RTC’s Brad Jenkins (@bradjenk) is providing on-site coverage of the ACC Tournament all week long.

Three Key Takeaways.

1. This game lived up to the hype. This was perhaps the most anticipated semifinal matchup in ACC Tournament history and the two teams delivered an instant classic. It was only fitting that the outcome wasn’t decided until the game’s final possession when North Carolina missed two shots in the last three seconds. For most of the first half it looked like a mismatch — North Carolina raced out to a commanding 13-point lead and the Blue Devils were dealing with foul trouble to their depleted front line (especially true with Marquise Bolden out). But Mike Krzyzewski got some surprising production from his bench and Duke roared back to tie the game at the half. After the break Duke took the lead and looked to be in control only to see the Tar Heels rally. It wasn’t the prettiest game — the teams combined to make just 9-of-47 shots from deep — but the intensity level and effort from both teams was top-notch. And who knows? We may get to see them go at it again in Minneapolis.
2. Duke’s bench came through in surprising fashion. Zion Williamson was outstanding, but Duke would not have pulled this game out without the play of the much-maligned Blue Devils’ bench. Led by Cameron Johnson (16 first half points), North Carolina was rolling in the first half and beating the Blue Devils down the court for transition buckets. Additionally, Cam Reddish and Javin DeLaurier were in foul trouble. First, Krzyzewski inserted Jordan Goldwire into the game in place of Reddish and his defense helped turn the game around. Goldwire took on the assignment of slowing down Coby White, an absolute jet in the open court, while starting point guard Tre Jones moved over to harass Johnson. When DeLaurier picked up his third foul, seldom used Antonio Vrankovic got the call and held his own with the Tar Heels’ frontcourt for a total of 10 minutes. Goldwire earned postgame praise from both head coaches for the energy he brought to his team when they needed a boost.
3. History repeats itself (barely). This makes the third year in a row that these two old rivals have met in the ACC Tournament semifinals. In each of those prior tourney matchups, the winner was the team that had lost the prior meeting between the two a week earlier. In fact, that has been the case in the last five ACC Tournament meetings between Duke and North Carolina (2003, 2011, 2017-19). For North Carolina, this tradition runs even deeper — over the last 46 years, whenever the Tar Heels face Duke in the ACC Tournament after defeating the Blue Devils in the regular season finale, their record in those games is 0-6. But recent rivalry history is not all bad news for Williams. During his 15 years at the helm in Chapel Hill, the winner of the last regular season Duke-UNC matchup of the year has gone on to perform better in the NCAA Tournament than its rival 13 times.

Player of the Game. Zion Williamson, Duke. The freshman phenom finally got his chance to play in college basketball’s biggest rivalry and he made the most of it. Williamson finished with 31 points and 11 rebounds and ended up making the game-winner when he followed up his own miss with 31 seconds to go.

Quotable.

• “The guy that’s been hurt [Zion Williamson] came back and put on his superman jersey again and was incredible. It’s such a blend of strength and power and quickness that we couldn’t stop him getting the basketball inside and going to the basket.” – North Carolina coach Roy Williams’ opening comments in the press conference.
• “This was obviously a great game. I mean vintage ACC, Duke-North Carolina.” – Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski on the game.
• “I mean it was tough watching the first two games. […] the rivalry lived up to what I expected it to be” – Duke’s Zion Williamson on finally getting to play against North Carolina.

Sights and Sounds. This was probably the most anticipated semifinal matchup in ACC Tournament history, so it was fitting that this battle between Tobacco Road rivals took place in the state of North Carolina. As expected, the Tar Heels had the support of about two-thirds of the Spectrum Center, but both sets of fans were extremely into the game throughout the contest.

What’s Next. Duke moves on to play Florida State for the ACC championship on Saturday night. It will be the second title meeting between the two schools — the Blue Devils beat the Seminoles in 2009. Duke and Florida State only played once in the regular season, with Duke winning a one-point buzzer-beating game in Tallahassee in early January.

RTC’s Brad Jenkins (@bradjenk) will be reporting live from Charlotte at the 2019 ACC Tournament through Saturday’s championship game.

Here are a few thoughts on the four teams from today’s evening session at the ACC Tournament.

