ACC/SEC Challenge: Tuesday Review And Wednesday’s Picks

What a disaster Tuesday was.

As we expected, Tuesday was pretty bad for the ACC in the ACC/SEC Challenge, with only Clemson winning. That was pretty cool though because if you could beat one SEC team, it’d probably be Kentucky. We’ve never pulled harder for the Tigers and we’re guessing most ACC fans were really happy for Clemson.

Otherwise though, it was a catastrophe for the ACC because everyone else lost. Tennessee clobbered Syracuse 96-70, Oklahoma smoked Georgia Tech 76-61, Texas A&M hammered Wake Forest 57-44, Ole Miss crushed Louisville 86-63, Arkansas slipped by Miami 76-73, Georgia ripped Notre Dame 69-48, a game Cal fell at Missouri 98-93, South Carolina walloped BC 73-51 and LSU took care of Florida State 85-75.

Miami nearly shocked John Calipari’s Arkansas team but couldn’t hang on. Louisville, Notre Dame and Syracuse should get some slack due to injuries. We didn’t realize that Louisville lost so many players to injury. Kasean Pryor blew out an ACL against Oklahoma in the Battle 4 Atlantis and Aboubacar Traore and Koren Johnson are both out as well. Traore has a broken arm and Johnson has a shoulder injury.

As for Notre Dame, they are missing Markus Burton and that’s huge. That guy is really good.

And Syracuse got word Tuesday afternoon that JJ Starling is out “indefinitely” with a hand injury.

Otherwise though, just about everyone got crushed. It was not a good night for the ACC.

Hopefully Wednesday will be better, but the Challenge is already settled: the SEC wins this year.

On to Night Two. Here are Wednesday’s ACC/SEC Challenge games:

• Alabama @ UNC
• Virginia @ Florida
• Auburn @ Duke
• Pitt @ Mississippi State
• Texas @ NC State
• Vanderbilt @ Virginia Tech

As Barry points out, it’s pretty interesting that SEC rivals Alabama and Auburn are in the Triangle to face ACC rivals UNC and Duke. As far as we know, it’s also unprecedented for two SEC teams to come to the Triangle and possibly both be favorites. Gambling is not our bailiwick but the odds are always interesting.

Defending the homecourt is going to be interesting in both cases. In the old days, Dean Smith would take away Alabama’s three point game, lock down the inside and control the boards and Bob’s Your Uncle, UNC wins. We’re not as sure now. We’ll take UNC because it’s in Chapel Hill, but they can’t afford another slow start, and the bigs will have to play as well as the guards have been. Okay, not as well, but the guards can’t carry the team forever.

We’ll deal with Duke separately as usual.

Virginia looks pretty anemic in the post-Tony Bennett era. Florida is a solid team and appears to be getting through the Todd Golden issues okay, at least so far. And whatever the truth is off the court, on the court he has better talent, and apparently better skills, than Ron Sanchez. We’d be surprised if Virginia won.

Speaking of probably flawed people, Mississippi State is coached by Chris Jans, who has a rather significant skeleton in his closet as well: he was fired at Bowling Green for his behavior at a bar and how he dealt with women there.

Between Golden, Jans and Ole Miss’s Chris Beard, the SEC has some issues.

However, Jans is a solid basketball coach. But Pitt is well coached too and we think the Panthers are likely to win here. This should be a fun, fast-paced game.

NC State and Texas is an interesting game. Texas is a capable team but at its best, State’s defense can be strangling. And we’re not really sold on Rodney Terry as the Longhorns coach. He’s been the head coach at Fresno State and UTEP and his record at both was middling. Granted, Texas is a bigger platform. His first year was transitional but last year was all his now. He’s averaging 21.5 wins per year at UT. Texas lost to Ohio State in its opener and barely squeaked by Syracuse about 10 days ago.

Two familiar names: former Virginia big man Kadin Shedrick is finishing up there. He’s putting up 10.9 ppg and getting almost six boards. And Arthur Kaluma, who came out of high school with a big reputation, is there as well.

You don’t want to rule out Virginia Tech at home, and Vandy is still transitioning out of the Jerry Stackhouse era, but the Commodores are 7-1 so far. However, the only decent team they’ve played is Drake and they lost that one 81-70.

Incidentally, Drake is now coached by Ben McCollum who was on a Woodenesque run at D-II Northwest Missouri State. It’s early, but so far he’s undefeated at Drake, but other than Vandy and a weak Miami, they haven’t really played anyone yet.

We’’ll take Virginia Tech and hope the Cassell crowd can lift them a bit.