At ACC midpoint, what Tar Heels have taught us

Halfway through the ACC schedule, No. 5 North Carolina is 7-1 in the conference. Of course, each half of the league schedule isn’t exactly symmetrical. The Tar Heels have yet to play Duke, for instance, and will play the Blue Devils twice among the final eight conference games. The first of those meetings comes Wednesday night at the Smith Center.

Still, the midway point provides a natural opportunity to evaluate where UNC stands as it prepares for the stretch run of the regular season before postseason play begins in about a month. That said, after eight conference games, here are eight things we’ve learned about the Heels to this point:

--This team has responded well to adversity. The first half of the conference schedule provided North Carolina with two major tests: One, how would UNC bounce back from that 33-point loss at Florida State. And, two, how would the Tar Heels compensate for the loss of Dexter Strickland, who suffered a season-ending knee injury at Virginia Tech on Jan. 19. UNC hasn’t lost since that defeat at FSU, and the Heels collectively have raised their level of play – especially on defense – to make up for the loss of Strickland.

--This is a better defensive team than people realize. There’s this perception that UNC is an average – or even below average – of defensive team. That perception, though, is wrong. In ACC games, the Heels are holding opponents to 40.5 percent shooting, which leads the ACC. The Tar Heels are also averaging 7.1 blocks per game in ACC games, which also leads the conference. UNC plays excellent defense, particularly inside the 3-point line (more on this momentarily).

--Reggie Bullock has adequately filled in for Dexter Strickland at shooting guard. No, Bullock isn’t the on-the-ball defender that Strickland is, and he can’t guard opposing point guards the way Strickland did. But Bullock has improved tremendously as a defensive player, and one could argue his help defense – and his disruption in passing lanes – has improved UNC’s team defense. Plus, Bullock’s ability to shoot from the outside has helped open up the offense for some of his teammates.

--Production off the bench is a concern. The loss of Strickland still hurts, however, because Bullock no longer is able to come off the bench. And that leaves the bench especially thin. Especially with P.J. Hairston struggling with his shot the way he has (6-for-33 from 3-point range in ACC games). James Michael McAdoo has become a more confident, productive player, but UNC still lacks a go-to guy off the bench.

UNC does seem to be becoming a more intense, energetic team. Intensity still comes in spurts for the Heels, who are still learning to play with intensity all the time – instead of just some of the time. But since that loss at Florida State, there has been a noticeable difference in the Tar Heels’ attitude. That’s not unexpected, given the difficult practices that coach Roy Williams led in the aftermath of what happened in Tallahassee, Fla.

-- The Heels aren’t as soft on the interior as critics believe. Yes, there are heavier, meaner frontcourts out there (see the one at Florida State, for instance), but UNC has done a lot to shed its soft label during the first half of the league schedule. The Tar Heels have mostly dominated on the interior, and Tyler Zeller has been as aggressive as any player in the ACC. At the halfway point of the conference schedule, Zeller is an obvious first-team All-ACC player, and he’s in the discussion for ACC Player of the Year.

--Teams that shoot well from the outside, and play good defense, can cause UNC problems. Of course, teams that shoot well from the outside and that defend would cause problems for a lot of teams. As good as UNC has been defensively, though, the Heels remain susceptible to good 3-point shooting teams. UNC’s 3-point percentage defense ranks 9th in the ACC, and opposing teams are shooting 34.7 percent from 3-point range.

Free-throw shooting is a liability. UNC is shooting 68.1 percent in conference games from the free-throw line, which ranks 10th in the ACC. Overall, the Heels are shooting 65.1 percent from the line, which ranks last among ACC teams. UNC is bound to find itself in close games, especially in March, and poor free-throw shooting won’t  do the Heels any favors.

-- Andrew Carter

Duke consistently talks about consistency

The watchword at Duke on Monday was "consistency," and no one -- not the players, not coach Mike Krzyzewski -- had an explanation why the Blue Devils have been so inconsistent this year. At least, they were consistent in that respect.

