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Inside the ACC | Virginia's offensive struggles | Keatts on the hot seat | Wake's last breath
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Virginia Cavaliers have been struggling offensively and it is unlikely that they will improve in time for the March Madness tournament. They have a strong defense but their offense is lacking. Duke and Carolina are both performing well and have the potential to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament. Wake Forest had a big win against Pitt, but both teams are still on the bubble for the tournament. Pitt still has a chance to make a run, but they cannot afford any more bad losses. Wake Forest has the potential to do well in the tournament, but they need more signature wins to solidify their spot. Welcome to Inside the ACC, I'm Noah Teague from Technician Sports and I'm joined today by Troy Jun of Citrus TV and Brendan Lunga of the Daily Tar Heel. How are you guys doing tonight? Doing great. Good to be back. Doing great. Let's talk some more college basketball. Absolutely. And we're getting into the homestretch, March is almost here. And so we're going to start with one of the teams that is going to possibly make some noise in March, but they're going to have to improve offensively and that is the Virginia Cavaliers. They've been having a lot of offensive struggles, obviously Tony Bennett is known more so as a defensive coach, but what have you guys seen out of the Cavaliers and can they get their act together in time to make a run in March? Yeah, I think offensively, like the simple answer is, I mean, no. Year in and year out, you know, Virginia has shown us who they are and I don't think we can buy in to Virginia until they show us otherwise. First in the ACC in defense, second to last in offense, you know, that's going to be Virginia. That's probably not going to change. You know, the Cavs' leading scorer, Reese Beekman, ranks 21st in the ACC in scoring. I think that right there tells you all you need to know about how Virginia's offense has played this season. I think this week perfectly kind of, you know, showed what Virginia basketball is. They'll have a win against a potential tournament team where they only score 49 points and they'll get blown out by 34 points in a game in which they score a total of 41. I think this Virginia defense is way too good to not make the tournament currently a ninth seed right now, according to Joe Linardi, but I mean, unless this offense, you know, flips the miracle switch that I just don't see coming. I don't see how this team can win, you know, much more than a game come the NCAA tournament. The idea of Virginia really is a lot better than what we've seen on the floor right now. Like Brendan said, they're second worst in scoring in the ACC. They're actually not a bad three-point shooting team. They're third in the ACC in three-point percentage at 37%, but they also take the least amount of three-pointers per game in the conference. Virginia doesn't have, like, that alpha. They don't have a guy that they can immediately go to and say, okay, I want to put the ball in your hands late game. We mentioned this last week. They brought in some pretty decent transfers this past offseason. Andrew Rode was the freshman of the year in the Summit League. There's no way to sugarcoat it. He's been a big disappointment, only scoring around four points, just over four points a game this season. The funny thing is, he sees Virginia's fifth-leading scorer on a team. That just goes to show how weak Virginia has been offensively. That defense can be really good, as we've seen it been. Like in the weight game, I was very impressed by their defense. I'm always impressed by Tony Bennett's defense playing at that extremely high level. I think Ryan Dunn is a potential lottery pick for the upcoming NBA Draft, but his offense just has no juice whatsoever. Every time you think about, I don't know, mystery, I watch Syracuse's offense go stale. Then I wonder, at least we have guys that can score half the time. Virginia, they don't really have a guy that they can go to, and that's their main issue. Like Brendan said, I don't really see it getting fixed any time soon. Absolutely. You look at their past two games, they were held under 50 points, which is absolutely abysmal. At this point in the season, it's just very tough to fix things unless you're getting guys back from injury, which right now, that's not the case for Virginia. They're just not a good offensive team. One of the biggest things that I've noticed, a lot of defensive teams, they tend to struggle a little bit on offense somewhat because they're expending so much energy defensively. You see that at all levels of basketball, not just college, but also in the pros, high school. You kind of wonder, is Virginia's style of play, where they're so aggressive on defense, is that hurting them? It really does seem like that could be the case. For Virginia to get things back on track, I just don't see how it's going to happen. You look at their averages, they're second to last in points per game in the ACC. At this point, I think they're going to have to rely