillers, coming off the bench in this one, had just 6. Wake is not an easy team, but the inside game is a serious problem.

No games until Tuesday.

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Category: General Sports

ACC Roundup - A Dreadful Week For The Heels

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