The ACC Tournament notebook …
The Atlantic Coast Conference couldn’t have picked a better year to hold its tournament in a dome.
Six teams boast a legitimate shot at the tournament championship, and their fans will have plenty of places to sit in the massive Georgia Dome.
After 11 straight years in Greensboro or Charlotte, the 40,000-seat dome got the nod for the 2001 event both as a money-making tool and good-will gesture to the league’s ravenous fans.
Typical arenas seat 20,000, and all of those tickets had been divided among the schools in the past. For the first time since 1966, the public got to buy seats, which is why the ACC fully expects to break the NCAA’s all-time tournament attendance mark of 140,179 fans, set by the Southeastern Conference in 1995.
That event also was in the Georgia Dome.
Of course, any time a basketball team plays in a dome, the questions begin: How will if affect the shooting? How will the players have to adjust?
Tar Heels head coach Matt Doherty had his “Hoosiers” speech ready to go — the hoop is 10-feet high, the court’s 94-feet long, etc. Others were more circumspect — not to mention slightly more inventive.
“It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition,”N.C. State head coach Herb Sendek said. “Certainly many more people are afforded the opportunity to see the games, which is a good thing. On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for the more intimate, typical arena for a college basketball game.”
At the very least, this weekend’s tournament should provide great practice for those squads advancing to the NCAA Tournament. One of the sub-regional rounds — where the South’s No. 1 seed will head — is the Louisiana Superdome.
The Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds will take place back in Atlanta (South region) and in the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas (Midwest). Then there’s the Final Four site: the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
As long as the ACC Tournament manages to draw NCAA-caliber crowds, all concerned will be pleased. Otherwise, cautioned Wake Forest head coach Dave Odom, it’s back to the drawing board.
“The two tests are going to be Thursday night, how many actually show up, and Sunday afternoon,”Odom said. “At that point (Sunday), you’re going to have seven teams who no longer have the chance to win the championship, and we know from past history that Sunday afternoon was always full with about 20,000 fans.
“The test this year is, Sunday afternoon, can we put 40,000 people in those stands no matter who’s playing? If we do that, then the decision to move to the dome was absolutely the right one. If we end up with a half-filled arena on Sunday afternoon, I will be disappointed.
“To me, that will be the litmus test.”
The happiest coach of all to be in the Georgia Dome is obvious — rookie Yellow Jacket head man Paul Hewitt.
Hewitt’s squad was selected eighth in the preseason media poll, but Bobby Cremins’ successor pulled off a couple of astonishing wins and guided his team to the league’s No. 5 seed this weekend.
In the history of the ACC, only eight coaches have guided their teams to records of .500 or better in their first season. Hewitt finished 8-8.
“People are very excited around here,”Hewitt said. “I think if we get by Virginia on Friday, you’ll see a large Tech contingent at the Georgia Dome on Saturday afternoon.”
A win over No. 4 Virginia in the 2:30 p.m. game would be Tech’s third this season over the Cavs. At Virginia, Shaun Fein drained an amazing 3-pointer in the final minute to secure a 73-68 victory. The rematch was just as tight, with Tech winning 62-56.
“They were very close games,”Hewitt said. “We got a bounce here, a bounce there. Shaun Fein made an incredible shot in the game up there, 25-foot fadeaway from in front of our bench in the last minute.
“Our teams are very, very closely matched and both games could’ve gone either way.”
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Bubble trouble: A win over the Cavs, ranked 12th in the nation, would all but secure a place in the NCAA Tournament for Georgia Tech.
In addition to the two Virginia wins, Georgia Tech has beaten Maryland and Wake Forest in the ACC and UCLA and Kentucky in the preseason. Tech looked in already, in fact, standing 16-10 with its season finale at Florida State, but the Seminoles grabbed a 69-59 win to complicate matters.
“I think if we win Friday, I feel very, very confident,”Hewitt said. “If we lose Friday, I still feel like we’re going to get some consideration. We’ll definitely be on the bubble.”
