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Inside the ACC: A Wild Tuesday | ACC tourney only 15 teams in the future | Who has the resume
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The discussion focuses on the future of the ACC basketball tournament, which will now only include 15 teams instead of all 18. The speakers have mixed opinions on the change, with some believing it's not a big deal while others feel it takes away from the excitement and inclusivity of the tournament. They also discuss recent basketball games, including Syracuse's upset win over North Carolina and Pittsburgh's win over Virginia, ending their home-winning streak. Overall, they are not too worried about the losing teams and believe they can bounce back. Welcome to Inside the ACC. I'm Noah Teague from Tech Sports, and I'm joined today by Brendan Wunga of the Daily Tar Heel and Troy Chun of Citrus TV. How are you guys doing today? Doing great. Good to be back after a couple weeks. Yep, I'm ready to lock in and talk more college basketball. Absolutely. Well, before we get into everything that's going on for this season, we're going to take a quick look ahead at the future of ACC tournaments in basketball. It was announced this past week that there will only be 15 teams that make the tournament. Now, as you guys know, there's 15 teams currently, and they're adding three more. So that means that there will be three teams that are left out of future ACC tournaments with the additions of Stanford and Cal. How do you guys feel about this one? I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the move, I think, in the grand scheme of things. You know, does it really matter if the 16th, 17th and 18th best teams in the ACC make the tournament? Probably not. You know, those teams are never going to win the tournament, you know, most likely anyway. But I think the beauty of college tournaments for me was that, you know, no matter what your record was in the regular season, you still had something to play for and, you know, potentially make March Madness no matter how bad you did in the regular season. By not allowing every team in the conference to make the tournament, you know, you sort of lose some of that element. You know, I get it, right? By doing this, you don't have to add an extra day of competition. And it's kind of a scheduling formula, I guess, that the ACC has perfected with 15 teams. So I understand why the move is being made. If you're going to make the decision to expand to 18 teams, I think you have to deal with some of the consequences of that. I think an expanded ACC tournament should have came with that expansion of the conference. So not that big of a deal, you know, in total, but I would have liked every team to make the tournament. Yeah, I think Brendan touched on what my point was, is that, you know, an 0-18 team in conference play, making a run to the conference championship is, it sounds really fun. I know it probably has never happened. But, like, the fact that, I want to think about the Big Ten tournament. Like, they're starting to limit, they're starting to have conversations on how many teams can make the Big Ten tournament as well. But, like, my favorite part was that a couple of years ago, legitimately, before the 2020 tournament was canceled due to COVID, my Minnesota Golden Gophers were getting a lot of love because, like, they were only the 13th seed, I think, in the Big Ten tournament. But a lot of people thought that they could legitimately make a run and steal a spot in March Madness. Didn't happen, of course. But, like, the idea that, like, you know, a team could make a deep run as a double-digit seed in a conference tournament has always been really fun to me. And, you know, I just kind of wish that, like, they didn't have to make this change. I get it. It's understandable. And, like, I get people want it to be, like, a little more competitive, get those, that worst teams out. But, like, you know, it's, again, it kind of defeats the purpose of that March can make or break anything a team season. Absolutely. I think, you know, at some point, you know, there's kind of a bit of a realistic expectation where, is the 18 team really going to do much of anything? Probably not. So I'm not going to lose too much sleep over Cal getting left out. The one thing that I am a little annoyed about is that they left it at 15 instead of just moving up at least one more spot to make it a nice, even number at 16. Or at that point, you could have had, you know, say, 1 versus 16, 8 versus 9, you know, this whole nice, even looking bracket. Instead, they kept it at 15, which for me, that's the only issue I have. As far as leaving out the bottom tier teams, you know, I think it'll be OK. Obviously, we have seen some teams going runs. I think back to, I think it was Tulane who had absolutely no chance at the tournament a year or two ago. And they made that run through, ended up beating Memphis, I think, and got themselves a berth into the tournament. So you're going to see less of