While everyone was talking up deflated balls, depressing commercials, and maybe a football game, there was still plenty of exciting basketball to be seen in the ACC. It was the week where the barrier between the top seven and the bottom eight was shattered, and the week Virginia’s perfect season gained a blemish.
1 – Virginia: Their undefeated run is over, but it took an unbelievable effort from Duke to close their Saturday matchup. How well the Devils had to play to win the game shows how good this Virginia team is.
2 – Duke: The Blue Devils showed great resolve in beating Virginia after the dismissal of Rasheed Sulaimon. Now they must prove they can continue to play well with their shorter lineup.
3 – Notre Dame: The Irish’s loss to Pittsburgh wasn’t a great look, but it came close to looking even worse thanks to the Panthers’ misadventures with Bryant last night.
4 – Louisville: It was a good week for Louisville basketball, and a bad week for Louisville football relations with South Carolina high schools.
5 – North Carolina: For the third time in five weekends, UNC played a Saturday-Monday double. For the second time, it led to a Monday loss to a ranked team.
6 – Clemson: Welcome to the top seven, Tigers! It was an impenetrable group for most of the season, but last week’s wacky results (including the Tigers’ road victory over NC State) shook up the conference hierarchy.
7 – NC State: Thanks to Trevor Lacey’s buzzer-bearter, NC State avoided the ignominy of losing to Georgia Tech and Clemson in the same week.
8 – Florida State: The Seminoles are putting together a nice little winning streak, just in time for students in Tallahassee to forget basketball exists once Dick Howser Stadium opens up for the season.
9 – Syracuse: There are eight-day old babies who have never seen a Syracuse basketball game.
10 – Miami: A truly brutal week for the Hurricanes. Losing to Georgia Tech was embarrassing. Losing to rival Florida State was painful.
11 – Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh escaped with a victory against … Bryant? Like, Dez Bryant, right? Bear Bryant? Not just … Bryant?
12 – Wake Forest: With the way Wake and VT have been playing, you knew their game Saturday would be a tight one. If only because that was the only way one of the two teams would suffer another painfully close loss.
13 – Virginia Tech: While others have offered sympathies to the likes of UNC and Duke for their newfound “depth issues,” Virginia Tech fans are all like, “You have eight guys? That sounds pretty cool.”
14 – Boston College: If your college team loses 64-49 to Clemson the day before your pro football team wins the Super Bowl, did it really happen?
15 – Georgia Tech: Georgia Tech won an ACC game! It’s probably not going to save Brian Gregory. But they won an ACC game!
Until next week, peace, love, and #goacc.
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