ACC Roundup – What A Saturday

A lot of interesting games and for lots of reasons too.

• By
  
  JD King
  
• on January 7, 2024 7:00 am

Not every game was a masterpiece on Saturday but some of them were really good and even some of the ones that weren’t were compelling for various reasons. Let’s dive in!

UNC went to Clemson and while it was a tight game most of the way, Carolina pulled away late to get a big win, 65-55.

Armando Bacot played the Bacot of old, more or less, with 14 points and 16 rebounds. Still, he hit just 6-11 and it’s not like he’s taking threes.

In a healthy sign for UNC, RJ Davis was down from about 1⁄3 of UNC’s shots to around 1/4.

PJ Hall was a peg down from Bacot, hitting 4-13. Ian Schieffelin continues his surprising rise, with 16 points and 11 boards. UNC did a number of Joe Girard, holding him to 1-10 from the floor and 0-3 on his three point attempts. In general, Clemson was just 1-18 on threes which, you know, sounds pretty fatal. Big win for the Heels no matter how you cut it.

Miami and Wake Forest went to OT in the Joel, with the Deacons winning 86-82. Wake Forest is on a nine-game winning streak, which is great, and is now 11-3 overall. They play at FSU on Tuesday so it’ll probably be a 10-game win streak.

Wake coach Steve Forbes is like the transfer whisperer and his shiny new backcourt of Kevin Miller and Hunter Sallis combined for 45 points. Cameron Hildreth added 23. Good thing since the starting big guys, Efton Reid and Andrew Carr, combined for seven.

Miami’s bench was a problem offensively again, good for just three points.

What in the world is going on with Virginia? Even in Tony Bennett’s first season, before we all understood what his system meant, the Cavaliers were a huge pain in the ass defensively. You couldn’t shake them.

This year though Virginia has lost four times, and each loss was by double digits: Wisconsin by 14, Memphis by 23, Notre Dame by 22 and now NC State by 16 and all road games. Not too long ago this would have been inconceivable for a Virginia team. This year it’s almost routine.

State went on a 45-20 run in this one and just shredded Virginia’s vaunted defense. And to make matters a bit worse, Wolfpack freshman and Richmond native Dennis Parker was not happy that Virginia didn’t really bother to recruit him. Now starting for State, he hit 5-8 for 15 points. It was just a brutal beating and still a bit startling to see Virginia lose control of a game like that. Tony Bennett points to inexperience, but our guess is he has more than Notre Dame does and the Irish blew them out too.

No great surprise at this point that Pitt led to wire and wire and was in full control of this one and less so once you realize that the Cardinals…