• North Carolina (27-5): The Tar Heels are a very confident team right now and with good reason. After dispatching Louisville, 83-70, in Thursday’s quarterfinals, North Carolina has won 15 of its last 16 outings and is still in contention to grab a #1 seed in the upcoming Big Dance. Although the Cardinals stayed within striking distance for most of tonight’s game, it never felt like the outcome was in doubt. Freshman point guard Coby White continued his recent outstanding play for Roy Williams, finishing with 19 points, seven rebounds and six assists. The Tar Heels will get a chance at the rare three-game season sweep of archrival Duke in Friday night’s semifinals.
• Louisville (20-13): After losing five or its last six February outings, the Cardinals appear to have somewhat righted the ship. They closed the regular season with a comfortable win over Notre Dame followed by a narrow defeat at top-seed Virginia. In Charlotte, Louisville blew out the Fighting Irish on Wednesday and gave a good account of themselves against North Carolina, one of hottest teams in the country. Most bracketologists forecast Chris Mack’s club as a #6 or #7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, meaning they would likely face a high-caliber team in the second round. Mack hopes that the six games his squad has already played against North Carolina, Virginia and Duke have prepared it for such a challenge.
• Duke (27-5): He’s back! But that doesn’t mean everything is OK with Duke going forward. In his much anticipated return from a knee injury that caused him to miss six games, Zion Williamson exploded out of the gate to lead the Blue Devils to a big early lead. In the first half alone, he scored 21 points on 9-for-9 shooting, grabbed nine rebounds and came up with five steals. But while Williamson’s presence helps Duke in many areas, it doesn’t alter the team’s glaring flaws — namely, shooting and the propensity to collect offensive fouls. In its 84-72 win over Syracuse, the Blue Devils made 30.4 percent of their threes, shot 67.9 percent from the foul line and committed 18 turnovers — many of those coming on charges. They’ll have to be better than that to knock off North Carolina on Friday night, in what will be one of the most anticipated semifinal matchups in ACC Tournament history.
• Syracuse (20-13): This was always going to be an uphill battle for the Orange, especially when star Tyus Battle was unable to suit up due to a sore back. Without its best offensive player, Syracuse struggled mightily to score against Duke’s pressure early. But they settled down after that, storming back catch the Blue Devils in the second half before fading down the stretch. The Orange had one of their best outside shooting nights of the year, making 9-of-21 from deep and they have to be encouraged at the development of the coach’s son, Buddy Boeheim. Starting in place of Battle, the freshman put together back-to-back strong outings in Charlotte, including 15 points against Duke. Jim Boeheim indicated that Battle should be ready to go in a few days, so he should be available for the start of the NCAA Tournament. That’s good news for a team that’s likely to end up with a #9 or #10 seed, which guarantees that the Orange will be facing a good First Round opponent.

With Virginia’s win over Virginia Tech on Monday night, North Carolina is now in position to create a three-way tie at first place in the ACC standings with an upset victory at Duke on Wednesday. 

Stock Rising

Florida State: Just one short month ago, the Seminoles blew a 10-point halftime lead at Boston College to extend their losing streak to three games. That defeat dropped Florida State to 1-4 in ACC play and out of the national polls. With a promising season circling the drain, Leonard Hamilton’s veteran squad has responded by winning every game since. In ripping off those seven consecutive wins, Florida State has vaulted itself back into the second tier of the league behind Virginia, North Carolina and Duke. Only a dramatic comeback overtime victory over Louisville and a nine-point handling of Clemson were close games. In typical fashion, the Seminoles are winning with balance, depth, length and defensive acumen. Five different players have led the team in scoring over the past seven games, and only the Cardinals reached 70 points against their top-20 defense.

Sophomore Mfiondu Kabengele has been a revelation, leading the Seminoles in scoring despite not starting a single game. Senior Terrance Mann is the only other player averaging in double figures, but Florida State’s lack of an explosive scorer is made up in the balance of having eight guys notching 6.5 points per game or better. The Seminoles face a stiff test in keeping its current winning streak alive, as a trip to a desperate Clemson team looms tonight followed by a visit to Chapel Hill. But, with a split, and with all of its final four games coming in Tallahassee and at Wake Forest, Hamilton’s squad could find itself right where most envisioned prior to its slow start — as the #4 seed heading into the ACC Tournament.

It is difficult to dream up a more daunting back-to-back scenario than playing host to #2 Duke on Saturday followed by visiting the #8 team on its home floor 48 hours later. And after the disappointment of losing the front end in a season sweep to the Blue Devils, Virginia faced a must-win situation at North Carolina on Monday night if it had any designs on repeating as the ACC regular season champion.

