ACC Roundup - UNC Loses Another Close One And Louisville Is Red Hot

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LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - JANUARY 28: Reyne Smith #6 of the Louisville Cardinals and Ty-Laur Johnson #8 of the Wake Forest Demon Decans battle for a loose ball at KFC YUM! Center on January 28, 2025 in Louisville, Kentucky. | Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

How is Hubert Davis doing with the faithful?

In Tuesday’s ACC Action, Louisville hammered Wake Forest 72-59, Notre dame nipped a gutty Georgia Tech 71-68 and Pitt knocked off UNC 73-65.

You know, the ACC is definitely having a down year, but competitiveness is hardcoded into the conference’s DNA and you saw that very differently in these three games.

Take UNC and Pitt. This game could easily have gone to UNC, but Pitt showed real guts down the stretch, and no one more than Zack Austin.

We’re not mocking Austin when we say the following, please don't misunderstand, because we know he’s talented but: who the hell is Zach Austin?

He is from Winston-Salem and we don’t know if Wake Forest bothered recruiting him. He played at High Point before transferring to Pitt last year.

He’s a senior and he has, to the best of our knowledge, never shown up on an NBA mock draft.

Well, during the UNC game, the announcers actually compared him to Zion Williamson.

It’s not that he’s a high-flying refrigerator like Williamson was, but he had a huge impact on this game, finishing with 15 points on 5-7/3-5 and with five blocks.

This was a two point game with 1:07 left at 67-65 and UNC never got another point.

Duke great Jason Williams was on the broadcast crew and he called it, saying of UNC that “they are all fragmented on the court. Look at Pittsburgh! Pittsburgh is huddling in the middle of the court. It already looks as if, with 24.9 seconds left to go, North Carolina being down only four points, that the game feels over. None of them have huddled, none of them have talked to each other...this is what Hubert Davis has been talking about...the lack of leadership on this team.”

The thing is though that leadership flows from the top down, a thought that we’ll return to in a bit.

It was a tremendous win for Pitt, a stunning performance by Austin, and most likely a low point for the Tar Heels.

It’s worth mentioning that although Jalen Washington said he was “fine” after hurting his ankle this past weekend, he didn’t play. Ven-Allen Lubin got the start instead and finished with six points and seven rebounds in 32 minutes. He also had four turnovers.

UNC went with a four-guard lineup. RJ Davis finished with 16, Elliot Cadeau had 11 points and seven assists, Seth Trimble had 10 points and a highly impressive 12 rebounds while freshman Ian Jackson got nine points and four rebounds.

After having a seven-game streak of 18 points or more, in his last four games, Jackson has topped nine points just once, in UNC’s overtime win against Boston College on Saturday.

For Pitt, aside from Austin’s brilliant outing, Jaland Lowe had 18 points and seven rebounds, Ishmael Leggett had 15 points and six rebounds while Cam Corhen had 14 points and five rebounds.

With the loss, UNC falls to 13-9 and seventh place in the ACC if you disregard ties.

At Louisville, Pat Kelsey has that team competing at a very high level and now, unlike the last two seasons and indeed early this season, they're defending.

Louisville forced five turnovers before the first media timeout, and columnist Rick Bozich said that Wake had more turnovers than baskets in the first half.

Still, Wake kept it close for about 12 minutes or so before the Cards throttled them. It was 14-11, with Louisville in the lead, when the Cards took this game by the throat, ripping off a 12-2 run. They took a 45-21 lead into the locker room and by then, it was obviously over.

Louisville won by just 13, but that’s wildly deceptive: the Cards were up by nearly 30 in the second half.

This team is playing with immense confidence and are now 9-1 and tied with Clemson for second place behind Duke. They're on a 10-game winning streak and their next three games are against Georgia Tech and BC on the road and Miami at home. There’s a decent chance Louisville could enter the ACC Tournament on a 20 game heater. Pat Kelsey has done a brilliant job with his team.

Meanwhile, there was a surprisingly interesting game in South Bend where Georgia Tech led for 38 minutes despite having only seven players and one of those playing just three minutes. They also saw Baye Ndongo foul out and Lance Terry and Javian McCollum finishing with four.

Notre Dame ripped off a late 13-0 run, and full credit to them, but for the Yellow Jackets to be in this game at all was remarkable and to be in a position to win? With just six players? Injuries have both gutted and defined this team which has found its heart in adversity. It’s a flawed team and in spite of the initial limitations, now compounded by injuries, they’ve performed at a remarkable level. Damon Stoudamire deserves a lot of credit for this.

Naithan George finished with 20 points on 9-11 from the floor. He also had six rebounds and five assists. Duncan Powell had 18 points off the bench.

Markus Burton had 26 points for the Irish while Braeden Shrewsberry racked up 15. Tae Davis was just 1-9 for four points and had six rebounds.

As we said above, leadership flows from the top down. Kelsey has turned Louisville into a juggernaut of confidence. Steve Forbes has Wake Forest playing well if not perfectly. Even when they lose, they play hard. Look at where the program was when he took it over and where it is now. Damon Stoudamire has Georgia Tech playing with supreme effort. Notre Dame’s Micah Shrewsberry is building a program that has had some issue but which is very dangerous and he’s put together a superb class for next season. This is a program that is going places.

What’s going on with Hubert Davis at UNC?

To be clear, he’s always struck us as immensely likable and you couldn't always say that about Dean Smith or Roy Williams, let alone Mad Matt Doherty. He seems like a good, decent man.

But so far, his record at UNC has been quite muddled. True, he got UNC to the championship game in his first season and finished 29-10. In his second year, UNC missed the tournament, finishing 20-13. Last year, the Tarheels finished 29-8, bowing out in the Sweet Sixteen.

But in Year I, that team was 10-4 and then 12-6. But it was also up 15 at the half before collapsing against Kansas in the title game.

The next year, the Tar Heels were preseason #1 before failing to make the tournament.

Last year was supposed to be Team Redemption, but the Tar Heels got an up-and-down season from big man Armando Bacot and wiped out against Alabama in the Sweet Sixteen.

Now this: UNC is on the wrong side of the bubble and Williams called their chemistry out on a national broadcast.

They might still make a run, but after three years and halfway through Season 4, it’s reasonable to ask this question: is this program showing progress? Has it improved since he took it over? And if not...what next?

Four games on Wednesday as Virginia visits hangdog Miami, Virginia Tech gets a bit of warmth at Florida State, Cal visits SMU and Syracuse makes its first trip to the Bay Area to take on Jaylen Blakes’ Stanford.

Wednesday’s ACC Action

Virginia @ Miami || 7:00 || ESPNU
Virginia Tech @ Florida State || 7:00 || ACCN
Cal @ SMU || 9:00 || ACCN
Syracuse @ Stanford || 11:00 || ESPNU

ACC Standings

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ACC Roundup - UNC Loses Another Close One And Louisville Is Red Hot

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