The ACC’s Northern Exposure

Canadians lately have enriched ACC basketball

No, not Dan Meagher, although he was a favorite, not least because he regularly put his body on the line for his team’s benefit from 1982-85.

Meagher was a study in out-thrust elbows and hips, a solidly-built banger in perpetual motion. He also was suitably irritating to opponents, an enforcer of the old variety and a fake-charge flopper par excellence whom North Carolina coach Dean Smith griped “is the best I’ve ever seen at falling down.”

The 6-7 Meagher didn’t hold a candle to fellow Ontarian and Blue Devil R.J. Barrett, a freshman blend of power, grace and skill who may be the top player in the country.

Barrett is well on his way to becoming the best Canadian ever to play at Duke, not to mention in the ACC, where this year the country also supplied standout Oshae Brissett of Syracuse.

Both B-Men hail from Mississauga, Ontario, a city of nearly three-quarters of a million inhabitants adjacent to Lake Ontario. Mississauga took its name from an Algonquian tribe, and is the third-largest municipality in the province of Ontario after neighboring Toronto and Ottawa, the national capital.