Cavaliers’ head coach Pete Gillen was left to explain how his team could beat Duke, UNC, Maryland and Wake — yet lose to the Jackets twice and N.C. State once.
“The wear and tear of the season, sometimes teams go into a little bit of a lull and other teams get hot,”Gillen said. “We have so many great teams in the league, if one team’s on its ‘A’ game and Carolina-Duke are maybe on their ‘B’ game, they can get beat. We were fortunate to beat both of those teams.”
Virginia (20-7, 9-7) will be looking for more consistent play from guards Donald Hand and Roger Mason Jr., Gillen said. “We’ve got to have our guards keep us together,” he said. “Sometimes things just get out of whack and we kind of crumble, which is unfortunate.”
The Tar Heels, since earning the No. 1 spot in the national polls in February, lost three of their last five games and actually find themselves limping into the postseason.
Their first loss in the league came to Clemson, the ninth-ranked squad in the ACC and a possible opponent for Friday’s noon game. The Heels then beat Florida State, lost to Virginia, topped N.C. State and lost Sunday to Duke in an emotional Senior Day game that decided the regular-season championship — a split with the Blue Devils instead of an outright title.
“We have to learn from it, be disappointed from it, but we can’t let it overtake our emotions and have a hangover from it,” Doherty said. “We ought to get mad and show that, hey, if we had taken care of these things, we could’ve won that ballgame.
“But coming in we’re just trying to make it as positive as possible because we are the No. 1 seed in the tournament, we did have a great regular season. It just so happened we lost our last game.”
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something ELSE to play for: Despite North Carolina’s 23-5 overall mark and 13-3 ACC record, the Tar Heels are ranked sixth in the country and not the prohibitive favorite to grab the East region’s No. 1 seed.
Most observers see Duke heading to Greensboro for the first round, and now that Florida has turned on the jets in the SEC race, the Gators stand a good shot of taking No. 1 in the South, leaving the Heels out in the cold.
In Doherty’s mind, that’s not where his team should be.
“We finished in first place in the ACC, so I’d like to think we should be higher than that,”Doherty said. “But if you look at the last five games, we haven’t played great, so maybe there’s justification for being ranked sixth. Maybe we need to help ourselves by playing well in the ACC Tournament to still vie for a No. 1 seed.”
Clearly the highlight of the Tigers’ season was the Feb. 18 win over UNC.
“The evening that we won, I was probably quite a bit more sedated than most people in Clemson,”head coach Larry Shyatt said. “I also wanted to view this as not the major turning point, as one loss would not be the major turning point. Just being a small representation of things hopefully to come in the future.”
What followed for Clemson (11-18, 2-14) in the immediate future were four straight losses, including the second of the year to Florida State. Those two meet Thursday night to decide who moves on and who heads home.
“First and foremost, Florida State is one that we need to redeem ourselves, getting another opportunity,”Shyatt said. “And certainly, what better motivation to play the No. 1 seed and the great North Carolina Tar Heels?
“The second item for us, simply because we’re the youngest team by far in this league, I want them to be part of the greatest league in the country’s tournament, to hit quarterfinals and semifinals,” Shyatt said. “The best way to take part in the quarterfinals and semifinals is to take care of business Thursday.”
For the first time in the last four years, the two worst teams in the league meet in a “play-in” game of sorts. In the last three tournaments, the Nos. 7-8 seeds played Thursday, as did No. 1 and No. 9, with the winner of the latter game getting a bye into Saturday’s semifinal round.
FSU head man Steve Robinson said he’d better be able to evaluate the format after the tournament was finished. He later said, laughing, that he won’t mind one bit if his team has to play four games in four days — meaning the Seminoles (9-20, 4-12) reach Sunday’s finals.
There is hope for his ‘Noles. Florida State won its last two games, against Georgia Tech and the Tigers, and Robinson’s young players are steadily improving.
