Weekend Review - ACC Jan 10th

The salvo Georgia Tech fired across Duke's bow Saturday has to resonate leaguewide.  The message?  The ACC is more wide open than it has been in a decade.  Duke loses their road opener and North Carolina has looked incredibly vulnerable in the young season.  I wrote several weeks ago that #3 through #11 this league was as jumbled as any.  Perhaps it should be ammended to #1-#12; i.e. top to bottom.

Clemson handled their homecourt with ease, downing Boston College 72-56.  The win was a nice bounce back for the Tigers after their opening loss in Cameron.  The game of the day was Miami defeating Wake Forest 77-76 at home.  Both teams look like NCAA Tournament teams to me, though there is still a long way to go in a brutal conference slate.  Miami, unranked as of yesterday, is off to a 15-1 start.  Might it be view the Canes as legitimate conference title challengers?

The ACC has long played some of their finer confernce games on Sunday night.  While most people were watching the NFL, Maryland got a huge win, 77-68 over Florida State.  It seems the Terps are annually on the bubble and the non-conference performance leads you to believe it might be more of the same in 2010.  Conference wins will be huge, and it is important to win at home if you want to dance in March.

Carolina pulled away late and got a got win over a better than advertised Virginia Tech ballclub, 78-64.  And speaking of bubble, Seth Greenburg's Hokies are annual staddlers as well.  With Miami and FSU up next, they can ill-afford a 0-3 conference start and will need to knock off one of them.

Lastly, hats off to Virginia.  The Cavs were largely picked last in the preseason but won their opener 70-62 over NC State, on the road no less.  Let's not get hasty booking tourney plans, but it seems that all 12 teams will be capable of winning, and losing, on any night.

Team Up:  Virginia, Maryland, Miami
Team Down:  Boston College, NC State

Week ahead highlights:  Maryland @ Wake (Tues), UNC @ Clemson (Wed), GA Tech @ UNC & VA Tech @ FSU (Sat), Wake @ Duke (Sun)

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