Basketball: ACC Tournament Round 1 Recap

Wake Forest vs. Notre Dame

So Wake earned a win today. Congrats guys! This game was all Wake Forest, with Notre Dame just sticking around because of turnovers from Wake. Coron Williams was ridiculous, with a career high 25 points. He also hit his first 4 three-pointers.

Oddly, Wake's leading scores,Travis McKie and Codi Miller-McIntyre, scored 2 and 7, respectively. However, the team picked up the slacked and controlled the entire ball game. Wake's bench scored 16 points. Along with Williams big game, Thomas Devin scored 19 points.

Notre Dame on the other hand relied solely on their starters, with all by 6 points coming from those 5. Pat Connaughton lead the team with 19 points and Zach Auguste contributed with 14 points and 9 rebounds.

This game was high scoring vs. that same team's own turnovers. Wake shot 61% from the field and 70% from deep against a poor showing of 40% and 30% from Notre Dame. Wake Forest committed 15 turnovers against the Irish's 6. Basically Wake could never pull away because of their own errors on offense.

Miami vs. Virginia Tech

This game was crazy. Literally went down to the last minute. When 1:00 hit, the game was a 1-point difference. A foul actually put Joey van Zegeren at the line with a chance to tie the game.

For Virginia Tech, Jarrell Eddie shot very well, finishing with 16 points (5-10 from 3 and 1-2 from the FT line). The Hokies shot 40% from the field, 42% from 3, and 53% from the line, which comparatively was pretty good. They rebounded poorly on offense, with only 3 offensive rebounds on the game.

For Miami, it was an Erik Swoope highlight reel along with some great shooting from Rion Brown. Brown and Swoope scored 14 and 15 respectively, along with a great 14 point performance from Davon Reed. This team shot poor from the field though, with 38.6% from the field, 28% from the 3 and 84.2% from the line.

In the end, this close game came down to one thing- FREE THROWS! Virginia Tech went only 9-17, while Miami went 16-19. The shots were pretty similar, but the extra 7 that were made was all the difference.

Georgia Tech vs. Boston College

**EDITED** (sorry)

What a barn burner. After the first 6 minutes, the teams had a field goal a piece, along with 2 FT's for Boston College. After the two interruptions, one for a clock malfuction and one for the lights going out, both teams started to gain a bit of momentum going into the half. After leading by double digits for a while, Tech got sloppy and let Boston College back into the game over the last 5 minutes of the game. With 2 minutes left in the game, Boston College was on an 11-0 run, with Tech only up by 1 point.

With 1 minute left in the game, Tech and Boston College was tied at 61. WIth 33.5 seconds, the Jackets get to the line with Robert Carter Jr., however he was only able to make 1 of 2. With 16.1 seconds remaining in the game, Boston College took a timeout in the front court. With 5.2 seconds, Hanlan drives and gets fouled. Makes 1 of 2, with 5.2 seconds remaining in the game and the game is tied. Golden runs the court and gets in a "collision" with no call.

**On one end, you get a soft call to put Hanlan on the line to tie it. Trae drives the distance and there is a no call. Regardless of block or charge, blow your whistle!***

Overtime!! It started slow, with Tech and BC responding to each other's scoring. Tech did not score for the last 10 minutes, until 35.5 seconds left in OT. NO SCORE IN 10 MINUTES!! I guess one "and-on" is all you need. We got lucky.

For Boston College, Patrick Heckmann seemed to be everywhere on offense. He is not even usually a starter. He dropped 25 points until fouling out with 35 seconds left in OT. All season, Tech's focus was to try to find ways to limit Ryan Anderson(15 pts) and Olivier Hanlan(16 pts) and they did nothing compared to him. While they did not do a great job the first two meetings, Tech did what they needed to win the games.

Georgia Tech got in foul trouble early in the second half, putting them in the Double Bonus and making it a typical Georgia Tech second half- fighting a comeback. They did a great job in the game getting offensive rebounds, but got real sloppy on both sides of the court for the last 5 minutes of the game and overtime. Golden had 14, Carter Jr. had 20, MGH had 18 and Holsey had 12. Somehow we still don't use Daniel Miller, who only had 5 points. Upsetting.

We got lucky here. Fortunately we can rest up and get ready for Clemson tomorrow.

I went 2-1 today in my bracket, not too bad. Make sure to check it out. My Quarter, Semi, and Final Bracket will be published Thursday AM. Make sure to follow all of the games tomorrow as teams 6-9 join the party.