“Playing so many young guys, and having to depend on them, that’s very difficult because they’re still trying to feel out their way,”Robinson said. “I think the improvement that our team has made can be directly tied to the growth of the young players, the growth of Delvon Arrington, and it’s all starting to blend together for us.”
Early news on Carlos Boozer’s recovery was encouraging. The 6-foot-9 sophomore, who broke a bone in his right foot last week against Maryland, had X-rays of the injury taken recently. Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said things were progressing nicely and his center could be back for the start of the NCAA Tournament.
Even with Boozer missing from the Carolina game, Duke (26-4, 13-3) pulled off a 95-81 win Sunday. Senior Shane Battier and sophomore Jason Williams sparkled, as usual, but one of the real keys turned out to be freshman guard Chris Duhon.
The All-American prep star got his first start against the Heels and scored 15 points. He also didn’t turn the ball over as Duke used an up tempo game to thwart the taller Tar Heels.
It was the crowning moment of a stellar freshman campaign.
“He’s just really talented and he knew how to play defense and fit in,”Krzyzewski said. “I think a lot of star high school players have to learn new roles, how do I fit in? The other thing is, the style of play is conducive to what Chris’ strengths are: that’s speed, his ability to really push the ball down the court.
“He’s a perfect player for us and has been kind of a sixth starter all year.”
The Wolfpack got lost in the ACC shuffle this year. What was supposed to be a break-through season saw the Pack (13-15, 5-11) fall to seventh in the league.
Part of the growing pains have come from the point guard position, where sophomore Clifford Crawford struggled mightily at times. But as of late, Crawford’s level of play has improved. He’s currently ranked 11th in the league in steals and assists.
“Cliff has really continued to improve throughout the season, as we anticipated he would,”Sendek said. “Last year he didn’t get to play a great deal with a senior point guard (Justin Gainey) in front of him.
“We don’t necessarily need Cliff to be a scorer, we need him to make everybody better. But as shots are there, he continues to improve his ability to knock them down and he’s shooting the ball well for us.”
How the Terrapins entered the ACC as the hottest team in the league is anybody’s guess.
When the Blue Devils rallied from 10 points down with 54 seconds to play to stun Maryland, the Terps’ season imploded. They lost to Virginia, then after a win against Clemson, fell to Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Florida State.
Maryland, once ranked as high as eighth, fell to 17th in the polls, then went on a tear. The Terps won five straight, knocking off four ranked teams, and are ranked 11th in the nation now with their 20-9 overall mark.
“The only thing I did was make sure the players understood. I’ve been coaching for a long time, and even though a lot of people wanted to write us off, we were still in a position where we could get things going toward the end of the year,”Gary Williams said. “They bought into that.”
For only the fourth time in ACC history, the No. 6 team in the league owns a .500 or better record.
The Demon Deacons, at 19-9 overall and 8-8 in the league, could be considered the toughest six seed of all time. Their stiffest competition comes from the 1993 Yellow Jackets. Georgia Tech went 8-8, then beat Duke, Clemson and UNC by a total of 13 points to win the title behind Travis Best and Drew Barry.
The only other six seeds at .500 were Clemson (1989) and Virginia (1980).
Wake’s only downfall this year has been its inability to beat the league’s top teams. The Deacs fell twice to Carolina, Duke and Maryland — Friday’s opponent in the 9:30 p.m. game — although two losses to the Devils and Heels came in the final seconds.
For Wake to win the ACC Tournament, those fortunes must change. A win over Maryland, is just the start, with potential matchups against Duke and UNC to follow.
“If there’s a tougher road to the championship than the one Wake Forest is looking at, I don’t know what team in the country it could be,”Odom said. “If the seedings were to hold — and that’s a big if — we would be faced with beating the third seed on Friday, the second seed on Saturday and the first seed on Sunday.
“That’s tough, but that’s tournament basketball.”
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Sportswriter Steve Hanf will cover the ACC Tournament in Atlanta.
Steve Hanf