that, unfortunately. But I think in the grand scheme of things, overall, it's a solid model to stick with. So now moving on to some of the recent basketball games from this past week. We had not one, but two huge stunners this past Tuesday. We'll start up in the Carrier Dome, where Hughes takes down No. 7, North Carolina. What did you guys see in this big upset? I saw what Syracuse could really be at their best. Both Judah Minch and J.G. Starlin scored in the basketball at an efficient level. Syracuse's own defense actually working out for once. They made the shots when they needed to. I'm still just honestly shocked that they won this game anyways. I was just waiting, OK, when's UNC going to make this run? Because Syracuse hasn't been a team that's exactly left a lot to be desired and known to close out games. Especially in the past five years, this is not just related to this one-year thing. The past couple of years, they haven't really made a statement against a top 10 team in the country. This was their first top 10 win since 2019 against the No. 1 Duke team. So it's been a while. I think a lot of Syracuse fans are just happy. I still think Syracuse's tournament chances are a little low, but it's a good win. It's what Adrian Ochoa just really needs. It just injects some kind of pride and faith in the program once again. That was really what the main takeaway was for a lot of Syracuse homers and whatnot. As for Carolina, I don't know. Carolina's just lost a couple of really stupid games. If you think about the Georgia Tech game, the Clemson game from a week ago. I don't know why I'm still not really worried about the Tar Heels. A lot of people are saying that they are worried. I'm not really worried about them yet, unless they maybe lose another game. But the bad win over Duke already as well. I don't know. I can't really say that I'm out on Carolina. It was a weird loss for them. Syracuse just played super impressively. It was their best game of the season. I think Syracuse can take advantage of that and pick up the momentum back on what was supposed to be a lost season. Now there's a little bit more something to play for for them. For UNC, I think it is slightly concerning, this game. This is kind of just a continuation of what we've seen ever since that Georgia Tech game. As you mentioned, Troy, since then they've had the one solid outing against Duke, which was a great win. But everything else, they had the two losses, Syracuse and Clemson. Even the game against Miami, that was kind of a close call game where them and Tar Heels and Hurricanes were really just going back and forth. I covered that Clemson game. I think the thing they talked about the most was just kind of a lack of energy and enthusiasm, especially coming off that Duke game. I think that's continued to show even past the Clemson game. I think you would have liked to see, after losing to the Tigers, that kind of be a little wake-up call. You really just haven't seen that. Syracuse played really well. Starling Mints both had 20-plus points. Orange shot 63% from the field. I think that's kind of the biggest issue right now for UNC, just a lack of energy on the defensive side of the ball. Both Clemson and Syracuse scored in the 80s against Miami. O'Meara and Pack both dropped 20 points. I'm still completely confident in this UNC offense, and we've seen how good this defense can be earlier in the season. So I think as we get down the stretch, I think UNC will turn around eventually and will be a national championship contender come March, just because I think they will find that energy back again on the defensive side of the ball once we get closer to March and postseason tournament. Absolutely. The thing that really stuck out to me was the way that Syracuse, they just shot the right side of the ball early. And, you know, when a team is that hot, especially from three, it's going to be tough to beat them. And I think this win is pretty big for Syracuse. It's their first win over Carolina since 2021. So you get that monkey off your back. It's a big win for Autry in his first season, really starting to establish himself a little bit. It's his first signature win. I don't know if this gets them into the tournament, but it certainly helps them set up for a very manageable portion of their schedule where they can win probably five of their next games, probably their next six. Obviously they've got Clemson coming up, which will be tough. But definitely a huge win for the Orange and could be a springboard for them. We'll see what happens going forward there. And then for Carolina, I would not be too worried about this one. Like I said, Syracuse just shot the right side of the ball. Nice like that happened. You know, and like you mentioned, Brendan, Carolina has shown that they can lock down defensively. So once they get into tournament play, into the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament, I think that defense will tighten up quite a bit. So I'm not too worried about North Carolina. I just want to see them focus maybe a