Matt Patton is an RTC microsite writer. He filed this report after Sunday afternoon’s ACC Tournament championship game.

Three Key Takeaways:

Miami Wins Its First ACC Championship

1. Shootout: Despite both teams coming in known for their defense, the 2013 ACC Tournament championship game will be remembered for its offensive showing. Specifically, the last 10 minutes of the first half was a shooting clinic for the ages. The two teams (led by PJ Hairston, Shane Larkin and Trey McKinney-Jones) combined for 10 threes in the 10 minutes. As a result, North Carolina cut the Miami lead to three with just over two minutes to play, until a shot clock violation gave the Hurricanes the space they needed to go for the throat.
2. Miami’s Versatility: The Hurricanes showed a versatility that should terrify opponents who find themselves in Miami’s regional. Miami went small two separate times, at the end of its win against Boston College and the end of the first half of the championship game. Both times Miami’s offense flourished. It’s no secret the Hurricanes’ defense is elite. Miami has the experience to win close games. The postgame press conference made one thing very clear: Jim Larranaga has this team in a great place. The leaders trust him and trust themselves no matter what the opponent is doing.
3. North Carolina’s Turnaround: Just a little over two months ago, the Tar Heels looked like outside shots to make the Big Dance. They were sitting 0-2 in ACC play facing a road game against Florida State. A month after that the Tar Heels took a beating in Coral Gables before Roy Williams moved PJ Hairston into the starting lineup. The move worked out, as North Carolina’s only two losses the rest of the season came against Duke. While Hairston’s addition was the obvious change, Marcus Paige‘s improvement is just as important, if not more so. Paige played 30 minutes or more in every game except for North Carolina’s win over Maryland when he got into foul trouble. Over the 11 games in the smaller lineup, Paige averaged more than five assists per game on top of nine and a half points per outing. He cut down on turnovers dramatically — the win at Maryland notwithstanding. It’s no secret Roy Williams’ offense runs a lot smoother with a good point guard.

Star of the Game: Shane Larkin proved to be the best player on the floor. He finished with 28 points, five rebounds, seven assists and two steals. He shot 8-of-15 from the floor, 4-of-7 from three and 8-of-8 from the free throw line. Whenever Miami needed to make a play, he delivered either a bucket or a dime on command. He also played the full 40 minutes, meaning he missed a total of four of the possible 120 minutes over the course of his three days in Greensboro.

Wildcard: Miami’s win should bring the Hurricanes back into discussion for a one-seed. The Selection Committee might never admit to it, but Miami’s performance over the last three days washes away the ugliness of its late conference losses at Wake Forest and to Georgia Tech. There has never been a team that won both the ACC regular season and ACC Tournament that didn’t get placed on the top seed line. That said, there’s a first time for everything.

Sights and Sounds: The crowd was heavily in favor of North Carolina. This was essentially a road win for the Hurricanes, whose swagger seemed to feed off silencing the crowd.

Quotable: “I played high school basketball in New York City at Archbishop Molloy High School, and my high school coach, Jack  Curran, was my inspiration for wanting to get into coaching. He coached at Molloy for, like, 56 years. He’s the winningest coach in both basketball and baseball in the history of the state of New York. And just kind of quietly in my own way and in my prayers, I dedicated this tournament to him. Now that we’ve won it, I know that he’s looking down on us and happy that we were able to accomplish what we did this weekend. I’m going to put that net in my office on display like we have some other nets, but that one would be very, very special to me.” — Miami coach Jim Larranaga on what he’s going to do with his piece of the net

What’s Next: Selection Sunday.

mpatton (576 Posts)

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 17th, 2013 at 5:16 pm by mpatton and is filed under 2013 conference tournaments, acc, microsites. Tagged: 2013 acc tournament, acc tournament, acctourney, jim larranaga, marcus paige, miami, north carolina, pj hairston, roy williams, shane larkin, trey mckinney-jones, unc. 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.