2/16/07

The 2006-07 academic year is looking like a banner one for the top conferences in the two big money sports. In football, the SEC had a dominant season, capped off by huge wins for LSU in the Sugar Bowl and Florida in the BCS title game. In basketball, the power conference is the ACC, and with March Madness fast approaching, the ACC looks like it will dominate the 65 team NCAA tournament field.

In my last post, I wrote that Maryland's 12 point win over Duke would probably lead to a very good stretch for Maryland, who always seem to carry over their performances against the Blue Devils through their next stretch of games. And indeed, it looked that way as the Terps cruised to a 15 point win at NC State Wednesday night. Duke also looked good Wednesday night, dominating Boston College in Boston and playing themselves right back into the tourney (as if the selection committee would ever skip over an even somewhat deserving Duke team, come on...). The ACC now has 9 teams knocking at the door of a 20-win season. UNC already has 22, Duke, Clemson, and Maryland all have 19, BC and Virginia Tech have 18, and Virginia, Gerogia Tech, and Florida State have 17 apiece. How many wins guarantees a spot in the field of 65 is uncertain, but they'll have a hard time passing on any 20-win squad coming out of this conference, even if that means 8 or even 9 berths.

This weekend all 12 ACC teams will be involved in intraconference action, with 5 of the 6 match-ups having possible NCAA ramifications. On Saturday afternoon, Florida State (17-9, 5-7) will head to Virginia (17-7, 8-3) in a game full of implications for both teams, especially the Noles, who would do well to even that conference record up by the time the tourney starts. Later that night, the weekend's marquee match-up will feature Boston College (18-7, 9-3) hosting North Carolina (22-4, 8-3); both of these two teams are tourney locks at this point, but they are fighting for high position in both the ACC and NCAA tournaments. It will be very difficult for the loser of this game to secure the ACC season title. Sunday afternoon will kickoff at 1:00 with Georgia Tech (17-8, 5-6) traveling to Cameron Indoor to take on the Duke Blue Devils (19-7, 6-6) and their notorious crowd; this is the second match-up between these two teams - the Yellow Jackets won the game in Atlanta 74-63. At 4:00, the remaining two games will tip off. Maryland (19-7, 5-6) will travel to Clemson (19-6, 5-6) for a game each team would like to have to move closer to securing their tournament berth. Maryland won the first match-up at College Park, defeating the then undefeated Tigers 92-87. Also, Virginia Tech (18-7, 8-3) will be traveling to NC State (13-11, 3-8). The Hokies are still in the running for the ACC season title, and a road win would be huge for them; the Wolfpack are playing for an NIT berth rather than a NCAA berth, but don't underestimate them - they beat UNC in Raleigh on February 3rd. The Hokies won the first match-up at Blacksburg, 70-59 (the other ACC game - the one without tournament implications - has Miami (10-15, 3-8) going to Wake Forest (12-13, 3-9) at 1:00 on Saturday).

So, this should be a big weekend for ACC basketball. I suggest you grab a couch.

Current events blog tomorrow. See ya.