little bit better, do a little better on defensive ends. But overall, not too worried about them. I do want to see kind of, you know, moving forward, how they respond from this. But I think you still need one more loss to really be concerned about the Tar Heels. Moving on then to the other big upset of the night, Pittsburgh goes into JPJ Arena and snaps Virginia's home-winning streak. It was the longest home-win streak in the ACC, one of the longest in the country. And Pitt, they won convincingly, 74-63. What did you guys see from the Panthers and the Cavs? It has kind of proven this season that they can be, you know, the killers on the road. Beat Duke and Cameron earlier in the year and now beating Virginia in Charlottesville. Blake Hinson's really just been that go-to guy in these big spots, 24 against Duke and topped that with 27 against Virginia. I think this just shows the problem that, you know, with Virginia that we've seen year in and year out, their defense is always going to be a top-tier unit in college basketball. But if that defense breaks down, as it did, you know, a little bit on Tuesday against Pitt, I don't know if I can trust the offense, you know, to win the Cavs a game single-handedly. You know, the numbers kind of tell the story. Virginia is first in scoring defense in the ACC, but they're second to last in scoring offense. I think, you know, Virginia's a really good team and they definitely should make the tourney, but you can't expect to consistently score in the 60s and win the ACC. You know, if you're playing against Miami, sure, you can hold them to 38, 39 points, but once you get into March, you're not going to be able to consistently score in the 60s and win these games. I think we're too late in the year to see UVA change its identity, so we're just going to see how far this defense can really take this team. Yeah, Virginia only has two players who score in double-digit figures, and that's Reese Deepman and Isaac McNeely. Ryan Dunn is a great defender, but he's shown that he can't really be relied on offense. There's some games, like Jacob Groves, who's had a couple good games. Andrew Rode was, I felt, was going to be a really good pickup for them. He averaged 17 last year with St. Thomas. He's only averaged just under 5 this year. There just hasn't really been enough production from that transfer. And, you know, with Virginia, like, they kind of flew under the radar. Before this game, in the eighth-game winning streak, they had wins against Clemson and Miami in there, and, you know, I kind of wasn't expecting them to get ranked because they haven't really been that impressive. They only have, like, one win over a ranked opponent this year, but that's what happened. And now they're very quietly 10-4 in the ACC, which I feel like not a lot of people talked about. But, as Brennan said, that offense is just so below average, despite an amazing defense. And I don't think Virginia can go as far as they should have gone last year, where they lost to Furman in the first round. But I don't think this team has the ceiling of last year's team, where they could have made a deep run. This team, I can see losing in the first or second round of the tournament very easily as well, especially if the defense is having one of their off nights. Absolutely. I think this game is more so about pit. They have gotten on the eater lately, won four in a row, five of their last six. Their one loss was a very close one to Miami. So, for them, they're peaking right at the right time, kind of in the back half of ACC play. And Virginia, they ran into a monster, specifically in Blake Hinson, who had himself a day, putting up 27 points, which, obviously, that's going to be tricky against anyone, but especially against the Cavaliers. And then, you know, for Virginia, the shots just weren't falling for them, and they just didn't have the offensive firepower to keep up with an improving pit offense that is led by Blake Hinson. And so, for Virginia, you know, like you guys talked about, they're a team that's going to be match-up dependent going forward, especially once they get into the NCAA tournament, which is a bit concerning for their long-term prospects for this season, whether they can make noise in March. But, overall, I'm not too worried about Virginia quite yet, kind of like North Carolina, where it's one loss. I don't want to overreact to it. Hats off to pit, though, for getting the win, especially in JPJ Arena. I've been there once earlier this season. It gets so loud there. The fans are electric. You can walk in there, beat a really good team. It's very impressive. So hats off to the Panthers in really getting themselves in a position where they could possibly make a run at the tournament. Again, we'll see. And so that brings us to our next thing, talking about pit and Wake Forest. Do these teams have the potential resume to make it into the NCAA tournament come March? I think, you know, as of right now, I don't think either team has the resume. For both teams, it's kind of the losses, bad