ACC Roundup - Virginia Done In By the Dons

And most people figured they wouldn’t have a prayer

The pandemic is a terrible blight on the world, but it looks like it will make college basketball even more unpredictable. Just look at Friday’s action.

Syracuse beat Bryant by just one, 85-84. Louisville nipped Seton Hall by one as well. Georgia Tech lost its second straight, Wake Forest won its second straight, NC State has a dominant defense and Virginia lost to San Francisco.

This is not the San Francisco of yore. There is no Bill Russell, no KC Jones. There’s not even a Bill Cartwright.

And this is impressive: San Francisco’s coach, Todd Golden, really is looking pretty golden. He was 22-12 in his first season as a head coach and knocked off Virginia in an early-season game the Dons had no business winning.

Not only that, San Francisco ripped off an 8-0 run against Tony Bennett’s defense near the end of the game.

Who does that to the Cavaliers these days? Pretty amazing.

Despite the early excitement over Virginia’s improved offense, the ‘Hoos hit 3-12 from deep to San Francisco’s 13-28. Who saw that coming?

We’ll always wonder about the last shot in this game. No one could have defended Jay Huff on the last three but he gave it up to Sam Hauser instead. Among other things, Virginia might have gotten a follow-up shot if he had shot it sooner than Hauser did.

This game was agreed to just four days ago as teams improvise their schedules due to Covid, incidentally.

Syracuse just did survive Bryant - Bryant! - by one point.

However, with head coach Jim Boeheim testing positive, Syracuse had only practiced once in the last 12 days so that’s less surprising. He’s less than thrilled about the situation, saying the decision to play was “100 percent my fault...The medical doctors make (the decision) that they’re healthy to play. I make the decision on whether it’s smart to play the game. When you don’t play for 14 days, it’s not smart.”

Live and learn.

Seton Hall is pretty tough so there would have been no shame in an inexperienced Louisville team losing this one. It’s just maturation and dealing with all the eccentricities of this season.

North Florida is no great shakes but consider this: State held the Ospreys to 38 percent from the floor and forced 19 turnovers. Add that to an astronomical 32 turnovers in the opener against Charleston Southern and State’s forcing 25.5 turnovers in its first two games. Better keep an eye on that.

Wake Forest is 2-0 to get the Steve Forbes era off to an encouraging start. It’s worth remembering that the opponents so far have been Delaware State and Longwood which is not exactly Murderer’s Row. However, Danny Manning’s teams had a consistent lack of focus and an inability to close out even relatively easy wins. Forbes seems to have much more of a competitive desire and a corresponding ability to transfer that to his players. Can that continue? Too early to tell. We’ll see in ACC season.

Finally, Georgia Tech fell to 0-2 with a loss to Mercer as Josh Pastner’s team failed to defend.

The one thing he’s done well at Tech is to defend but not this time: Mercer hit 12-25 from outside despite it being an emphasis.

Part of it, Pastner said, was that his young big men haven’t been able to pick up where James Wiseman left off as a defender. And part of the reason, he says, is because of two weeks of non-contact practice.

You think?

We understand why he did it but it’s put Tech well behind where it should be.

Speaking of poor decisions, as far as we’ve seen Pastner is the only coach who has worn a face shield as opposed to a face mask.

While we can believe that there are some advantages - the players can see your face, which must be frustrating for coaches who don’t wear one - it looks ridiculous.

Even so, it probably beats Mercer coach Greg Gary. If you look at the picture in this article, he’s wearing his mask on his chin, with both his nose and mouth free.

It just makes the mask kind of pointless.

On Saturday, Drexel travels to Pitt for a second local rival, Notre Dame gets a marquee opponent in Michigan State and Virginia Tech gets an improvised game - and a major opportunity - against Villanova.

Both teams were in the Mohegan bubble and figured well, we’re here, life is crazy, so let’s get one in.

That’s exactly what Virginia did and you saw how that worked out for them It could be a program-defining win for Mike Young’s team.

• Louisville Basketball Notebook: Cards 2-0 after Seton Hall win
• Mercer basketball beats Georgia Tech in Atlanta, 83-73
• Longwood vs. Wake Forest Condensed Game | 2020-21 ACC ...
• NC State basketball: Wolfpack defense forcing turnovers
• Florida-FSU women’s basketball game postponed
• Louisville basketball: 3 takeaways from victory over Seton Hall
• Jericole Hellems leads NC State basketball to easy win
• NC State battles North Florida in basketball action
• Boeheim calls decision to play Bryant ‘foolish,’ wants more reasonable Covid quarantines
• SU plays wild, but eerie, game in empty Carrier Dome
• SU barely survives Bryant’s upset bid
• Virginia stumbles against unheralded San Francisco, falls in massive upset in Bubbleville
• San Francisco upsets No. 4 Virginia in men’s basketball
• Virginia Tech excited to play No. 3 Villanova on Saturday