on their defense and just try to hope and pray that nobody gets a super hot shooting night like we saw with Chris Bell the other night. If they do that type of game, Virginia's screwed. But if they can contain teams, teams don't have any kind of historic nights against them, I think they'll be okay, but this offense, it's too late to fix it at this point. Two teams, though, that are not on the trajectory that Virginia is, but on a little bit higher trajectory, Duke and Carolina, like they always are at the top of the league. What is their potential moving into March? Are we looking at top of the ACC, top of the country, national championship? What are we thinking? Yeah, I think for these two teams, I think for right now, it's Final Four or a bust. Both teams ranked in the top 10 now a week out from March. Carolina has been struggling, but they're still hanging onto that two-seed line, and Duke is playing some of the best basketball it's really played all year. Since the loss to Carolina, UNC coming off a big win after that loss to Syracuse, and with the history of these two programs and how they've played really all year, I think both their fan bases would be extremely disappointed if they don't make a long run in the NCAA tournament. And like you mentioned, this is just good for the ACC. This is a conference that is better when Duke and Carolina are playing some of the best teams in the nation, and we're kind of slowly building toward a winner-take-all for that ACC regular season crown when Carolina travels to Duke in their last regular season game. So I just hope both teams keep winning so that can come to fruition. Yeah, I think both teams are still really good. Even though Carolina lost to Syracuse and Clemson recently, I haven't really seen my opinion change on them recently. Probably most teams losing in the top 10 this year for me, they lose big, but I still really trust them more than other teams in March. UConn lost by 15 the other night, and I still think that they're the best team in the country. But for these two teams, I still think they're both really good. Duke especially has really started to heat up, especially Jared McCain, who's just been red hot recently shooting from behind the arcs, he was over 40% this season, he had a big game against Florida State where he scored 35 points. I really like how Duke's looked, especially since the freshmen had elevated their play. They don't have to solely rely on Filipowski. Guys like McCain, Mitchell, Proctor have played better as of late. I really like how Duke's structured right now, but do I think they have the juice over Carolina at this point? I don't know, because Carolina's just been the better team all year, but we'll get to see at the end of the year. I think Duke will probably win the second game, but again, I don't really see how that changes my opinion on either team, just really depends on how Duke or Carolina control and win that game. Yeah, both these teams, they have separated themselves as the two best clearly in the ACC. They're atop the standings at one and two. North Carolina, they have the best offense in the entire ACC. Duke has the second best offense, they're both top two in margin as well. So for both these teams, they're getting it done, they both have been strong defensively as well, and so they are headed on a crash course for March 9th, 630, where they're going to battle it out for the ACC title, at least regular season. And as far as past that, I think both teams have high potential. Obviously we saw earlier in the season what North Carolina can be when they were a top five team, and now we're seeing it from Duke where they're starting to heat up. Jared McCain is really starting to make a name for himself. So injuries aside, both of these teams look to be players in March. We know that the ACC always does well in the tournament. These are two teams that I'm watching, and I have Final Four watch on right now. No guarantees for them, but they are both playing very good basketball. Duke is peaking at the right time. North Carolina just has a boatload of talent, and it's going to be exciting to see where they go from here. Moving on to our next topic, Wake Forest put on an absolute show against Pitt. There's two teams that we talked about on the bubble last week, and they're both very even in the margins, but Wake, they drop the hammer on them. Is this it for Pitt, and does this propel Wake then into the tournament? I still think both teams are just kind of still on the fringes, although this does help Wake out a lot more than Pitt. Wake was on a five-game winning streak, they were rolling coming into this game, and to drop a sinker like this is extremely tough, but I still think Pitt's still in it a bit. They just really can't afford another bad loss. I'm looking at the take-on Virginia Tech and the take-on Clemson. You can't lose to Boston College away in early March. That's really the one key game that I see that they cannot lose, but right now I still think Pitt still has a chance. They still have the capabilities, I think, to make a run in the ACC tournament. For Wake Forest, I really think they are a tournament team on paper, but they still, in