losses that are, you know, holding them down. Wake beat Virginia by 20 earlier in the year, which is a really good win. But then you have losses, you know, to pit, NC State, Florida State, which aren't, you know, really bad losses, which is why they're, you know, right at the outside looking in. And I think they can definitely get there. You know, you look at their schedule. Home games against Pitt, Duke, and Clemson, you win two of those games, and I think Wake 100% gets into the tournament. So they're right there. Right now, I just don't think they have enough. And as for Pitt, they also, you know, have that win against Duke on top of the Virginia win, which are two really great wins. But Pitt's losses are even worse than Wake's. You know, two losses to Syracuse, a loss to Miami, and then a loss to Missouri in non-conference play, who has yet to win an SEC game. That's going to be tough to overcome with not many huge games left in their schedule. I think Pitt has to make a deep run in the ACC tournament if they want any shot at the big dance. I just kind of have the opposite opinion. I think Pitt, that Duke win will really help benefit them a lot. And, again, they've also beaten Wake Forest by five at home earlier this – a couple weeks ago. And their schedule is a lot more favorable in Pitt's direction. They played Wake Forest once on the road. They played Clemson also on the road. But all those other games, in my eyes, are pretty winnable. And as for Wake Forest, they're a very good team. I think they're absolutely a tournament-level team. But the problem with them, really, is that, like, you just, like, can't see, like, a big win for them. Like, they haven't beaten anybody that – they weren't supposed to beat, like, a Duke or something like that. And they've lost to teams like Georgia and Utah. Utah, not bad teams. They've also lost to LSU. Not bad teams per se, but those are all three very mediocre teams in Power Five Conferences. If Wake Forest had won those games, I feel like they would have a better argument to get into the tournament. But there's a reason why they're a first team out right now and that they're second first team out right now is that they just don't have that – they have a decent – they have a good resume. But I wouldn't say they have a great resume. And to get into the NCAA tournament, you kind of have to have a great resume. And we'll talk about this later on the pod, but I really want them – I really see that game against Virginia as one of their biggest games of the season so far. Yeah, for me, both these teams are very bubbly right now where, you know, I don't think either, if you were to have the tournament right now, would be quite in there. But they both have opportunities. For me, looking at Wake Forest, very impressed by their win against Florida. I think that that win, as Florida continues to SEC play, is going to help them out some. Otherwise, Wake Forest, they've beaten the teams they're supposed to beat and lost the ones they're supposed to lose to. It's been very chalk for them. And so, for Wake to make that push, I think they do need to pick up a signature win. Biggest opportunity for that is on February 24th against Duke. That'll be a home game for them. I think that – I'm not going to call it a must win for them, but it's definitely one that you really want to get if you want to be feeling good come March. They'll also have a trip to Virginia. We'll see how that goes. And then, obviously, the game against Pitt. In talking about Pitt, they've kind of been a little more up and down, had some better wins, but also some worse losses, like you talked about the Missouri loss. But now they've got a couple big wins over Virginia and Duke. Pitt, the team I feel better about just because they do have their signature wins and their schedule going forward is a lot more manageable. And so, you know, as long as they can take care of fitness, beating teams like Louisville, teams like Virginia Tech, Boston College, they should be able to put themselves a little bit closer towards the tournament bracket. And then for Pitt, I think the biggest thing is making a run in the ACC tournament, you know, finding maybe one more signature win, whether it's regular season at Clemson or in the tournament against a Duke or a Virginia or someone like that. So, for me, I feel better about Pitt, but not great about either at the moment. But that could certainly change. So, moving on then to bigger picture. Number of ACC teams that should make the tournament? Yeah, I'm going to say five because I still think the ACC is a top-level conference in college basketball. So, I think whether it's Wake or Pitt, I'm personally leading Wake. I think one of them should get a nod by the end of the year. UNC and Duke are 100% in, that's without question. Clemson and Virginia, they're close right now. But when it's all said and done, I think they both should be in the six to eight seed range. That gives me five. Could it be six? I guess it's possible. But I think, you know, one of Wake and Pitt