"I don't know, but we have to figure it out," Duke forward Mason Plumlee said, two days before Duke visits North Carolina in the first meeting between the teams.

"This is one of the most different teams I've had," Krzyzewski said. "Overall, they've done a good job, or we wouldn't be 19-4. But different guys have done well and we've done enough to win that many games. But I don't think anyone has had an exceptional year, or for the last month. Again, that doesn't mean they've been bad. That's not usually the case for our team. Usually, we have one or two guys who are all-ACC candidates."

There's no question Duke has players who are capable of playing at that level: Plumlee did it against Maryland. Andre Dawkins did it against Michigan State and Wake Forest. Austin Rivers did it against Miami. Seth Curry should probably do it more often, and Ryan Kelly presents significant matchup problems.

Yet none of them has said, "I'm the go-to guy. I want the ball in my hands right now," on a regular basis, although Rivers in recent days probably comes closest, and Krzyzewski said Plumlee has been Duke's most consistent player, particularly when it comes to rebounding.

"No question it's a different challenge," Krzyzewski said. "No question about that. Every coach would rather have two or three guys all the time, because then you can build better."

Perhaps the most baffling manifestation of Duke's inconsistency is at the defensive end, where defensive intensity has been a part of Duke's DNA for decades.

"It's something that we've shown flashes of being really good at," Kelly said. "I think it just comes down to being consistent, as individuals and as a team. We've improved in areas, and then not done as well in other areas. It has to be a true decision that we're going to be better defensively, and it has to be there every single day."

- Luke DeCock

Wolfpack faces must-win game vs. Georgia Tech

While many Triangle fans will spend most of this week immersed in the build up for the first UNC vs. Duke game of the basketball season, N.C. State is in more of a must-win situation.

At Georgia Tech on Thursday (7 p.m., ESPNU), the Wolfpack (17-7, 6-3 ACC) almost has to avenge a Jan. 11 82-71 loss to the Yellow Jackets (9-14, 2-7) in the RBC Center.

Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried on Monday didn’t even attempt to deny that landing an NCAA Tournament is on the minds of his players and the coaching staff. Two losses to Georgia Tech could be an NCAA resume buster. After the trip to Atlanta, the Pack will not  play again until Feb. 16 at Duke, followed two days later by a game against Florida State.

“You always (think about the NCAA),” the first-year Pack coach said. “Anyone tells you they don’t, they’re lying. But it can’t be our emphasis every day. There has to be emphasis on next opponent and how are we going to play in this one game.”

In the January game against the Yellow Jackets, N.C. State lost because of major failures to execute in four areas:

•A slow start left the team down 40-29 at halftime.

•Spotty perimeter defense opened the door for Glen Rice, Jr. to score 22 points in 34 minutes.

•N.C. State missed 14 of its 19 shots behind the 3-point arc.

•C.J. Leslie fouled out while Scott Wood and Rich Howell were called for four personals each.

“Georgia Tech obviously came into Raleigh and beat us, so we have our hands full,” Gottfried said. “I do think we’ve improved -- improved in a lot of areas. Hopefully, we’ll play better.”

Gottfried gave sophomore playmaker Lorenzo Brown much of the credit for leading Saturday’s 87-76 win over Wake Forest. Brown finished with 15 points, eight assists and four rebounds.

“Zo’s play was very encouraging,” Gottfried said. “He had a bounce in his step, which is what our team needed.”

-- Caulton Tudor

UNC's Harrison Barnes: Ankle is better, but ...

North Carolina coach Roy Williams said on Monday morning that he will likely hold Harrison Barnes out of most of the Tar Heels’ practice today to allow Barnes more time to rest after he re-injured his sprained left ankle during UNC’s 83-74 victory against Maryland on Saturday.

The Tar Heels host Duke at the Smith Center on Wednesday night.

Barnes said he felt about 60 percent healthy entering the Maryland game on Saturday, but he finished with 18 points and made two important shots during the second half. His 3-pointer from the left side gave UNC the lead for good with about nine minutes to play. Then Barnes made a jumper with about a minute to play that stretched the Heels’ lead to six.

