The Itch For Madness: ACC Bracketology, 02/17/15

17 Feb 2015

Impressive wins by the Wolfpack and Blue Devils headline the past week in the ACC.

Scratched Enough:  Virginia, Notre Dame, UNC, Duke, Louisville

Virginia (3-0 this week): Beating Wake Forest by 1 at home is just another way to show the conference balance. Holding Pittsburgh to two separate scoring droughts of more then 6 minutes is just ridiculous.

Notre Dame (1-0 this week): Impressive road win at Clemson. Pretty easy schedule the rest of the way.

UNC (0-1 this week): The first game since the passing of Dean Smith did not go too well for the Heels. Pittsburgh shot 65 percent from the floor, the highest field goal percentage by a North Carolina opponent in Williams’ 12 years on the bench.

Duke (1-0 this week): Playing in front of 35,000 at the Carrier Dome is always quite the experience and the Devils grew up a bit on Saturday night. Duke welcomes their BFF, UNC, for Part I of the Tobacco Road Rivalry this week.

Louisville (1-1 this week): The Cardinals did not make me look great this week. In their defense, losing to a very desperate NC State team is somewhat respectable. I recommend the Cards do not sleep on games at Syracuse and home versus Miami this week.

Keep Scratching: Miami (FL), Pittsburgh, NC State, Clemson

Miami (FL) (1-1 this week): The multiple personalty disorder continues for the Canes. They played 30 awful minutes versus Wake Forest only to come back and then lose on a missed layup at the buzzer. If being in balmy Boston wasn’t bad enough, Miami tried it’s hardest to lose to conference cellar-dweller Boston College in double overtime. A loss to VA Tech this week would make them NIT-bound while a Louisville road-win could be the final signature win needed to go to the big dance.

Pittsburgh (1-2 this week): The goal was to win at least one of the three games versus UNC, UVA and Louisville and the task was accomplished. This squad is a conundrum, and unfortunately they do not have a quality opponent left on the schedule.

NC State (1-1 this week): Losing a heart breaker versus UVA only made the Louisville win that much more impressive. The key is to not backtrack and beat VA Tech.

Clemson (1-2 this week): The Tigers had a real chance to make some headway last week and going 1-2 was not enough. Losing a close game versus Notre Dame was rough but a loss to Georgia Tech is unacceptable at this point. Beating Duke on the road this week will help, but still is not enough.

 

Let me know your thoughts:  @Michael_A_Fine