In staking itself a seven-point halftime lead, the Cavaliers controlled pace while managing to keep the Tar Heels from getting anything going in transition. The second half was a different story, however, as North Carolina dictated tempo early and opened up a seven-point advantage of its own with fewer than eight minutes remaining. Tony Bennett‘s team could have easily collapsed under the weight of the physical and mental pressure at that point, but that’s not what happened.

This was perhaps the best potential weekend slate of games in ACC play this season and it didn’t disappoint in terms of excitement. In the national headliner, Duke completed a regular season sweep of Virginia by besting the Cavaliers, 81-71, in Charlottesville on Saturday evening. In a surprisingly close call, North Carolina remained tied with the Blue Devils atop the league standings with a comeback overtime win over Miami in the Smith Center. In other key contests, a pair of ranked ACC squads fell on the road — Clemson handled Virginia Tech, 59-51, in Littlejohn Coliseum; and Florida State rallied to take Louisville into overtime in Tallahassee, winning by a score of 80-75. Here are the highlights from the weekend around the ACC.

• Best Win: Duke once again showed it can solve Virginia’s pack-line defense, mostly because of an unanticipated Blue Devils’ explosion from behind the arc. Tony Bennett’s squad gave up 13 three-pointers — the most it had given up previous to this game was eight against Notre Dame — but great outside shooting wasn’t all that went well for Mike Krzyzewski’s club. Duke held a 17-0 edge in fast break points as well as a 14-9 advantage in second-chance points, despite the fact that Virginia grabbed six more offensive boards than the Blue Devils. RJ Barrett led the way with 26 points, giving him a total of 56 in two games versus the Cavaliers. This contest marked the beginning of an extremely tough stretch of games for Duke — its next five games are all against top 45 teams, three of which are on the road. Meanwhile, Virginia has a quick turnaround, traveling to face ACC co-leader North Carolina tonight.

• Second Best Win: With no real bad losses over the weekend, we opt to highlight another big ACC win. Florida State won its fifth ACC game in a row with a gutty comeback win over Louisville, a game in which the Seminoles trailed by double-figures midway through the second half. Leonard Hamilton’s guys were outshot from the field by a wide margin (48.1 percent to 37.7 percent), so how did they pull it off? Two ways — by posting a huge edge in turnover margin (+15) and dominating the free throw game — Florida State went 27-of-36 at the stripe while Louisville was 13-of-16. The Seminoles have definitely righted the ship after their 1-4 start in conference play, and are now in contention for a top-four finish in the league, which comes with the cherished double-bye in the ACC Tournament.

An extremely competitive ACC-Big Ten Challenge, one in which six games have already been decided by four points or fewer, comes to a close tonight. Locked at 4-4 going into tonight’s games, let’s take a look at what’s in store for this evening.

Jim Boeheim is Pleading for a Win (USA Today Images)

•  #20 Syracuse (3-2) at #23 Ohio State (6-0). On the strength of two true road wins against top 40 teams, Ohio State was the top-rated team in the initial NET ratings that were released on Monday. The talented Orange have been disappointing in the early going, as Syracuse visits Columbus tonight with losses to Connecticut and Oregon weighing down its non-conference slate. Jim Boeheim‘s vaunted zone ranks as the nation’s sixth most efficient defense, but poor shooting has carried over to the tune of a 31.4 percent clip from beyond the arc. Oshae Brissett, the team’s best prospect, and Tyus Battle, the team’s leading returning scorer, are shooting 18.2 percent and 28.6 percent, respectively from deep. Point guard Frank Howard’s return to action will certainly provide a boost, but Syracuse will undoubtedly need to be a lot crisper on the offensive end to slow down a versatile set of Buckeyes.
• #115 Rutgers (4-1) at  #22 Miami (5-1). Despite its most talented player, Dewan Hernandez, being withheld from competition amid a review of eligibility, the Hurricanes have been impressive in winning five of their first six games. Diminutive spark plug point guard Chris Lykes leads five Hurricanes averaging more than 11 points per contest, while Dejan Vasiljevic is making 52.5 percent of his threes, good for 77th in the country. Steve Pikiell’s Scarlet Knights have been stingy on the defensive end this season, turning teams over on 24.3 percent of their possessions. However, Rutgers has been especially brutal on the other end of the floor, checking in as the 263rd most efficient offense while turning the ball over  at an alarming 22.6 percent rate (312th nationally).