Barnes said he experienced considerable pain during the game, and said it felt like he’d been shot in the ankle. Even so, he was in better shape following the victory at Maryland than he was after the Heels’ victory at Wake Forest last Tuesday, when Barnes originally suffered the ankle injury.

“He had less swelling and less pain after the [Maryland] game than he did after the Wake Forest game,” Williams said.

UNC didn’t practice on Sunday, so Williams hasn’t had a chance to see Barnes in action since Saturday.
“I’m going to probably hold him out quite a bit of practice today to give him to give him another [rest] day and we hope that will help him out,” Williams said.

Barnes said on Saturday that never thought about sitting out the game against Maryland because of his injury. With Duke coming to Chapel Hill, there’s little doubt that Barnes will play on Wednesday night. What his ankle feels like by then, though, is another question.


-- Andrew Carter

Krzyzewski: Attention to detail will be key vs. UNC

From the state of his current Duke team to the Blue Devils' rivalry with Maryland, Mike Krzyzewski touched on a couple of different topics on Monday’s ACC teleconference.

Here are some of the highlights of what he had to say.

On his team: “Overall, our team has done a good job, being 19-4. In our league, we’re two possessions from being undefeated and we’re two possessions from being 4-4, on the other side. These games, especially in conference, turn out to be attention to detail where you have to make a play. Yesterday’s game still boiled down to you have to hit a free throw. When you win a number of games, sometimes your attention to detail is not where it needs to be. The games where we’re involved in now it will be for the rest of the year.”

On the ACC’s new plan for basketball schedules: “I’m in full agreement with what the league is doing. I think it was a mistake that we made when we added three teams in that we didn’t brand the whole conference. We made up rivalries during that time by having two different partners. I think it showed that two teams were more important than the rest of the other conference. I think that hurt us. I think this way, we keep one traditional rivalry. But there has to be rivalry established with Syracuse and Pitt. I don’t think that was done as well. I think the way they’re going to do it is better for the entire conference. I applaud them for making that decision.”

On the fact Duke and Maryland will only play once: “Every team that plays against us has a rivalry. I respect the heck out of Maryland and Gary (Williams) and what he did there and what Mark (Turgeon) is trying to do in building his own program. But we can’t look at that game as the end-all. We have to look at every game in the conference equally because everyone looks at us that way. That’s the way I felt the entire time.”

On what he’s going to stress to his team about UNC: “The main thing is just to be prepared for playing the most talented team in our conference and maybe the most talented team in the country. … They can be an offensive juggernaut, especially at home. We have to play really good defense in order to have an opportunity to beat them.”

Krzyzewski will speak with the local media this afternoon, and we'll update the blog with what he has to say.

-- Jack Daly

Three Points from N.C. State's 87-76 win over Wake Forest on Saturday

1) Brown back on track

State guard Lorenzo Brown had 15 points with eight assists in a season-high 38 minutes on Saturday. He even gave a half-smile as he left the locker room after putting an end to his mini-slump.

"It was a little better," Brown said.

Brown, who is his own biggest critic, was pleased with his turnovers, only two -- a low in ACC play for him. He was more aggressive against the Deacs with 11 shots (making six) after only taking five against Boston College on Wednesday, despite an obvious mismatch with Jordan Daniels.

Wake's Tony Chennault wasn't much more of a defensive match for Brown, who did his scoring in the second half in late sets where coach Mark Gottfried went "one high, four low" and let Brown take his man off the dribble.

Brown's assist numbers are better, obviously, when Scott Wood (23 points) and C.J. Williams (18) are shooting well, but it's the way that he played on Saturday -- pushing tempo and directing State's offense -- that makes State the best possible version of itself.

2) Ninety-nine problems but a bench ain't one?

State got two points (forward DeShawn Painter), and five assists (guard Alex Johnson), off its bench on Saturday and it wasn't an issue.