my eyes, don't have the wins yet. They don't have a signature win really to stamp their place in the tournament right now for me, even though I do think it's a little confusing because I do think they have the ability to make some damage in March. They shot over 50%. They shot 50% from three, 60% from the floor in that game against Pitt, and they have a massive game on Saturday against Duke. We'll talk a little bit about it later, but that's another game. Like I said about the Virginia game, it's a must-win for them to really add on to their resume, really help their chances at the tournament. I don't know if I see much of a path forward for Pitt, but as for Wake, I think they should already be in. It's a team in position to earn a top-four spot in the ACC. Any normal year, most years, that team would already be in, but right now, Lenardi has Wake in his first four out, so I think there definitely is a way for them to sneak in. I just think, kind of like you mentioned, Troy, you just need to pick up one more marquee win to be able to get into the tournament, have a chance against Virginia, let that game slip away by scoring just 47 points against that Virginia defense, but there's going to be more opportunities to earn that win. Mentioned Saturday, game at home against Duke. I don't know if I'd say it's quite a must-win game, but it would certainly help their chances a lot if they could pull that one out, but they'll also have a game against Clemson at home, another potential tournament team, as well as an opportunity or two in the ACC tournament. So I really think that Wake's destiny is in their own hands, and if you win one or two of these big games remaining on your schedule, then I think Wake should earn a ticket into the tournament. Absolutely. I'm right there with you, that Wake is, they now have the inside track into the tournament. I think that there's, on their remaining schedule, they've got five games. There's three that they have to win to avoid any kind of bad losses, and that's Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, and Virginia Tech. If they can take care of those and pick off either Duke or Clemson, to me, that would make them a lock. Obviously, we've seen that Clemson has been vulnerable. Duke, they've been on a heater lately, but you never know, they could always drop one. But for Wake Forest, at this point, I think they just want to avoid the big mistakes. The last thing they need is to have Georgia Tech walk in there and pick off them, but I don't think that's going to happen. Wake has been absolutely incredible this season offensively. You look at their numbers right now, they are the third best offense in the ACC, and they do it with three-point shooting. They fill it up from beyond the arc. They're second there in a three-point percentage, and to me, if they can avoid any kind of bad shooting nights, as long as they stay at least at their average for their shooting, they should be solid. They look like a team that could also, with net numbers, those rely a lot on efficiency. Wake Forest is a team that has thrived there, and so that's going to help them out a lot. And then for Pitt, man, this is a devastating loss. I don't think it crushes them completely out of the tournament, but they don't have a lot of opportunities coming up. They do have a trip to Clemson to kind of get one more big win, but I think for them, they're going to have to stack wins, have a good showing in the ACC tournament, and hope that the committee views them favorably. But definitely a tough loss, 91-58. That is just astounding to see that kind of difference. The good thing for Pitt is that they have been a great defensive team. They've consistently been one of the top four defensive teams in the conference. If they keep doing that, they'll at least have a solid floor and a fighting chance to get into the tournament. Moving on to a little bit of potential off-season talk. We talked earlier in the season about coaches on the hot seat, and there is a coach that has emerged on the hot seat in Raleigh, and that is Kevin Keats. The fans are calling for his job. They're not showing up at the arena. He's starting to lose games. Is Kevin Keats, is his seat hot? Should he be let go? Should he be brought back? What do you think happens with Kevin Keats? I look at his record, and I think that it looks very solid on paper. I think a lot of teams would want a coach like Kevin Keats. That takes a team to two, three tournaments, and an NIT in a seven-year stretch. That's not bad to me, but I do understand why people would want Kevin Keats out, because to put it bluntly, NC State has been extremely mid this season. Their record doesn't look too bad on paper. They're 8-7 in the ACC. They're 16-10, but 8-7 in the ACC is really not that impressive in my eyes, especially this season. NC State doesn't really have a big win on their schedule. They do have a win against Virginia and Wake Forest, and the Disney Crimson, to be fair. That's three decent wins, but you could argue that it hasn't really been because of Kevin Keats being a really good coach. This last game is just really embarrassing to my eyes, because you don't play any defense