Lessons from ACC-Big Ten challenge?

Dick Vitale said it best Wednesday night while watching North Carolina wallop Michigan State 98-65 in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.

Vitale said he was looking forward to the North Carolina-Michigan State and Duke-Purdue games because they were matching premier teams, but neither game lived up to its billling in the sense of being competitive.

Duke crushed Purdue 76-60 in West Lafayette, Ind., before a North Carolina team Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said might be playing on a different level from anybody else hammered the Spartans in Detroit.

So in addition to winning the ACC-Big Ten Challenge for the 10th straight season, the ACC proved it once again will be very strong at the top. This year's made-for-ESPN event was closer than most, with the ACC eking out a 6-5 advantage over the Big Ten to improve to 62-35 overall in the Challenge.

In addition to North Carolina and Duke, the winners in the event included:

- Wake Forest, which displayed the talent of its freshmen and sophomores on a big stage against Indiana.

- Clemson, which improved to 8-0 with a win at Illinois, showing that it still has enough veteran talent to be an NCAA tournament contender.

Losers included:

- Virginia Tech, whose improbable string of losses on buzzer beaters was extended by Wisconsin.

- Miami, which was comfortably ahead of Ohio State before Jack McClinton was ejected for taking a swing he undoubtedly regrets.

- N.C. State, which didn't get a chance to play in the Challenge by virtue of its last-place finish in the ACC last season.