That's because the starters all played so well. Painter played 13 minutes and Johnson played 14, which was enough to intermittently rest C.J. Leslie and C.J. Williams but Brown and Rich Howell (36) both played a season-high in minutes (which isn't a bad thing since State doesn't play again until Thursday and only twice in the next 11 days).

Gottfried says he's comfortable with his bench and both Painter and Johnson have at times given him reason to be, Saturday just wasn't the most productive game for either player.

Johnson, by the way, is in a horrific shooting slump, missing all 11 of his shots in the past three games. The five dimes, to one turnover, was good but State is going to need him to successfully get through its pending Duke-FSU-UNC stretch.

State's "easiest" path to the NCAA tournament at this point would be with a win at Duke (on Feb. 16) and a home win over FSU, which is two days later. State, by the way, hasn't won at Duke against Mike Krzyzewski since Feb. 6, 1988. (The Pack did beat Pete Gaudet's squad in Cameron on Jan. 18, 1995).

Despite of that fact, I still use "easier" to describe that path, because as long as John Henson's eligible, I don't see State beating UNC, even at home on Feb. 21.

3) The Tao of Bzdelik

That was the best I've seen the Deacs play under second-year coach Jeff Bzdelik. They quit in a 76-40 loss earlier this season to State and they were run out of the gym twice by State last season.

Wake had a chance to fold on Saturday, several actually, but to Bzdelik's credit, the players continued to compete for him in the face of certain defeat, which qualifies as progress.

I don't know half as much about basketball as Bzdelik, who worked in the NBA for 16 years as a coach and scout and has been a college head coach or assistant for another 16 years, but for the life of me I can't understand why he doesn't do more to get forward Travis McKie the ball.

McKie, sixth in the ACC in scoring, took nine shots on Saturday and made five, including all three of his 3-pointers. As much trouble as McKie was having guarding Scott Wood, Wood was having checking McKie.

But senior forward Nikita Mescheriakov, the definition of a role player, took eight shots and forward Ty Walker, a shot-blocker, took 10. I just don't get that math.

Bzdelik's logic after the game wasn't much better. His performance in the post-game was as confusing as his designated shots for Mescheriakov.

Dan Collins, the fine Wake beat writer for the Winston-Salem Journal, asked Bzdelik after the game about four different runs that State made during the game.

"You take away those runs and we outscored them by 19," Bzdelik said and he was stone-cold serious.

Why stop there? Take away State's 87 points and you beat them by 76! What kind of logic is that?

But that reasoning was Jeffersonian compared to his wrap-up quote about respect, which in his defense, was prompted by an inane question from a Winston-Salem TV reporter about his team's effort, compared to the 36-point loss to the Wolfpack earlier this season.

And here's Bzdelik's philosophy on respect:

"There's an old saying in the NBA. You give respect by showing no respect. You give respect by showing no respect. And you all can figure out what that phrase really means. But the last time we played N.C. State we did not respect them because we didn't play hard. We didn't compete. That's a heck of a statement for a coach to make, but that's the truth.

"I mean, it's just like I remember Michael Jordan saying one time that he's had some rookies play him where they didn't want to touch him. They just feared him. They didn't even guard him. And Michael said you're not even respecting me because you won't compete against me. But if you get somebody out there who's just battling and giving everything you've got - and still you come up short - you know what? Doesn't your opponent respect you?"

Yes? Maybe? I don't know, coach, but if you take away those runs, you definitely beat them by 19.

--J.P. Giglio

ACC Commissioner John Swofford discusses new scheduling formats

The ACC announced on Friday new scheduling formats that will take effect when Pittsburgh and Syracuse begin league play, officially making the ACC a 14-team conference. Among the changes:

-A nine-game conference schedule in football.

-And an 18-game conference schedule in basketball, in which each of the 14 teams will play twice a year against one permanent partner. Games between permanent partners are only ones that will be guaranteed to happen twice per season. Given that North Carolina’s permanent partner is Duke, that means that in two out of every three seasons North Carolina and N.C. State will play just once during the regular season.

