Miami needs to hope the Selection Committee didn’t watch the first 27 minutes of this game, or the eye test won’t be their friend. With 13 minutes left in the game Miami trailed Georgia Tech 27-26 after DeQuan Jones knocked down two free throws. To that point the two teams had combined for 17 made field goals and 20 turnovers. Suddenly Rion Brown‘s bright orange shoes caught fire, as Miami extended its 2-0 run to an 18-0 run, knocking down 7-8 shots.

Durand Scott Was The Only Player Better Than 50% From The Floor Last Night.

Yesterday, the ACC Tournament did not showcase well-played basketball. But all of the games, except for Maryland’s thumping of Wake Forest, were close in the second half. Because the only “upset” was Virginia Tech beating Clemson, I expect both the quality of basketball to go up significantly today without losing too much competitiveness (coincidentally, I’m predicting one blowout and it involves Maryland).

Today’s preview after the jump.

Speaking of Maryland, the Terps have a couple of things going for them: (1) Mark Turgeon rested his starters for much of the second half against Wake Forest, so they’ll have fresh legs; (2) Kendall Marshall complained of fatigue, which could cause Roy Williams to augment his line-up to protect its NCAA tournament; and (3) the Terrapins got a lot of production from players not named Terrell Stoglin yesterday, which will be crucial. I still predict a blowout, but Maryland definitely could make things interesting.

Right after the first game is a must-win game for NC State. The Wolfpack got a lot of help from fellow bubble teams yesterday (tons of them lost and Texas won). It’s looking more and more like a win against Virginia would put Mark Gottfried’s team on the right side of the bubble for the time being. It would also avenge a one-point home loss. The Cavaliers are just playing for seed, though they’ll also be playing without Malcolm Brogdon.

A sneaky-interesting game is the 7:00 Duke–Virginia Tech game. Last night Seth Greenberg, Erick Green and Dorenzo Hudson sounded very confident that they could improve on their performance at Duke, where they pushed the Blue Devils to overtime. Duke will be especially vulnerable without Ryan Kelly (foot sprain). Virginia Tech will need to do a much better job closing the game than they did against Clemson, but I expect this game to be close.

The final game of the night should also be a good one. Florida State and Miami split during the regular season. The Hurricanes are a very tough match-up for anyone, and their small-ball lineup killed Florida State in Tallahassee. It will be interesting if Larranga tries to keep that lineup on the floor to make Florida State uncomfortable. Kenny Kadji had an awful game (1-10 from the field) last night though, which would make the smaller lineup much less effective.

mpatton (576 Posts)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2012 at 10:17 am by mpatton and is filed under acc, microsites. Tagged: acc tournament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.