1. Sporting News: While it isn’t the point of this article, it’s totally ludicrous that Lamar Patterson was left off the Wooden Award watch list. He’s shooting over 55 percent on twos, 40 percent on threes, and 80% from the charity stripe. Oh yeah, he’s also Pittsburgh’s best passer and a capable rebounder. It’s a shame his snub took place right before his worst game of the season, a game in which Mike Krzyzewski set out to shut Patterson down by blitzing him on screens and draping 6’8″ Rodney Hood over him for most of the game.
2. Tallahassee Democrat: With so many teams in the ACC, unbalanced schedules abound and the rollercoaster of difficulty week-to-week is even wilder than in past years. That means that the same week Duke heads to Pittsburgh and Syracuse for road games, Florida State embarks on a three-week stretch as the probable favorites in every game. The other interesting news from Corey Clark is that Florida State is applying for a medical redshirt (for a sixth year of eligibility) for Kiel Turpin, who’s been injured all year. Even if he wins the argument for a sixth year, Turpin has an uphill battle for playing time ahead of him with Michael Ojo and Boris Bojanovsky progressing every day.
3. Gobbler Country: For Virginia Tech‘s new athletic director, “fixing the basketball problem” may actually also involve physically renovating Cassell Coliseum, a building that is now nearly 50 years old. There’s still a decade to decide on a course of action (and see how Clemson’s renovation of Littlejohn Coliseum goes), but there’s no denying that a swanky new arena can inject some excitement into an apathetic fan base. Having to bus to a nearby city would almost certainly have the opposite effect for the short-term, however.
4. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Big news out of Georgia Tech, as Robert Carter is undergoing tests to see whether he will be healthy in time to play this season. Obviously, his return would make the Yellow Jackets an entirely different team, as he was nearly averaging a double-double before hurting his knee. While Brian Gregory may not be popping up in many hot seat articles just yet, his current lack of success will heat that seat up in a hurry.
5. CBSSports: Jon Rothstein took a look at Virginia and its balanced attack. Last year Akil Mitchell and Joe Harris were two of the statistically most dominant players in the ACC, and this year, at least on the surface (per game stats), they’ve both taken steps forward. But the team is actually a lot better thanks to additional steps forward from Malcolm Brogdon and more minutes for Mike Tobey. It’s much harder to game plan around four or five legitimate options than two.

mpatton (576 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 28th, 2014 at 7:31 am by Matt Patton and is filed under acc, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: florida state, Lamar patterson, Robert Carter, virginia, virginia tech. 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.