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Two weeks ago, when asked to submit my preseason national rankings, I knew the decision to place North Carolina as my top-rated squad would draw some raised eyebrows. Three games into the season, however, I have seen nothing from the Tar Heels (maybe something from Duke) that has given me reason for pause — in fact, their performance in this small sample size has been even better than anticipated. For the first time in more than three decades, North Carolina opened its season with two true road games, a challenge rarely taken by the sport’s elite (Duke, for example, won’t play its first road game until January 8!). And while not tested by the strongest of competition, Elon and Wofford, which beat Roy Williams‘ team at the Dean Dome a year ago, provided difficult road environments that helped prepare the Tar Heels for what will be a conference schedule littered with those affairs.

North Carolina Has Been Quietly Humming Along Through Three Games (USA Today Images)

After rolling Stanford at home on Monday night for the third victory of the season, North Carolina now ranks third in the KenPom ratings, a product of strong performances on both ends of the floor (currently ranking fifth in both offensive and defensive efficiency). Rarely does Williams fret over his offense, but he must be reveling in the elite defensive potential that this year’s team has already shown. Freshmen Nassir Little and Leaky Black are the type of long, athletic and versatile wings whose sole purpose seems to be to disrupt the flow of opposing offenses. Little, for all of his natural ability, also appears to check all of the intangible boxes to boot — toughness, strength, desire. Those areas have not always been North Carolina’s calling cards, but this year’s squad has shown a willingness to be first to the floor and it seems to play harder than its opponents.

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Opening night of the 2018-19 season was a total success for the ACC as league members swept their nine opponents last evening by convincing double-figure margins. Here are some takeaways from the three most prominent contests played by conference squads Tuesday night.

DUKE’S NEWCOMERS EXCEEDED THE HYPE

Zion Williamson and his fellow freshmen lived up to their immense hype in Duke’s big win over Kentucky. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

It doesn’t sound possible after all the preseason buzz surrounding the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class, but Duke‘s rookies were even better than advertised in a 118-84 thrashing of top-five Kentucky. This game represented a mismatch in talent from the outset, as Duke’s celebrated trio of RJ Barrett, Zion Williamson and Cam Reddish combined to finish with 83 points on 56.6 percent shooting. Barrett and Williamson, in particular, were amazing in transition, but they also scored much more easily in the half-court against a bevy of long and athletic Wildcats. At least for one glorious night in early November, Mike Krzyzewski’s squad had all of the answers to its preseason questions surrounding outside shooting (12-26 3FG), defense (Kentucky lingered around 1.0 PPP most of the game) and depth (eight Blue Devils saw double-figure minutes). After years of struggling to find a true point guard to orchestrate the offense, Duke looks like it has a diamond in Tre Jones, who finished with seven assists and zero turnovers. Even junior Jack White came off the bench to play 30 solid minutes, scoring nine points and grabbing a game-high 11 boards. Yes, it’s only one game — but if the Blue Devils can stay healthy, their potential is downright scary.

FLORIDA STATE’S DEFENSE IS LEGIT

Duke wasn’t the only ACC team to dominate a highly regarded team from the SEC last night, as Florida State used a strong second half start to pummel Florida, 81-60. Leonard Hamilton‘s team utilized old school defense to fuel its NCAA Tournament run to the Elite Eight last March, and it was more of the same against the Gators in holding their rival to a frigid 37.0 percent from the field and forcing 16 miscues. The Seminoles weren’t bad on the other end of the floor (1.12 PPP), either, especially considering they are currently without leading scorer Phil Cofer (broken foot). Florida State converted a robust 11-of-23 from three-point land, with PJ Savoy leading the way in nailing 5-of-7 from deep. Normally, Hamilton’s teams usually take some time to gel, but it looks like Florida State is already set to roll this year. If this is the ACC’s seventh best team (per the ACC Media preseason poll), then the league is in outstanding shape relative to the rest of college basketball.

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To wrap up our ACC team previews, Mick McDonald (@themickmcdonald) brings us home by reviewing league favorites Duke, North Carolina and Virginia.

Duke Burning Question: How will Duke’s talented freshmen gel on the court?