on Chris Bell in the first half. He shoots eight straight threes and scores 26 points in the first half, which is just ridiculous. There was Bell's last three-point make in that first half, where he just changed it, and nobody was around him, and Kevin Keats has never really been an animated character, but he's been on the court, you've seen it a couple times, in the game in the Dome against Syracuse in this past game, where he's literally almost essentially in the field of play. But Kevin Keats, I don't know, it seems as if the hourglass is slowly, slowly coming down, and I think if NC State moves on from him, then it wouldn't be the end of the world, because I do think there are coaches out there that are ready to take this step up to a Power Five conference this year, but I don't know who, and with Kevin Keats, I can understand why NC State fans would want him out, and I wouldn't blame them. So yeah, I think he is pretty hot. Does he get fired? I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if he does. Yeah, I don't know if I'd say he is hot quite yet, but it's definitely starting to heat up. You know, this is starting to become a trend for Keats the last few years, as the Wolfpack have just not been able to get much going under him. Seven years that he's coached with this team, four 20-win seasons, but just two NCAA tournament appearances, and it doesn't really look like he's going to get one this season. Now, do I think it's all his fault? No. I mean, he doesn't really have the best team around him to compete in the ACC, but NC State should be a consistent powerhouse in the conference, and it's just been a tough recent decade for the Wolfpack. I think sometimes programs can be too quick with the trigger on firing coaches, especially ones that have proven to be able to win games consistently, which kind of makes me slam on the brakes a little bit with the firing talk for Kevin Keats, because while Keats has not accomplished too much significantly, you always kind of have to ask the question, will they be able to find anybody better? You don't just want to fire someone just to fire someone. And so I give him, I think, at least one more year. I don't think this season is necessarily over for NC State. It would be a shock, but they could make a run in the ACC tournament. So I'd say, you know, kind of let's just calm down and let's not overreact. So, you know, what was a pretty bad loss against Syracuse at home? For sure. It's, um, taking a look at the bigger picture, stepping back from this season, you know, Keats has been with this program for seven years. He's put up an overall, you know, record that's been solid, 129 and 89, but it's his time in the ACC that has really frustrated a lot of NC State fans. He's got a losing record in the ACC at 63 and 65, and it's been the lack of major success that we've seen from this program. Only two tournament appearances, both of those were first round exits, hasn't made any noise in the ACC tournament. And then the thing that is definitely bothering a lot of State fans is that he just never seems to be able to keep it even close with teams like Carolina, just gets blown out. And so he's definitely lost the fan base. And the thing that's problematic with that is once you start to lose the fan base, it is very hard to get them back in. And especially in the era of NIO, where you rely on the fans to be able to support that, especially the school like State where there isn't a mega booster, you kind of do it as a big group. A lot of people pitching in small amounts, it's concerning. What could this turn into? Apathy is set in with the fan base. And then you turn around and look at it, zooming in into this season, and it's just been poor roster construction right now. They are a very poor team at the three point line, both shooting the three and guarding the three where they are fourth worst in three point percentage and fourth worst in giving up the three point percentage. So that's been a major concern. It's been what's crippled NC State so far this season. And the sun is set on this season for the Wolfpack. They're running out of opportunities. Obviously they do have Duke and Carolina to get signature wins. That's highly unlikely. They also have Boston College and Pitt coming up. But it's just it's not looking bright for the Wolfpack. There's not much hope going into next season, especially if NIO doesn't pick up. So I think that it's time to make the move. He's given you seven years. He's out of excuses after getting screwed out in the net, a pandemic, injuries. You can go through a lot of excuses, but at some point you have to put up results. And he has failed to do that. So it's time to move on. There are a lot of very impressive coaches out there right now. I'm not going to go into specific names, but there's definitely upgrades to be had for the Wolfpack. Moving on then to another coach who he is definitely on the hot seat, and that is Kenny Payne. He's been the butt of every joke in the ACC. And most recently they lost on Wednesday night to Notre Dame, 72 to 50, a horrible Notre Dame team, and yet they got blown out. Is this the end of the road for the Kenny Payne