ACC Tournament vs UNC

The 11 seed Hokies play 14 seed North Carolina at 7PM tonight at Greensboro. The game is on the ACC Network. The winner plays 6 seed Syracuse at about 9 PM Wednesday. UNC has played very un-UNClike for most of the season. They got off to a decent start and were 6-3 when Cole Anthony hurt his knee and needed arthroscopic surgery on Dec 16. He missed the next 11 games. Overall UNC has had 11 scholarship players miss a total of 98 games this season. Unfortunately, they are mostly healthy going into the ACC Tournament. They are 4 point favorites tonight.

As I said above they started the season 6-3. Then the injury bug hit and they started losing, ending the season 13-18 and 5-14 in ACC play. But they seem to have found their game going 3-1 at the end of the year beating NC State and Wake Forest at home and Syracuse on the road before losing to Duke at Duke to end their season.

The Hokies beat UNC in a double overtime game at Blacksburg on Jan 22. But Cole Anthony and Brandon Robinson did not play in that game. I think both will play tonight.

I am afraid we are catching UNC on the upswing while we are on a downswing. With Brooks and Bacot underneath and Anthony, Keeling and Robinson hitting from three, I don't see how our defense can slow UNC down. And unless Nolley breaks out of his extended slump, and Catoor and Cone shoot well, I don't see the Hokies having the offense to stay with UNC. We definitely drew the worst match up of the bottom three teams. Our chances against Pitt or WF would have been much better.

Even if we end the season tonight, things have gone much better than expected. The future looks brighter. With Aluma playing and Ojiako with a year's more experience, we will be much stronger underneath. Cone certainly looks like he is going to develop into a very good point guard. Nolley has a lot of ability, which he really has not shown at the end of this season; if he comes back and plays to his potential, the Hokies will have a lot of options next year. And Radford might continue to get better; he needs to extend his shooting range a little to open up his fake and drive options. Catoor, Alleyne and Wilkins also look like players that will grow into Coach MY's system. And Bede and Horne will be back to provide leadership. Although Bede may not play as many minutes next year.

Back to the Tournament, this would be a great win for the Hokies. And I think they would have a chance against Syracuse tomorrow, which would be about as good a run as we can expect.

Go Hokies!

Edited to correct players who did not play in the regular season game.