should get in. ACC will get five. And, you know, they should be one of the top-level conferences in college basketball. One of their teams always seem to make a run come March, even if it's a team you're not expecting. I've kind of been on record this season saying that the ACC hasn't been great, per se. There's arguments to say that it hasn't really been a top-five conference this year. You could argue that the Wild West has been better. But that being said, I think as the season has gone along, I think there's teams like Wake, like Pitt that have gotten better and have said that they have their arguments of making it into the tournament. So right now I can't choose between whether it's four or five. I think Carolina and you are definitely 100% in right now. I think Virginia and Clemson are pretty much like 80% in right now. But teams like Pitt and teams like Pitt and Wake are like literally on the outside looking in. They're this close to opening the window of getting in. But in the end, I think only one of them makes it. If I had to choose right now, I think Wake Forest will eventually have a better argument and just overall because I think they have a better overall team than Pitt. But, you know, I can't really see it more than five, maybe a 16. I'm not really sure, though. Right now I would say it's four or five. But I'm comfortable to say four, but I wouldn't mind saying five. So I'm going to go with five right now. Absolutely, yeah. I think one of the big things that's been talked about this year is the ACC being down. And people have brought up, I think it was Field of 68 had the Mountain West above them. That right there is idiotic, just putting that out there. The ACC, it's not what it once was, but it's still a really, really good conference. Obviously Carolina is a national title contender. Duke is safely in the field. I would consider Virginia safely in the field. And then you look and see, okay, who else is going to make the tournament? And I think there's a lot of teams that have a case that are kind of on the bubble right now. For me, I'm going to limit it to four. Maybe it's just because I'm a little more pessimistic. I think that fourth team, maybe it's Clemson. As of right now, they would be front runners. I don't trust Brad Brown at all. It could be Pitt or Wake. Obviously we talked about them a little bit earlier. But I do think that ultimately, you know, as these teams keep playing each other, a few more losses pile up. I think it will only be four. But I do think that with those four, it will be four really solid teams. And I do expect another run in the NCAA tournament because, once again, ACC always does best in March. So moving on to our best performances of the week, who do you guys have for this week? I'm going to have to go with JJ Starling. It could be Drew DaMince. It could be Malik Brown. But I think it has to go to Starling. You know, he has really turned up his play in the last few months. Against Carolina, he had 23 points on 9-15, shooting three of six from behind the arc. He had a really slow start to the season. About the first month and a half, it just didn't feel like he was bringing in the impact that he should have been as a former five-star guard. But the last month since January 16th against Pitt, 17 points, 22 points, 10 points, 26, 18, 15, 19, 16, and 23 points. All in pretty efficient shooting numbers. He was taking enough shots from behind the arc when he wants to. He is almost there where I feel like he is a very comfortable second scorer for this Orange team. He's taken a lot of pressure off of Mince in late games, especially Mince has really became more of a distributor as of late. And Starling has taken that opportunity really well to score. And he was really impressive against Carolina in 9-15 from the floor. And I'm just really excited. I think he can come back next year, potentially be the leading scorer for this Syracuse team. And he's just been a big reason why Syracuse can win games as of late because of his play. Yeah, I'll take the other player in this game, which tells you just how well Syracuse played against UNC. I think Mince and Starling should both get recognized due to Mince, man. This guy is one of the most talented players in the conference and possibly in the country. 25 points, five rebounds, four assists, shooting 73% from the field against UNC. Now, you know, obviously he gets a lot of his scoring production from the free throw line. You know, that's his game, and he does it really, really well. Syracuse's guards, you know, they really just tore up UNC and really was a major factor in why they pulled off that upset on Tuesday. Absolutely. Two incredible performances by a couple of Orange basketball players. For me, somebody like Blake Henson against Virginia, what an absolutely incredible offensive machine that he is. Like I mentioned earlier, 27 points. But it's not just the points. It's the way that he was efficient in that game, shooting 57.9%. He shoot 38% from beyond the arc. So very good numbers right there for