experiment? Yeah, well, Kevin Keith's seat might not be hot quite yet. Kenny Payne's seat is boiling. Losing by 22 points to Notre Dame is frankly inexcusable. Louisville is by far the worst team in the ACC. If you look at their numbers, they are 12th in scoring offense, 15th last in scoring defense. Just a really brutal, brutal team. In Kenny Payne's two seasons with Louisville, 12 total wins compared to 47 losses. That's just not going to get the job done. At a program like Louisville that has won a national title in the last decade, there's really just no path forward for Kenny Payne and this Louisville team. I don't know how much longer he can hold on to his seat, and if it's even going to last until the end of the season. Yeah, I think it's just time to cut the bait. It's been very bad, but it's also been a very funny time, especially amongst other college basketball fans. But there's so many other coaches, and there's already been names linked to Louisville. There's people on social media that want this one specific coach. I don't know if he would come, but I've seen Nick Cronin's name being thrown around. I've seen Josh Schertz. I think if Louisville decides to cut bait on Kenny Payne, which they should, they have a lot of options to choose from. This used to be a very high-level program, and again, like Brendan said, he won a national championship in the last decade. It wasn't very long ago where Louisville was at one point the level one ranked team in the country. It was only about five years ago where they were ranked at one point number one. This team can get back to those heights if they want to. They're just not in a position to do that as long as Kenny Payne is at the wheel. So if they can get a really established coach, somebody that can just jolt this program back to relevance, they'll be well-respected again. But right now, they're still the laughingstock of college basketball. Yeah, for Kenny Payne, man, it has been a very rough ride. He's quite easily the worst coach in the ACC right now. And it's tough to see a program that, like you mentioned, they won a national championship not too long ago. This to me would be an attractive opening as it's a team that has some history. It's in a solid area. They have a huge basketball arena in the KFC Yum Center. And so there's going to be candidates out there that want this job. They have a solid NIL situation. And so at this point, why would you sit here and stick with a guy who you know is not getting you anywhere? You know that he's not going to take you back to national relevance, much less regional relevance. And so to me, this needs to be the end of the road for Kenny Payne. He needs to be let go. Even if he is, you know, one of them, a cardinal, all that, he has proven that he's a completely incompetent coach. And as of right now, there's just no hope for this local program. It's time to move on for them. So next up, moving on to who's stock is up and who's stock is down. Who do you guys have for this week? Yeah, stock up. I'm looking at a team who I think personally has overpassed UNC for the top spot in the ACC. That's Duke. You know, two big wins this week, one against Florida State on the road, which they handled, you know, fairly comfortably. And then a 30-point just domination on the road against Miami, in which five different players ended the game in double figures. This team is playing, like I said before. I think it's best basketball at the right time. And with that final regular season game at home against UNC, I think they should be the favorite right now to win the regular season ACC title. And as for stock down, I'm going to go with UVA. You know, kind of hate to beat a dead horse, but they had two games this week and they finished both by scoring in the 40s. That's all that needs to be said. That's not going to win you much come March. Even with a win against a good weight team, I'm still not impressed. I think I'm more down on the calves right now than I really have been all year. Yeah, I'm going to go with Virginia Tech. You know, they're kind of really the epitome of mid. There's a reason why we don't really talk about them that much on this podcast, and it's that they simply haven't really been impressive. They haven't been bad, but they haven't stood out enough to say that, hey, it's worth talking about this team. They just beat their biggest rival in Virginia by 34 at home. A really impressive shooting performance, a really impressive performance just all around. They have a lot of well-rounded guys, Raleigh Barron, Lynn Kidd. I like their backcourt of Couture and Padula. They're not a bad team overall, but it's a decent team that I think could make some damage if they want. Remember, they did win the ACC tournament as the 7th seed a couple of years ago. Right now, I'm trending in the right direction for them. I think Mike Down is a good coach. I think they can be a good team when they want to be. They always turn it up when they need to, but you know, they're pretty mid otherwise. But I do think their stock is up right now. And as for Stock Down, as I mentioned, NT State was not very impressed by their performance against Syracuse. Really disappointing, even