It’s the announcement of the changes to the basketball schedule that has created quite an uproar among ACC traditionalists. After all, UNC and N.C. State have played one another twice during the regular season in every year since 1920. And now, in most seasons, the Tar Heels and Wolfpack will meet but once per season.

John Swofford, ACC Commissioner, spoke on Friday with The Charlotte Observer about several issues related to the announcement of the new scheduling formats. Here’s the Q-and-A:

Q: Given the announcement of these new scheduling formats, is there a clearer idea now about when Pitt and Syracuse will officially begin play in the ACC?

John Swofford: Well not in terms of a certain point. You know, I think what [with] the decisions that have been made, the good point is that the competition decisions are now complete with the input of Pitt and Syracuse and we know how we will schedule. We know the championship formats, generally, going forward. We’ve got a little work to do with a few of those. But we know how we will compete, how we will schedule. And therefore, when the appropriate time comes for Pitt and Syracuse to join us, we’re ready to go with that. So we’ll be able to move quickly when we know a date certain on that.

Q: In regards to basketball, the first thing that caught a lot of people’s attention is that UNC and N.C. State will no longer be guaranteed to play twice a season. What is your reaction to the criticism the league has received?

JS: With a 14-team league, what our athletic directors and coaches wanted first and foremost was an equitable schedule. And a schedule in which people saw and played each other as much as possible, given some parameters that you have some limitation of the number of conference games you can or should play. But the commitment by the schools was to as equitable a schedule as possible, from a competitive standpoint. Which you can’t totally have unless you’re playing a full round-robin. But you want to get as close to that as possible.

As it turned out, in the discussions there, there was a strong feeling, pretty much across the board, that the one partner approach was the best way to accomplish the most equitable schedule and accomplish the commitment to playing each other as much as possible year in and year out. And I think any traditionalist would like to see certain games guaranteed to be played twice a year, but you have to look at this as the schools did – as a full conference and as a 14-member playing conference. And sometimes as you do that, and as our schools, athletic directors and coaches did that, it’s a little difficult to pick out certain games and set them aside outside of a reasonable and fair and equitable scheduling format.

So you gain an awful lot of good things and I think without question fans throughout the footprint will enjoy seeing Pitt and Syracuse, which have been two of the most successful programs in the country. Pitt’s the winningest program in the Big East over the last decade and obviously Syracuse’s tradition and history is evident, as well as their current success. And those games that will be created with those partners throughout the footprint will be very, very appealing. But you lose certain things and you can a lot of other things. You know, the State-Carolina rivalry is a special one and has been for a long time and that without question will continue to be.

Q: Is there any chance the permanent partners could be readjusted going forward?

JS: We really haven’t discussed it in that light. I don’t know that anything is absolutely in concrete, but I don’t think the schools are going into this with the intention of altering those down the road.

Q: One of the concerns with a nine-game football schedule is that it creates imbalance with some teams playing five home games, others only four. How much discussion was there about that particular problem point that comes with a nine-game schedule?

JS: Well it complicates life a little bit for [athletic directors] in terms of their scheduling. One of the things that was requested, and it appears that we can do is to do that by divisions. So that all the teams in each division are playing the same number of home and away games in any particular year. From a fairness standpoint, at least that’s the way we intend to start out in our scheduling. That can be certainly addressed. Some of us have been in situations before where you have an unequal number of conference games. And you just have to work a little more diligently in balancing your home and away schedules during those years and how you schedule your non-conference games.

Q: So that will be the case – that each team in each division will have the same number of home and away games?

JS: Well that’s the intention. So that at least starting out, so that one year the Atlantic Division teams would have maybe five home games and four away and then the next year, it would reverse and the Coastal would have the same number. That would make it the most equitable in terms of determining divisional champions.

Q: In regards to the ACC basketball tournament, each of the 14 teams will compete in that but a format has yet to be set there. What’s the timetable to decide the conference tournament format?

