Thursday’s ACC Action went about as you might have expected: Virginia Tech handled ODU, 75-71, Georgia Tech handled Northern Illinois, 68-50, and Pitt lost to VCU 71-67.
Pitt might have done better if big man John Hugley had played, but he didn’t dress out. He did play against Michigan Tuesday (by the way, in an echo of the 1990’s Bobby Hurley’s Arizona State team knocked off Juwan Howard’s Michigan team Thursday, 87-62).
The Panthers were in pretty good shape late but couldn’t hold the lead in crunch time, making some unfortunate turnovers.
Still, coach Jeff Capel found a lot of positives: “I’m proud of my team. As crazy as that sounds, it’s not crazy to me. I think we got better in Brooklyn. I think we found out a lot about ourselves. I loved the way we fought today. I love how connected we were. It’s just unfortunate that we weren’t able to make some plays down the stretch. We had a couple of costly turnovers and they made us pay for them.”
The final score in the Virginia Tech-ODU game doesn’t reflect how dominant the Hokies wer for most of it. Virginia Tech was up 39-25 at the half. They had a nine point lead with 2:22 left.
The game was never seriously in doubt but ODU made a nice run late. Virginia Tech is too talented and too well coached to blow this one.
Keep an eye on Sean Pedulla; the sophomore guard is off to a great start. He had 18 here and he’s averaging 20.
Mike Young mixed up his starting lineup a bit, starting Lynn Kidd in place of Grant Basile. Nothing huge but an interesting early season tweak.
The Yellow Jackets moved to 3-0 as Georgia Tech took out Northern Illinois, 68-50 as the Huskies had a dreadful shooting night, hitting 20.8 percent on threes and 26.9 overall.
Some of that is down to Georgia Tech but some of it is down to the Huskies being just 1-3 and not exactly against rugged competition.
Ja’von Franklin had 14 points and 11 boards to pace Georgia Tech.
We’ll find out more about Tech soon: they play Utah on Monday and Iowa is coming up too.
In a bit of good news for NC State, Kevin Keatts got a commitment from Trey Parker. Seen as a three-star, Parker plays for Overtime Elite.
The best ACC game Friday is Virginia vs. Baylor. That could be really, really good and possibly low scoring too: both teams really get after it.
Florida vs. Florida State also has the potential to be interesting given FSU’s struggles to date. Also, keep an eye on Bellarmine at Clemson since the Knights will be in Cameron in a few days.
Friday’s ACC Action
- Penn State vs. Virginia Tech || 12:00 || ESPN2
- LaSalle vs. Wake Forest || 2:00 || CBSSN
- Virginia vs. Baylor || 7:00 || ESPN2
- Delaware vs. Duke || 7:00 || ACCNX
- Lipscomb vs. Notre Dame || 7:00 || ESPN+/ACCNX
- Bellarmine vs. Clemson || 7:00 || ESPN+/ACCNX
- Florida vs. Florida State || 8:00 || ACCN
- BC vs. George Mason || 8:00 || ESPN3