with the kind of coming back in the second half. There's just not a lot of cohesion in the team. I think, as Noah said, Keats has kind of lost the fan base and there's just not a lot of good things going on at NT State, even though I do think the players, personally, have. It's not terrible, but again, as Noah said, it's a really bad roster construction. So NT State is really on a downturn, and if they want a little jolt back in their program, I do think a move needs to be made in the offseason, whether or not they fire Keats or they just really need to invest into the transfer portal a lot more. Absolutely. Send all that Wolfpack stock to Goodwill, because it is not going to be any good for this season. For me, my stock-up team is the Wake Forest team and Deakins. Obviously, we talked about their huge win over Pitts. Before that, they had a couple close losses to Duke and Virginia. Very tough stretch there. Both were on the road. But before that, they were on a bit of a winning streak. They had won three in a row. For me, Wake Forest is a team that, if they can get hot at the right time, they can beat anybody. We saw, obviously, they lost earlier to North Carolina, but they really hung around in that first half, and they showed what they can be. For Wake, it's just going to be how well can they shoot the ball, and how much can they get defensively. I feel very confident in this Wake team moving forward. They have a lot of great players offensively, especially starting with Hunter Salas. He's going to have to put this team on his back, though, and lead them through some more tough games, starting with a rematch against Duke. But I'm very excited to see where this Wake Forest team goes. And then, for stock-down, it is the Miami Hurricanes, who have been in complete freefall lately. They've lost five in a row. That streak started with a humiliating 60-38 point loss. Any time you only score 38 points, that's more than concerning right there. And then, since then, they have been losing. It's been a tough stretch, but they couldn't even hang around with Boston College. Most recently, they got blown out at home by Duke by almost 30 points. And for the Canes, it's definitely a tough season following that Final Four run. But they have really struggled. It's been a weird season for them, because their metrics are not bad. They're actually pretty good offensively, for the most part, except when they played the Cavs. But defensively, they have started to struggle. Those ratings are falling worse and worse. They've dropped down to 10th in the conference. And as far as their spot in the standings, they are now at 12th, which, for a team that thought it was a lock at the beginning of the season to go to the tournament, that couldn't make another run, it's looking like that is a worse and worse thought by the day. The loss of Isaiah Wong has been huge for them, and down the stretch, it's not going to get much easier. They still have to play Carolina. They have to go to Tallahassee to play Florida State still, so I am selling all my stock that I would have had in Miami. Next up, our best performances of the week, who do y'all have? Yeah, give me Jared McCain against Florida State. His stat line in this game is just ridiculous, especially considering the fact that this dude is a freshman, and some people seem to forget, 35 points, matching the Duke freshman scoring record that was held by, I believe, Zion Williamson, made 8 threes, went 8-for-11, which also set a new Duke freshman record, kind of just put on an all-around clinic against the Seminoles, especially in the first half. By far the best game of his Duke career, and possibly the best game we've seen all season in the ACC. I'm going to go with Quadier Copeland. You know, he hit the game winning three at the Buzzer against Miami earlier this year. He was an ACC player of the week once, and in this game against NC State, he scored 25 points, 10 of 13 from the floor. He really saved Syracuse at the end of that game when NC State was still on the run. Quadier Copeland was really hustling, made a couple of tough layups, of course hit the game, go ahead three throws at the end of the game to put Syracuse in front. Copeland's been, Copeland's really turned it up when he needed to in big games coming off the bench for the Orange, and this might be a hot take for now, but I really do think Copeland makes the step up to around a 13 point per game score next season if Syracuse wants to give him the opportunity to start, which right now, looking at the Syracuse roster, I don't, for next season at least, I don't see why you don't give Quadier Copeland a chance to start, especially with this really impressive performance at the end, he hustles for every ball, he goes, he attacks the rim really well, in really funky ways, but still attacks it extremely well. I do think this, I do think he makes a big, I do think a game like this makes you think that, I think that he can make a big step up next season if he's given the opportunity, so I really liked his performance this week, I think Syracuse doesn't win that game without his production. I'm going to stick with the theme of the Syracuse Orange and go