JS: Well our focus on this point, our intention at this point is to probably make that determination at our spring meeting in May. We’ve got a subcommittee which is charged with coming up with the best formats for consideration by the athletic directors for the tournament. And they’ve already begun their work and should have something  ready for presentation to the full group in May. But the one aspect of it that has been determined is a strong feeling throughout the league that all 14 schools should be a part of the tournament, and that now we’ve just got to try and figure out for the fans and for the players the best possible format for a 14-team tournament and what would work most effectively.

--Andrew Carter

ACC's new basketball schedule could mean fewer N.C. State-UNC matchups

N.C. State no longer will be guaranteed home-and-away basketball matchups with North Carolina in the new 18-game conference schedule announced this morning by the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The ACC announced a new scheduling format this morning for when Syracuse and Pittsburgh join the league. According to the new schedule, beginning in 2012-13, each school will play every other league team at least once each season, but each school will have only one "primary partner" for guaranteed home-and-away games.

According to the release issued today following the approval of the schedules by the ACC's faculty athletic representatives and athletics directors gathered for the league's winter meetings in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., the primary partners in basketball will be:

Duke and North Carolina
N.C. State and Wake Forest
Boston College and Syracuse
Clemson and Georgia Tech
Florida State and Miami
Maryland and Pitt
Virginia and Virginia Tech

According to the scheduling model's three-year cycle, ACC teams will play every league opponent at least once in basketball, with the primary partners playing home and away annually while the other 12 rotate in groups of four:

One year both home and away
One year at home only
One year away only.

Primary partners will play a total of six times in the schedule's three-year cycle and will play all other conference opponents four times. All 14 teams will compete in the ACC men's and women's basketball tournaments, regardless of the regular-season standings.

"We have been engaged in discussions on the various options for integrating Pitt and Syracuse since early fall," ACC Commissioner John Swofford said in a league statement. "It's a tremendous tribute to the leadership at our schools that we will be able to seamlessly add Pitt and Syracuse at the appropriate time when they become full playing members."

For football, Syracuse will  join the Atlantic Division and Pitt will join the Coastal Division. With the two Big East schools switching to the ACC, the league will play a nine-game conference schedule, including six division games, one game against a primary crossover partner from the other division and two rotating opponents from the other division. The nine-game ACC schedule also means that some teams will have the advantage of five home games and four road games, while others will have to play five road games and will get only four at home.

The current primary crossover partners for football will remain consistent with Syracuse and Pitt becoming each other's primary crossover partner.

According to the ACC, the six-year cycle for this schedule will allow each team to play each divisional opponent and its primary crossover partner six times (three home and three away) while also playing each rotating crossover opponent two times (one home and one away).

--Lorenzo Perez

Harrison Barnes sits out practice

CHAPEL HILL — After suffering a sprained left ankle in North Carolina’s 68-53 victory at Wake Forest on Tuesday night, Tar Heels sophomore forward Harrison Barnes did not practice on Thursday, according to a UNC spokesman.
Barnes’ status for the Heels’ practice on Friday, and their game on Saturday at Maryland, remains in doubt. After traveling to Maryland, No. 5 UNC returns home to host No. 7 Duke next Wednesday night.

Barnes suffered the injury during the first half against the Demon Deacons. He said he “rolled” his ankle running down the court. He left the game and proceeded to the Tar Heels’ locker room, where a trainer re-taped his ankle.

He returned late in the first half and played most of the second. He finished with 13 points in 27 minutes but acknowledged that he was in pain after the game ended. He said he hoped that rest and icing his ankle would make it feel better.

UNC didn’t practice on Wednesday, when tests confirmed Barnes’ ankle sprain.

Mental toughness part of Pack's growth

Three Points from Wednesday's 56-51 win at Boston College:

1) Body language counts

When Richard Howell, Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie slumped their shoulders, dropped their heads and sloughed off to the locker room at halftime, they were greeted with a warning from N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried.

"I told them that is not acceptable and we won't do that — and we have not done that any night this year," Gottfried said. "We were allowing things to bother us. Mentally, we were out of synch."

There have been a lot "that didn't happen last year" moments for the Wolfpack this season, which matched its ACC win total (five) for the past two seasons on Wednesday in only eight games, but that was one of the first "that did happen all the time last year" moments of Gottfried's tenure.

