ACC Roundup - On To The Post-Season

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Mar 8, 2025; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish guard Matt Allocco (41) goes up for a shot as Cal Bears center Mady Sissoko (12) defends in the fourth overtime at the Purcell Pavilion | Matt Cashore-Imagn Images

March Madness is here!

The last day of the regular season saw Clemson dominate Virginia Tech 65-47, Stanford fall at Louisville 68-48, Miami top NC State 72-70, Wake Forest thump Georgia Tech 69-43, Pitt run all over BC 93-67, Syracuse top Virginia 84-70, SMU lost at Florida State 76-69 and Notre Dame and Cal go to four overtimes before the Irish prevailed 112-110.

We’re not going to talk a lot about the games because now we’re in the post-season and no one is going to talk about Saturday much.

Well, except for Cal at Notre Dame, which unexpectedly turned into an epic.

If you didn’t get to see it and you have a way to, we’d recommend it, at least the end of the regulation and overtimes because those teams hit another gear, especially Markus Burton. He played 53 minutes and scored 43 points.

Matt Allocco is back from injury and he celebrated with 24 points in 54 minutes.

Jeremiah Wilkinson, who seems like a shoo-in for the ACC’s All-Rookie team, had 38 points and Andrej Stojakovic had 21 points and took a real pounding. It was nothing dirty, but he really did take some blows in this game.

With the regular season over, the tournament seeds are set. With 18 teams after the latest expansion, the ACC Tournament is limited to 15 teams and Miami (3-17), Boston College (4-16) and NC State (5-14) are the odd men out.

Here’s the bracket. #1 Duke, #2 Louisville, #3 Clemson and #4 UNC have double-byes into the quarterfinals on Thursday.

As you will see, #12 Notre Dame and #13 Pitt play first and the winner there goes on to play SMU. The winner of that game plays UNC. #8 Georgia Tech and #9 Virginia play and the winner there goes on to face Duke.

On the bottom half, Virginia Tech and Cal will face off and the winner there gets Stanford. If it’s Cal and Stanford, that could be pretty cool. The winner of that one goes on to face #2 Louisville.

#11 Florida State and #14 Syracuse vie to play #6 Wake Forest and the winner of that game goes on to play Clemson.

As we saw last year with NC State, sometimes things happen and a team gets on a roll. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of it. The team with the most to gain though is probably Wake Forest: if the Deacs win their first game against FSU or Syracuse, they’ll face #3 Clemson and probably #2 Louisville. If they can pull off two wins like that, the Deacons might get back into tournament conversation.

Otherwise, it’s a total crapshoot although there’s a reasonably good chance that Duke and UNC will meet again.

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As Duke fans know, Jai Lucas left the team after Saturday’s game at UNC to start building his Miami program. Florida State is supposedly closing in Sacramento Kings assistant and former Seminole Luke Louks. we’ll see how that works out.

Matt Norlander says that Ryan Odom is a leading candidate but Richard Pitino might be in play too. He also alludes to a mystery candidate that he says he’s not comfortable talking about yet.

From the cheap seats, we’d say that Jon Scheyer, Pat Kelsey and Brad Brownell are obviously safe. There is some fan dissatisfaction with Hubert Davis, but he and the school announced an extension recently, so he’s not going anywhere.

Andy Enfield is in his first season at SMU and did fairly well. He’s not in danger.

Stanford is doing well in their first year with Kyle Smith. It’s just his first year too. No danger there.

Georgia Tech’s Damon Stoudamire is in Year II and he showed skill and leadership this year when his team was hit with a ton of injuries.

Mike Young? Tough call. He’s struggled this year but he also has an ACC title under his belt and is widely respected. Could the Hokies do better? Possibly, but we don’t think the coach is the issue. It’s more facilities, NIL and so on.

Micah Shrewsberry had a frustrating year at Notre Dame but he, too, is widely respected and next year, when he has more talent, the Irish might be better.

Mark Madsen had a tough first year in the ACC, but he's only in his second year at Stanford and already his second conference. He had a brilliant run at Utah Valley before taking the Stanford job.

There are some other coaches who may be on the hot seat, including Pitt’s Jeff Capel, Syracuse’s Adrian Autry, Boston College’s Earl Grant and NC State’s Kevin Keatts.

In Capel’s case, he has a new AD and just finished the regular season 5-15. Allen Greene’s old boss at Tennessee, Danny White, described him as “one of the most innovative, genuine and competitive leaders we have in college athletics.”

He may want to innovate with his own hire.

Syracuse is 13-18. His first season was 20-12 so he’ll probably get another year at least.

Earl Grant improved every year at BC until this season. It looks like AD Blake James will give him one more year.

Then there’s Keatts.

Last year’s miracle run brought tons of good will to NC State and got Keatts an automatic two-year extension that runs his deal through 2030.

With a buyout reportedly of $8 million, it would be expensive to get rid of Keatts now, but there’s unquestionably unhappiness. It’s a long way from last year’s euphoria - when the Pack thrilled its fans and caught the nation’s imagination as DJ Burns emerged as an unlikely star - to this year.

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ACC Roundup - On To The Post-Season

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