with Chris Bell who has one of the best halves for a college basketball player that I have ever seen in the first half alone, he made eight straight three-pointers against the Wolfpack, and that resulted in 26 points along with his other points that he had in that one. What an incredible shooting performance, this is the type of thing that you would expect to see from Steph Curry, Sabrina Inesco, players like that who are absolutely the world's best shooters, and yet Chris Bell, every time he would just run down the court, boop, perfect shot, incredible performance by Chris Bell, and the efficiency was, that was what really stuck out to me, obviously a lot of those were wide open, but you have to give him credit for finding the open spots, and then making the shots, as a player is stacking up those shots, always making them, it's in the back of your head, oh man I gotta keep the streak alive, and he just consistently kept that going, what an incredible performance by him, that might have been the best half of basketball in anybody in the ACC this season, have yourself a day Chris Bell, and to do it on the road is even more impressive, finally moving on to games to watch for this upcoming week, what are the marquee match-ups in the ACC this week? Yeah, I'm looking at UNC versus Virginia, and I know we spent a lot of time of this episode kind of dragging on the calves, this will still be a battle between two of the top three teams in the conference, Charlottesville is always a difficult place to play, I was shocked to see UNC hasn't won on the road against Virginia since 2012, so over a decade, anytime you get the oldest rivalry in the south in college basketball, it's going to be a good game, I expect UNC to pull out the win, but I'm very hesitant to say that, one thing I am confident to say, this will be a low scoring affair, boring basketball, first team to hit 50 will probably be the one to pull out the win this month. Yeah I'm going to go with the Duke-Wake Forest game this Saturday at Wake Forest again, thinking about it, I still do think this is a big game for Wake, they need to win this game to really add on to their resume, if they beat Clemson later in the year that would be nice, but beating a top 10 team in Duke, one of the second best teams in the ACC this year, would just really hammer the point that yes, they are a tournament team, they should be in the last 4 in and not the first 4 out, but really I just want to touch on that, really any game in the ACC involving a team like Wake, Pitt, NC State, Syracuse, teams that are on the bubble, kind of not on the bubble, it's big games for them, Syracuse could easily lose to Notre Dame at home on Jim Boeheim day if they want to, but NC State has a big home game against Boston College, I know they're kind of out of it, but still, they're still kind of in it, if you know what I mean, Pitt has host Virginia Tech, go to St. John LeRoy at Clemson, just mentioned a couple games on Saturday, just any game that involves a team that's really on the fringes or off the bubble or not, this is a big weekend for a lot of those teams, just need to keep on winning, because there's just not a lot of opportunities, you can't afford to drop games like losing to Boston College or Georgia Tech like Syracuse did last weekend, these are big games for bubble teams, they just really need to take advantage and hammer the point and just stay alive. Absolutely, both those are going to be incredible games, for me it's a Tuesday night matchup with the Pittsburgh Panthers coming to Clemson, South Carolina to take on the Tigers, these are two teams that are looking to have bounce back weeks, obviously Clemson had that humiliating loss to NC State, and then Pitt had whatever happened against Wake Forest, so both of them want to start fresh this week and have better weeks for the Tigers in this one, they have home field advantage, or home court advantage, and so I would expect them to win, obviously they have one of the country's best bigs in PJ Hall, it's going to be tough for Pitt to stop him, but if there's a team that can do that, it is Pitt, Pitt has been excellent defensively all season long, outside the weight game, but they are a team that is going to be desperate, their tournament hopes are on the line here, with a loss I think you can not eliminate them, but just about eliminate them, this is a must win for the Panthers, you know that Blake Henson will show up and put on a show, he has been there in the biggest moments such as when they went in and won in Cameron Indoor, so for the Panthers this is going to be a crucially important game, I do think that Pitt does win this game because it's one of those where they have to win it, they need this win, they're going to be hungry in this one, and so give me the Pittsburgh Panthers, but both teams are going to lay it out on the line, and it should be an excellent battle between two pretty good teams in the top half of the ACC, that will about wrap it up for us, as all these teams are headed down the stretch, it's going to be an incredible finish for ACC basketball, and we will be back again next week.
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