A brief summary of NC State’s ACC season so far – Oh my God! We suck and Herb sucks and we’re going to miss the tournam … oh wait, nevermind. Everything’s cool.
The Wolfpack’s win over an apparently disinterested Georgia Tech squad put them back on track for the most part. You wouldn’t really expect them to sweep Duke and Tech at home, so they are OK. On the other hand, now it’s the Yellow Jackets’ fans turn to ask what’s wrong. That’s the way it’s going to be all season. There are a lot of good teams in the ACC and almost all of them are going to have some stretches where they lose a tough game or two (or more) in a row.

There was one point last night where it did appear that the Pack season might implode. Tech had whittled the lead from 15 to 3 in about two minutes. State looked rattled, but Ilian Evtimov hit a HUGE three-pointer. Disaster averted. That shot was ice and may prove to be the biggest shot of the season for the Wolfpack. Lose that game after leading the whole way and their confidence might have been shot beyond repair.
State’s next four games are against Virginia Tech, Maryland, Florida State and Clemson. Time to make a move.
This weekend’s Game Of The Century
Wake was very impressive in dispatching Carolina in the big game of the weekend. The first half was a different style than I expected, with a lot of bruising frontcourt play, but things opened up a bit in the second half. The big subplot of the game was Chris Paul outplaying Raymond Felton. I was in the Felton-is-better camp until Saturday. I really liked the way Paul stepped up and hit big shots to derail several Tar Heel attempts to get back in it. While one game shouldn’t determine which player is better, I’m gonna let it in this case because they are so close in my mind.
By the way, I’ve never seen a player get so mad when the refs correctly call a foul on his behalf than McCants did in the second half. I was very confused and thought that they had called it against him, fouling him out, until he stepped to the line for his free throws. Think he was a bit frustrated by his afternoon? In his defense, he scored 19 points in limited, foul-hindered minutes.
I think the Wake and State victories were good for the conference. The top four ACC teams were showing signs of running away from the pack (no pun intended) and Carolina was stepping away from the other three in that top group. Those wins erased those perceptions. The conference does have depth.
Hokie Hi
Congrats to the Hokies for their first conference win. A home win over Clemson is one of those rights of passage in the ACC. In all honesty, winning a game with a steal and breakaway dunk is about as cool a manner as you can do it. Too bad no one saw it, because, you know, it was a Clemson – Virginia Tech game.
A few random thoughts:
– Engin Atsur is not the kind of player you normally think of as a defensive stopper. He’s not particularly quick, he’s a jump shooter and he’s European, but he played some great D this past week, shutting down JJ Redick on Thursday and Jarrett Jack (with some help) on Sunday. An impressive week for the young Turk.
– After watching him play a few games, I’ve wondered what happened to Ilian Evtimov’s patented drive. Last year, he would plant his left arm in his defender’s chest and drive all the way to the hoop, holding his man off the entire way. He never got called for it, for some reason. Now I know what happened. He sold it to JJ Redick on eBay.
– If Lee Melchionni continues to sprint around the court, hugging and jumping on teammates after every and-one or to help them up when they’ve fallen, he’ll quickly rise the charts of most-hated-Devils. He’s nowhere near the Wojciechowski, Collins, Hurley level yet, but he’s right there with Greg Newton.
– You know how it’s said that great players make the difficult look simple? Julius Hodge isn’t quite great (but he’s very good), but somehow he manages to make everything look difficult.
– Daniel Ewing may be the most under-appreciated player in the league. He does everything for Duke this year. He runs the offense, brings the ball up the court, scores and plays great defense. I think he’s more valuable to that team than JJ Redick.
– If archaeologists a million years from now were to dig up the skulls of Sheldon Williams and Jarrett Jack, they’d think we were some race of super foreheads.
– Virginia’s Sean Singletary is an extremely talented young point guard, but he has no idea how to play a structured game. He looks like he’s played on a playground his whole life. He can make the beautiful, difficult passes and shots, but can’t execute a basic chest pass or hit an open jumper.
– Woody Durham’s getting old. I heard him call a play this way in Saturday’s game – “And the ball goes out of bounds off Williams … for Wake.” So, I’m thinking, did the ball go off of Eric Williams who plays for Wake? Or did it go off of Jawad (or maybe Marvin) Williams and the possession is now Wake’s?
– Yoni points out (via the ACC Hoops blog) that Wake’s 32 made free throws without a miss was pretty unlikely. In fact, the odds of Wake, a 65% shooting team hitting 32 in a row is 0.000103%. Reminds me of Ken Pomeroy’s post about Kansas missing all of those free throws in the Final Four a couple of years ago.