It’s a busy Saturday around the conference so let’s see who’s playing who:
Florida State plays UMass in the AutoNation Orange Bowl Classic, UL Monroe visits Miami, mighty SC Upstate visits UNC, Evansville checks in at Notre Dame, Mercer stops by Littlejohn, Hofstra hazards a trip north to Syracuse, Memphis revives an old rivalry with Louisville, Pitt and Villanova do the same, Northwestern State visits Cal, Stanford for some reason hazards a road trip to nearby San Jose State, SMU plays LSU in the Big Easy and NC State gets a big opportunity when Kansas visits Raleigh.
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We wouldn’t say that State should be favored, but some places do have them favored, and a win here would be massive for Will Wade’s rebuild. Job 1 is stopping Darryn Peterson, assuming he’s fully healthy now, and job 2 is stopping Flory Bidunga. That guy is not a complete basketball player, but you don’t see that kind of talent very often.
Then again, it can work against him if you can get him all twitchy. Can Ven-Allen Lubin do that?
Jury’s out. He is much more experienced though. Also, keep in mind that the best scout State has is Darrion Williams, who knows the Jayhawks well from his time at Texas Tech.
Remember Frank Robinson? He of the dead-eye referee stare? He’s at UMass now but hasn’t done well. Actually, he hasn’t done all that well since beating Duke in the 2017 NCAA Tournament. He hasn’t made the tournament in eight years. The Duke Curse lives!
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It’s an interesting test for Florida State. UMass isn’t great, but he coaches a hard-nosed style. Could be fun.
If Miami loses to 3-7 UL Monroe, well, that’s embarrassing and that goes double for UNC vs. SC Upstate.
Evansville has better odds against Notre Dame without Markus Burton, but the Irish should win.
Clemson has shown some real moxie and even though they blew a massive lead against BYU, they were good enough to actually have a big lead on the Cougars and not many teams can say they did that this season.
We’re not particularly worried about 3-7 Mercer, least of all in Littlejohn.
Memphis and Louisville should wake up some ghosts because they go back a ways. Right now, Louisville is the better program but Memphis tends to be erratic and unpredictable, just like coach Penny Hardaway. The lows are pretty low, but the highs are pretty high. This is one of the more bipolar programs in the country, so who knows? Still, we’d take the Cards here.
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Hofstra may not be great, but they were good enough to beat Pitt last weekend. Syracuse, as noted previously, isn’t shooting outside very well. The funniest thing Hofstra could do would be to zone them.
Villanova struggled right after Jay Wright retired, but Kyle Neptune is gone and Kevin Willard runs things now after his bitter breakup with Maryland last spring. A Pitt win seems unlikely.
Cal is doing better than we expected and the Demons are hardly demonic at 2-7. Seems like an easy choice here.
We’re not sure about the logic behind Stanford making a local road trip to play a team that’s probably not very good. Seems kind of risky. Stanford has played pretty well so far, but normally you want these sorts of games at home. We’ll see if it pays off. Kyle Smith probably has the tournament analytics plugged into his algorithm.
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Here’s the thing about LSU: they haven’t really played anyone. Drake has probably declined since Ben McCullum departed, BC took them to OT and Texas Tech smoked them pretty thoroughly. We like SMU here, especially since they are working Jaden Toombs back in after his wrist injury kept him out for a while.
Saturday’s ACC Action
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UMass vs. Florida State || 12:00 || ACCN
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UL Monroe at Miami || 12:00 || ACC Extra
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SC Upstate at UNC || 2:00 || CW
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Evansville at Notre Dame || 2:00 || ACCN
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Mercer at Clemson || 3:00 || ACC Extra
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Memphis at Louisville || 3:30 || ESPN
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Hofstra at Syracuse || 4:00 || ACCN
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Pitt at Villanova || 4:30 || TruTV
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Northwestern State at Cal || 5:00 || ACC Extra
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Kansas at NC State || 5:30 || ESPN
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Stanford at San Jose State || 7:00 || CBSSN
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SMU vs. LSU || 8:30 || SECN
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