ACC-Big 10 challenge

Yes Virginia there is an upset as the Cavs stun unbeaten Minnesota on the road and represent the ACC well in the opening game of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. This is huge for this young squad. 87-79 the final.

Good game. The Hoos where down 10 at the half. Thought for sure Minn. would win this one.

Hoos have 6 freshmen that play. Look foward to see how these young men grow over the next few years.

full list of ACC/Big 10 games;

#6 Michigan State @ #1 Duke

#2 Ohio State @ Florida State

Iowa @ Wake Forest

North Carolina @ #21 Illinois

Georgia Tech @ Northwestern

Michigan @ Clemson

Indiana @ Boston College

NC State @ Wisconsin

#18 Purdue @ Virginia Tech

Penn State @ Maryland

my picks:

#1 Duke (ACC)
#2 Ohio State (B10)
Wake Forest (ACC)
#21 Illinois (B10)
Northwestern (B10)
Michigan (B10)
Boston College (ACC)
Wisconsin (B10)
Purdue (B10)
Maryland (ACC)

that would make it 6-5 Big 10, but it could easily be 6-5 ACC or 7-4 Big 10

the only places where I really disagree are GT/Northwestern and Clemson/Michigan

GT, despite their early struggles, match up really well with Northwestern...and if they're smart they'll use a lot of ball screens and attack off the bounce, they're just much more athletic than Northwestern

Clemson and Michigan are similar in talent and athleticism but Clemson is a really tough place to win

was wrong on both...GT is really having some troubles...if Hewitt keeps his job it'll be the dumbest decision ever

Tonight, Illinois beat North Carolina, Michigan beat Clemson, Ohio State defeated Florida, Northwestern won over Georgia Tech, and Wake beat Iowa.
now its
big 10=4 (osu, nw, um, ill)
acc=2 (wake, virginia)

well i think northwestern is again an improving team and will end the streak this year. they will build on last years solid season and make that next step, and gt lost their best player and the talent level has dipped dramatically. I felt pretty solid in that one. Hewitt is done, couple years too late IMO

clemson/michigan was almost a pick em, and michigan is not playing with a new coach. clemson is replacing pernell and michigan is athletic, i saw it as a coin flip almost.

the thing i don't get is that GT still has one of the top 3 backcourts in the ACC and with Duke and VT's backcourts to contend with, that's saying somethin

Iman Shumpert, Mfon Udofia, Glen Rice Jr and Brian Oliver...all four of those guys are very good players...they pick up Julian Royal in next year's class and they've got 5 kids who can all play at a high level...if GT gets someone in there who can coach as well as lock up the players in the Atlanta area alone, then GT could be an absolute force...

part of their problem is they only have 3 players over 6'6 and all of them are freshmen...they shoot a very poor percentage from the field (something like 35%) because they can't feed the ball inside to stop runs or make the defense play honest

as it is, they're letting UGA come in and steal some kids that they normally would've gotten

UGA is on the upswing, with this year's team maybe a tournament/top level SEC team and getting big time players out of the area.
GT had the area on lock for a while, but Hewitt never took advantage of all that NBA talent, aside from the run a couple years ago.

GT should be one of the best teams in the ACC every couple of years. They have talent, are right in the middle of ALL kinds of talent, but you can tell the coaching has not been there the last few years.

and no size this year, but Hewitt knew Favors was a one and done guy, thats bad scouting IMO

you look at the team that took them to the Final Four, and it was probably his LEAST athletic team, it blows my mind...Luke Schenscher for Christ's sake!?!?! Mario West was a freshman at the time and a walk-on...and Jarrett Jack was the leader of the team...but you can't win with Thaddeus Young, Javaris Crittenton, Anthony Morrow, Iman Shumpert and Derrick Favors???

this is the same team who only lost by 4 to 10th ranked Syracuse, 3 days ago...

And lost to A-Sun doormat Kennesaw State. That said as nod to the A-Sun they do have the 2nd most wins as a mid-major conference versus the "big 6" conferences. Conference USA has the most going into this week.

Iowa must be terrible too. Wake is another program who is falling off the map in the ACC.

Wake is bad...Dino Gaudio was a horrible choice, and they're paying for it now

FWIW, Bezdelik isn't much better...it'll be a while before they climb out of this hole

Wake is bad bad bad, just terrible. I have not seen an ACC team this bad in a while.

Quote:

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you look at the team that took them to the Final Four, and it was probably his LEAST athletic team, it blows my mind...Luke Schenscher for Christ's sake!?!?! Mario West was a freshman at the time and a walk-on...and Jarrett Jack was the leader of the team...but you can't win with Thaddeus Young, Javaris Crittenton, Anthony Morrow, Iman Shumpert and Derrick Favors???

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how is that even possible? I know 04 was a really down year but that team was nowhere near as talented as say the 06-07 team with Morrow, Crittenton and Young.
well **** just look at it this way;
T. Young-NBA starter
Morrow-NBA player
Crittenton-NBA player
Favors-NBA starter

and he couldnt win the ACC, much less compete nationally with those teams.
thats not mentioning guys like G. Lawal, A. Aminu, Z. Pea****, etc...

Big 10 wins this year after a very entertaining game between VT-Purdue from what I saw.

On the ETSU front, they go into Dayton and get a win tonight behind a solid performance from Justin Tubbs. They spend this month on the road till the 30th with a couple of games against the SEC and a trip to Cancun mixed in.

Speaking of Dayton, the A-10 looks terrible this year. Temple may be the only decent team in the bunch.

Richmond is pretty good, they just beat Purdue within the last week

we (Akron) just picked up a big win tonight @ Detroit, over McDonald's All-American Ray McCallum Jr. and future pro and former Univ. of Indiana standout Eli Holman...first game of a 4-game road trip...

next we play in Chicago @ UIC, then in Philly @ Temple and finally in Minneapolis @ Minnesota

three tough games all on the road, but we started it out well tonight

Every team in the A-10 playing tonight lost but Temple and UMass ( who is still undefeated), but neither win was impressive by margin or who they played. Richmond lost at ODU, but ODU is solid. Unfortunately though, Xavier and St. Joes stink so the A-10 won't have as much depth as usual for this win to look really strong for ETSU.

we picked up a transfer from Xavier in the offseason who, along with Terrell Holloway, wouldve been one of their starting guards this season...he says that Chris Mack isn't liked among many of the players and Crawford and Holloway just flat out didn't respect him at all...Crawford even showed up to practice hungover on "more than 10 occasions" and Mack let it slide

X is a pretty proud program. I dont' see them letting it go down the crapper without a change pretty quickly then if stuff like that is happening.

ODU is super solid, they might win two games in the NCAA tourney.

the challenge ended 6-5, and of course I got all my picks right :p

A-Sun with another quality RPI win with Jacksonville knocking off Florida today.