In lieu of your ACC Sunday Night Hoops, here is your ACC Sunday Night Recap with news & notes from ACC basketball over the weekend.
- First an article on Virginia Basketball which includes an injury update on Mike Scott. If you missed it, Scott missed Virginia's win over Oregon.
“His return time, it’s all about how quickly the swelling gets out and how functional he can be,” Bennett said. “ I’m hoping it’s not too long, but a lot depends on the next week how much swelling comes out of it.”
- UNC had a tough loss this past weekend against Texas, but loss or not, the Heels have started to look like a team that will battle for 2nd in the ACC. Harrison Barnes is becoming less of a story as he is starting to hit shots. It seems like the Heels are starting to better understand roles, and personally I think that's a big part to finding consistency with a young team.
- Speaking of teams that are going to compete for 2nd, Virginia Tech blitzed Mississippi State by 30+ on Saturday. The Hokies showed their full potential in the win and appear to be trending upward as conference play approaches. One big thing to watch is offensive scoring balance for the Hokies. In the Mississippi State win, Virginia Tech had 7 players score between 17 and 6 points, meaning it wasn't just the Malcolm Delaney show.
- FSU went on the road and won out west against Loyola Marymount. I got a chance to see John Kreft for the first time and came away impressed with the post moves of the big guy. Hamilton has said that Kreft is their best offensively skilled big man, and it showed in the win. Between Kreft, Xavier Gibson, and Bernard James, FSU has the most talented group of big men in the ACC. The problem that I've seen is that FSU simply doesn't get the ball to their big men enough.
- Just like Virginia played without their best player, Clemson defeated UNCG today without Demontez Stitt. Stitt had surgery on December 13th and was expected to miss 2 weeks. Without Stitt, Andre Young stepped up and scored 22 points and Jerai Grant scored 19 pts and added 13 rebounds.
- Another game for the pack without Tracy Smith, another missed opportunity at a quality out of conference win. Arizona defeated NC State 72-62 simply because Zona put the ball in the basket and the Wolfpack couldn't. Arizona nearly doubled up NC State's eFG% at 64 to 33. Outside of Scott Wood, Lorenzo Brown, and Richard Howell who shot 15-28, the rest of the NC State roster was just 6-38 from the floor. That's not good.
- Just in case you are missing hearing about Kyrie Irving's toe, check out SaveKyriesToe.com
