Dave Sez

Well said.

There were several exciting games and Thursday seemed much better than in the past, given the marquis teams that had to play early and the Final was a really good game, that might have been a classic, had State gotten over the hump. Still, the measuring stick for me is 30 years ago; certainly few of the last ten tournaments have been very memorable.

Just because a game goes into double overtime doesn't necessary make it a classic or imply that it was well-played. Georgia Tech should have been playing like their lives depended on winning but they seemed to lack the intensity that comes from believing a game had to be won or the season was over. FSU and Clemson also should have had that kind of passion and I didn't see it in either team. BC and Maryland played as though they hardly cared what happened. The two Virginia teams probably played about to my expectations.

Nevertheless, there is one thing that added some spark to the tournament and that was the clutter of teams that finished withing 3 games of first place. Given that the regular season had done little to differentiate the teams at the top, the tournament took on an importance that it had lacked in prior years since 1997. In the past ten years, where Duke, Carolina, Wake or Maryland all had led the league with at least 13 victories and usually the first place team during the past ten years had 14 or more victories. Most of those years, the ACC team at the top had already ensured no less than a 2 seed.

With Carolina and UVa only winning 11 by contrast, the tournment's importance was magnified as Carolina could have ended up a 3 seed with a poor performance.

I thought that this Carolina team had better prospects for winning the tournament than the last two Tar Heel teams because of two major things: 1)depth and 2)inexperience.

Last year, Carolina played Wes Miller and Q. Thomas because they had to. This year it is more of a luxury. That means that Carolina has much less to fear in terms of injuries or fatigue deriving from the tournament.

In 2005, the Heels were trying to work McCants back into the line-up and were coming off an emotionally grueling game with Duke. They had a respectable performance in the tournment and exited after a close loss to Georgia Tech.

The second reason why I thought that Roy Williams was going to emphasize the tournament more this year was that, frankly, his team needed the work. Neither Terry nor Ellington had been performing up to expectations and the team had been playing a bit soft. Given their overall youth, each additional game is much more valuable to Carolina than say, in 2005.

What was this all about in the Featherston article? He doesn't ever put out an email address so it is hard to let him know when things look out of place:

"But in the tournament, the Big Four teams were 5-1 against the outsiders — the only loss was Wake Forest’s narrow defeat at the hands of Boston College. As usual, the most dangerous opponents for Big Four schools in the tourney were other Big Four schools — both Duke and N.C. State were eliminated by their neighbors."

BC beat Miami and lost to UNC. Wake beat GIT and lost to VPI.

william wrote:

What was this all about in the Featherston article? He doesn't ever put out an email address so it is hard to let him know when things look out of place: "But in the tournament, the Big Four teams were 5-1 against the outsiders — the only loss was Wake Forest’s narrow defeat at the hands of Boston College. As usual, the most dangerous opponents for Big Four schools in the tourney were other Big Four schools — both Duke and N.C. State were eliminated by their neighbors." BC beat Miami and lost to UNC. Wake beat GIT and lost to VPI.

Duke lost to NCSU, so 0-0 against "outsiders" (in bold)
Wake beat GT and lost to VT (1-1)
NCSU beat Duke, UVA, VT, lost to UNC (2-0)
UNC beat FSU, BC, NCSU (2-0)

Adding it up indeed gets you to 5-1 against non-NC teams

vick wrote:

william wrote: What was this all about in the Featherston article? He doesn't ever put out an email address so it is hard to let him know when things look out of place: "But in the tournament, the Big Four teams were 5-1 against the outsiders — the only loss was Wake Forest’s narrow defeat at the hands of Boston College. As usual, the most dangerous opponents for Big Four schools in the tourney were other Big Four schools — both Duke and N.C. State were eliminated by their neighbors." BC beat Miami and lost to UNC. Wake beat GIT and lost to VPI. Duke lost to NCSU, so 0-0 against "outsiders" (in bold) Wake beat GT and lost to VT (1-1) NCSU beat Duke, UVA, VT, lost to UNC (2-0) UNC beat FSU, BC, NCSU (2-0) Adding it up indeed gets you to 5-1 against non-NC teams

Whoops, misunderstood your question. Featherston is indeed wrong on which team Wake lost to, although his total is correct.