Attention ACC: Beware the Ides of March

Attention ACC: Beware the Ides of March

The ACC tournament has featured a dizzying array of upsets.  Duke, the top seed, is still standing, but many conference teams might have popped their own bubble.


By JIM SUMNER
Basketball Times Online

      Greensboro, N.C. — Upsets, Upsets! We got your upsets right here, going fast. 

      It appears that the Atlantic Coast Conference is having a fire sale on upsets, clearing out old inventory to make room for the new models.

      Okay, it may not be the best analogy, but when you’re working on two-dozen games in ten days, the brain gets a bit fuzzy.  But still, it’s pretty stunning what’s going on in Greensboro.  Eight games have been played so far.  The favorite has won exactly two of them, a batting average for the higher seeds of .250, just barely above the Mendoza Line.  Pete Rozelle’s fantasy.  On any given Sunday. 

      Seven-seed Georgia Tech beat 10th-seed North Carolina Thursday night. Yesterday afternoon top-seeded Duke put away ninth-seeded Virginia.  That’s it.   

      The result is a semifinal Saturday matching Duke and Miami in the Liberal Arts Bracket and Georgia Tech and North Carolina State in the Engineering Bracket.

      Imagine if you had taken that semifinal bracket to Vegas three days ago.

      There are several ways to look at the carnage.  Coming into the tournament, it was assumed that Duke, Maryland, Florida State, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and Clemson were safely in the NCAA Tournament.  Five of those teams de-enhanced their resumes by losing the first time they set foot on the Greensboro Coliseum floor.  Only Duke survived. 

      Then again, Georgia Tech is moving up the charts with a bullet.  They’re in.  And what about Miami and NC State?  Bubble teams across this great land quake at the thought of those two teams meeting in the title game.  Three days ago, neither was even in the NIT discussion.

      What’s causing all this?   Conference tournaments are notorious for upsets and the bug is nationwide; ask Syracuse, Michigan State or Wisconsin.  College basketball players are every bit as much creatures of habit as the rest of us and those habits don’t often include noon games on Thursday or sitting around all day waiting for that 9:30 tipoff in the day’s fourth game.

      So, it’s easy to lose your rhythm.  Still, it’s a bit of a shock to hear ACC coach of the year Gary Williams admit that his team wasn’t remotely ready to play Georgia Tech last night.  It’s not like Williams hasn’t had some experience in getting teams ready to play in tournaments.

      Or it may be that the ACC simply isn’t that good.  Georgia Tech committed 25 turnovers against Maryland and shot 13 of 27 from the line.  And won.  You can and should give Maryland a lot of credit for the turnovers. But their foul-shooting defense isn’t that good.  Wake Forest went 4 for 17 on three-pointers in their train wreck against Miami, a 21-point loss to a 12-seed. Florida State and NC State staggered to the end of their game last night looking for all the world like two aging fighters trying to stay upright until the end of a bout.

      Still, there has been some compelling hoops.  The Miami-Virginia Tech game was the best of the tournament so far, a pair of clubs playing with passion and poise, delivering and absorbing one knock-out blow after another.  Unlikely heroes have emerged.  Georgia Tech’s Mo Miller entered the tournament having made seven three-pointers this season.  He hit three in the first half last night against Maryland. Or Miami reserve center Reggie Johnson, who scored 22 points against Wake Forest without missing a shot.  NC State freshman Scott Wood hit six three-pointers last night against FSU.

      Where does this leave Duke?  The Blue Devils have been the ACC’s only top-10 team since North Carolina fell apart earlier in the season.  Their 57-46 win over Virginia was more business-like than inspired and Mike Krzyzewski wasn’t especially happy about it, chiding his team for lacking urgency and forgetting their identity.  Yet, with the game on the line, Duke’s defense absolutely shut down Virginia. 

      And the win looked a lot better at the end of the day then it did earlier in the day.  Think Seth Greenberg wouldn’t take a methodical win right about now?

      After the game Virginia coach Tony Bennett cited Duke as the league’s best — maybe, only — bet to keep playing deep into March.  “They have such skill and size, a complete team, prepared for a long run.”

      Krzyzewski takes the ACC Tournament seriously and his teams respond to that commitment.  Duke has won eight of the last eleven and yesterday’s win over Virginia gives the Duke program 85 ACC tournament victories, one more than second-place North Carolina.  Krzyzewski says “It’s important for us to do well in this tournament.  It’s important for us to do well anytime we play.”

      A No. 1 seed would help. With Purdue, West Virginia and Kansas State winning yesterday, Duke needs to keep pace for one of those precious top seeds.

      As for the quintet of underachievers, they have the rest of the weekend to lick their wounds, contemplate the benefits of all that unexpected rest and keep their fingers crossed until Selection Sunday commences.

Jim Sumner, a Raleigh-based writer, is BTO's Tobacco Road correspondent.  An author of three books and numerous articles on the ACC, he has provided expert commentary to HBO’s Battle for Tobacco Road and ESPN’s Between the Lines.  He can be reached at jimsumner@earthlink.net.

 

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