Bad body language was a hallmark of recent N.C. State teams but that was usually during a lopsided loss, not a game it was actually winning at the half, albeit by only two points (25-23).

The players responded the right way to Gottfried's hammer-dropping message, which was a departure from his usual positive-reinforcement methods. BC made State earn the win, and that's what the Pack did with an assortment of key plays from Howell (10 points, eight boards), Brown (seven assists) and Leslie (13 points, six boards).

"Rather than quitting, our guys hung in there and got over it," Gottfried said.

Mental toughness was rarely a hallmark of the previous two State teams, and beating BC doesn't qualify as a breakthrough, but it is progress that the coach can identify a glaring problem — one that everyone in the building or with a TV could see — and correct it before the end of the game.

2) Winning without your fastball

Sometimes you have to win without your fastball and N.C. State needed all of its pitches to labor through Wednesday's win over Boston College.

State played hard in the first half but did not shoot well (9 of 27). The Pack shot well in the second half (10 of 18) but was out-rebounded by the worst rebounding team in the ACC (30 to 28) and went stretches where it couldn't execute an entry pass to the post.

"We didn't play particularly great," Gottfried said. "But what I liked, even on a night when we struggled to score, we still found a way to win."

Points, and possessions, were difficult to come by for the entire game because BC slowed the game down, milked the shot clock and ran its halfcourt sets with Sisyphean, yet admirable, diligence.

The Eagles got some timely scoring from wings Matt Humphrey (15 points) and Lonnie Jackson (10) and eight rebounds each from bigs Dennis Clifford and Ryan Anderson.

Jackson had a four-point play on the first possession of the second half, and followed that up 3 minutes later with three throws, after getting fouled by Scott Wood on a 3-point attempt. Humphrey's 3-pointer from the right corner, after an offensive rebound from Clifford gave him a second chance and gave BC a 40-37 lead with 7:24 left.

The game was tied at 44 at 5:17 before Leslie scored four straight points to give the Pack control of the game. Leslie's play was indicative of the team's. He was 2 of 9 in the first half, but made all three of his second-half shots.

"Even when we were missing layups, we were able to mentally hang there because that could have easily went the other way," Gottfried said.

3) General apathy and major boredom

Boston is a pro sports town, even if the Patriots weren't in the Super Bowl. And even in Boston College's finest hour, it's the fifth fiddle behind the Pats, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics and its own fans prefer watching the hockey team, a national power, to the basketball team.

I get that.

BC is a small private school (undergrad enrollment: 9,200) without the world's largest fan base.

I get that, too.

And this BC team, while extremely well-coached, is nowhere near its salad days of Big East glory under Gary Williams or Jim O'Brien, nor does not qualify as must-see basketball.

Double-check.

Still, Wednesday's turnout was embarrassing for a conference that used to pride itself and be defined by its basketball excellence. The announced crowd was 3,611 but there were probably about 2,000 people in the building.

(The Conte Forum, which looks like a train depot and is perfectly acceptable college facility, has a capacity of 8,606, the second-smallest venue in the ACC. Miami, shocking!, has the smallest, 7,000.)

Maybe, as the Carolina Hurricanes famously told The New York Times during the 2001 Stanley Cup playoffs, Wednesday is a "big church night," I don't know but I do know that almost seven years after joining the ACC, clearly, there's minimal fan interest in Boston for the ACC.

There are valid reasons for that, I'm not disputing that, just pointing out the reality. And please don't confuse this for nostalgia for "the good old days" of the ACC (although I do miss the round robin), it's just a fact.

Fan apathy, especially in the newer ACC markets (Miami's gym was again on Wednesday for Maryland's visit) is one of the factors in the league's declining image and product.

(Rhetorical aside: Which two teams would you rather have watched play last night: A) State-BC B) Maryland-Miami or C) State-Maryland?)

Expansion happened, at some point I'll get over that, probably when someone from the ACC admits they killed their basketball brand in the process.
--J.P. Giglio