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ACC Roundup - UNC Heads Over To Raleigh

WINSTON SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA - JANUARY 04: Dontrez Styles #3 of the North Carolina State Wolfpack drives to the basket during the first half of a basketball game against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum on January 04, 2025 in Winston Salem, North Carolina. | Photo by David Jensen/Getty Images

And State is hoping for a second straight win

In Saturday’s ACC Action, Louisville visits Pitt, Florida State goes up to Clemson, Syracuse checks in at BC, Georgia Tech ponies up at SMU, Virginia tries to tree Stanford, UNC heads over to non-rival NC State, Wake jets down to Miami and the Hokies see if they bear a visit to Cal.

The most interesting games Saturday, to us anyway, look to be these: Louisville-Pitt, Florida State-Clemson and UNC-NC State.

Ian Jackson stirred the pot this week with some mildly dismissive comments about the Pack and that rivalry. UNC fans and occasionally some Tar Heel players, don’t take the rivalry seriously.

That’s so not the case in Raleigh. Duke and UNC don’t like each other necessarily, but there is a healthy respect.

The State camp hates Carolina. During the academic scandal, it was State fans who discovered Julius Pepper’s transcripts, left wide open on line with no index file to block prying eyes. It was State fans who sussed out Michael McAdoo’s plagiarism, thus tanking his lawsuit against the NCAA.

Those Wuffies work at their hatred. And now Carolina is giving them the little brother treatment.

We’ll say this: the Pack isn’t always great, but when things click, the defense, especially against backcourts, can be just brutal.

UNC has shown signs of life, but still. You don’t want to give your enemies ammunition.

We’re really impressed with the improvement at Louisville. They still have some issues, notably three point shooting, but Pat Kelsey has an argument for ACC Coach of the Year. The Cardinals are 11-5 overall and 4-1 in the ACC, which has them tied for second place with Clemson.

Pitt is a better team than we saw at Duke Tuesday. Louisville will need to counter the homecourt advantage and, most likely, a better three point shooting performance. If they can do it though, they’ll keep at least a share of second place.

Florida State has won four of its last five games and are now 11-4 overall and 2-2 in the ACC. Clemson has been sort of up and down but we’d take the Tigers here. However, it Louisville wins and Clemson loses, things will get interesting.

Normally we’d take Syracuse at BC but the Orange haven’t been very good. Just 7-8 in Adrian Autry’s second season, injuries have played a role, but even so, the ‘Cuse has struggled. We admire the heart of BC’s program. Earl Grant has had trouble getting really talented players but they always play hard. You have to admire that.

Not to wish ill on anyone, but Syracuse fans aren’t used to coaching changes. At what point do they get frustrated?

SMU has lost two straight but should be favored here. We’re wary of Tech though. We don’t think Baye Ndongo has completely figured out how to play away from the basket but if they can make it work with young Mutombo in the post, they could be much, much better

Damon Stoudamire has some talent but SMU seems due.

Virginia’s issue remains the same: the offense isn’t designed to be the focus but the defense can’t do what it used to do. So they’re losing a lot. Our guess is that they lose again at Stanford. And Duke fans know that Jaylen Blakes is a ferocious defender. He’ll shut someone down.

Miami is in hell basically and we don’t think they have the size, much less the defense, to stop Wake Forest. It’s going to be a long season in Coral Gables.

Finally, we haven’t seen enough from Virginia Tech to have confidence in them, so we’ll go with Cal here.

Saturday’s ACC Action