him. And then also playing 37 minutes, that's almost the entire basketball game. To be able to maintain that efficiency throughout the game, despite being absolutely gassed in, you know, a really hard-fought, intense game, obviously playing Virginia, they're more physical than other defenses, adding on to the difficulty. So really impressive offensive night from Henson. And then finally, he didn't have a single point from the free-throw line. All of his points came from the field. So he wasn't just getting the freebies. He was working for all those points. Very impressive by him. Added a seal, four boards as well. So great job by him, tearing up an incredible defense. And then last up are games to watch for this upcoming week. Who do you guys have for that? With Duke at Florida State on Saturday, the Seminoles have, you know, kind of fallen off in recent weeks after starting the season, you know, second in the conference. But I still think it's a very capable team that could pull off a big win, really, on any given night. Now Duke right now is sitting in that second position, virtually tied with UNC for the regular season championship, both at three losses in the conference. So every game from here on out will be big for the Blue Devils. Duke has kind of faltered in some of these big games. And, you know, as we've seen all season, going on the road as a top-10 team to play an unranked team is seemingly like the hardest task of all time. So I'm looking forward to see if Duke can keep on rolling or, you know, the Seminoles can pull off another big upset in college basketball. Yeah, I'm going to go with the Wake Forest, Virginia game. I alluded to it earlier, but I really think this is the biggest game of the season for Wake Forest. This is one of their two opportunities to get a signature win, get themselves a conversation, say, hey, we are a tournament team. And even though I do think this is a tournament team, just roster-wise and how I've seen them play, there are four guys that have scored over 14 points per game this year and the addition of Damari Monsanto recently from injury. But nonetheless, I don't think there's a lot of room for error. There's not much room for error and they really need this game against Virginia because I think this is a winnable game for them because Duke's always going to be really hard. But I think if you can win this Virginia game, then you're pretty comfortably, I think, in my eyes, into the conversation of the tournament. You're at least into the window of opportunity for me. But this is a must-win game for Wake Forest. And it's also a must-win game for Virginia looking to bounce back after a really bad loss at home against Pitt. Can they bounce back? Can they see something on offense besides McNeely and Diekman? So that's the biggest game of the week for me. I'm going to keep up the UVA theme but go to their rivalry game in Castle Arena at Virginia Tech. It should be, despite Virginia Tech's struggles, an absolutely amped up atmosphere. It is never easy to go up against the Hokies. They have a dynamic duo in Hunter Couture and Sean Padula that is going to be tough to stop. And I want to see, you know, how does Virginia bounce back from this loss to Pitt and then potentially we'll see what happens with their game against Wake. But for me, I think this is a critical game for Virginia. You know, they're safely in the fields, but you don't want to have a losing streak right now. You need to start picking up some more wins. And then for Virginia Tech, their season is probably not going to the NCAA tournament, but if they were to make it, it's put up or shut up. This would be a signature win. Plus, it's an in-state rivalry. You always want to beat them. And so for the Hokies, this would be a chance to get a big-time signature win. I do ultimately think that Virginia bounces back. That defense is going to be fired up. They're going to be as physical as anyone that Virginia Tech has faced all season. And VT, they've had some close calls, but they almost got a signature win against South Carolina earlier in the season when they didn't look like they were going to be what they are now. But, you know, they've just kind of – they've been up and down. So we'll see what happens there. I do ultimately expect, though, for the Cavaliers to win this thing. And that will just about wrap it up for us today. We've had a lot of great action in the ACC. Definitely looking forward to what's coming down the pike to close the season. Obviously, a lot of big-time games. We got more coming up, Duke Carolina, the ACC tournament, and then the inevitable run by an ACC team in March Madness to maybe win the national championship. We'll see. Can you get it done, Huber Davis? Can you get it done, R.J. Davis? Is this the year? I don't know. We'll see. But I could – I mean, ACC always makes a run in March. It's going to happen. So with that said, that wraps up just about everything for us. And we'll be back next week. Thank you for listening.
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