The Duke Freshmen Are Ready to Roll (USA Today Images)

Duke has the most talented roster in the country, but as we know, talent alone doesn’t always mean championships. After losing almost his entire roster from last year’s Elite Eight squad, Mike Krzyzewski reloaded with four of the very best prospects in the country. The question is how those pieces will fit together. While Zion Williamson (who is basically a cross between Justin Bieber and LeBron James on YouTube) is the Blue Devils’ biggest star, R.J. Barrett is the best player on the team. He dominated for Team Canada in the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup last year and is likely be the top pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. The smooth lefty likes to have the ball in his hands, so it will be interesting to see how he interacts with expected starting point guard Tre Jones.

Will fellow freshman Cam Reddish accept not being the lead banana on a team with plentiful options? Will anyone outside of sophomore Alex O’Connell (48.9% 3FG) make any three-pointers? Will juniors Marques Bolden and Javin DeLaurier be able to stay out of Krzyzewski’s doghouse to support the talented freshmen? Whether you believe that Duke will figure it all out and win the national title or if you have concerns about egos overtaking the team en route to an early exit in March, Duke is without question the most fascinating team in college basketball this season.

North Carolina Burning Question: What lineup does Roy Williams want to use?

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1. Yesterday, North Carolina released the latest statement in its seemingly never-ending battle with the NCAA regarding allegations of academic fraud at the university. At this point, the school has basically admitted that there was academic fraud committed although they are still fighting the charges of failure to monitor, but now they are challenging the NCAA’s authority to punish it for academic fraud saying it should be done at the discretion of the school’s accrediting agency and not the NCAA. As much as we have criticized North Carolina for the massive academic fraud at the school, we have to agree with them (and we have pointed out as much in previous posts in this space–much like we had an issue with the NCAA doling out a punishment to Penn State for its handling of the Jerry Sandusky case). We will have to see how the NCAA responds to UNC’s statement, but as we have been saying for a while with this case: we don’t see it ending any time soon and based on how the NCAA has treated UNC compared to other schools who self-imposed it seems like UNC may have chosen the right course of action.
2. One of the biggest criticisms of UNC’s decision to fight the NCAA on this has been the shadow it cast on them in recruiting circles with Brandon Ingram even saying that the threat of NCAA sanctions was a big reason he did not go to UNC. That cloud makes Coby White‘s commitment to play at UNC even more significant. The commitment of White, a top-5 point guard in the class of 2018, gives the Tar Heels three top-30 recruits in the class of 2018. While it is still very early in the recruiting cycle for a class that is two full academic years away from matriculating to college, it is a great start for the Tar Heels.
3. Meanwhile, at Missouri, which can probably be best described as a dumpster fire of an athletic department, the NCAA added a year of probation to Missouri’s self-imposed punishment (full statement here) after finding that the school had provided players and their families with $11,402 in impermissible benefits between 2011 and 2014. While most of the violations occurred while Frank Haith was there some also occurred under Kim Anderson, but the NCAA decided that neither coach was responsible for the lapses at their program. For his part, Haith (or more specifically his lawyer) issued a statement (included in this article) essentially reminding everybody that Haith was not found to be responsible for any violations and that the school/institution was solely responsible for the failures while he was leading the program. We wonder if Haith’s lawyer charged him the full rate for his services or if he gave Haith a discount since it could have been able to recycle seems like he has been getting a lot of use of out of these types of letters for Haith he could have just reused the letter for Haith’s role in the scandal at Miami just a few years earlier.
4. The strange saga of Nick Marshall at Memphis appears to have come to an end. The 6’11” sophomore forward left the program under circumstances that can best be described as unusual (according to Gary Parrish he reportedly left under false pretenses in this series of tweets: 1, 2, 3, and 4). Marshall, who averaged 3 points and 2.6 rebounds in 8.6 minutes per game last season, but was expected to play a much bigger role this season, has committed to play at Motlow State Community College. If Marshall can get his act together, he has the talent to play at the high-major level again as he was a borderline top-50 recruit coming out of high school.
5. In one of the more interesting moves we have seen, Brenda Tracy, who says she was raped in 1998 by four men including two Oregon State football players, and her son are putting forth a petition to the NCAA asking them to ban sexually violent athletes. The actual petition, written by her son, does not specify exactly what qualifies someone as a “violent athlete”. As much as we would like to see more strict penalties for people who commit crimes (especially sexual assault and other violent crimes) it seems like the NCAA would run into a a long line of lawsuits if it tried to enforce a strict ban on individuals especially if the legal system had deemed that person to be fit to not be incarcerated.