ACC Roundup - Georgia Tech Wins, Notre Dame Impresses, And Is Miami A Lost Cause?

01.12.2024 16:00

CORAL GABLES, FL - NOVEMBER 30: Miami forward Brandon Johnson (2) watches as a teammate shoots free throws in the second half (also pictured, Charleston Southern guard Daylen Berry (7) as the Miami Hurricanes faced the Charleston Southern Buccaneers on November 30, 2024, at the Watsco Center in Coral Gables, Florida. | Photo by Samuel Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

And let’s not get into Stanford.

In Saturday’s ACC Action, Creighton beat Notre Dame 80-76, Georgia Tech popped Scottie Pippen U (aka Central Arkansas) 87-68, Charleston Southern took down Miami 83-79 and Stanford fell to...Cal Poly, 97-90.

As far as we can tell, Stanford has two decent players, Maxime Raynaud and former Blue Devil Jaylen Blakes. Blakes hit for 17 points, had eight assists and four steals and Raynaud did okay too with 21 points and five boards, but still...Cal Poly? That school hadn’t knocked off Stanford since 1977, 47 years ago.

We don’t know anything about Cal Poly, and we realize the PAC-12 went kaput, but this is not the sort of team that PAC-12 teams lose to. Or former PAC-12 teams for that matter. Basically it’s embarrassing, so let’s move on.

How about Miami?

Well, Colorado State isn’t as ugly as loss and Niko Medved is a pretty good coach. We’ve been following him since he was at Furman and his teams generally do well. He’s won consistently since moving to Colorado State.

Still, Miami has done well under Jim Larranaga, but this year is looking like a possible disaster.

Charleston Southern was 1-7 coming into this one and hadn't beaten a power conference team since 2019.

Miami let CSU hit 50.8 percent overall and 45.8 percent from behind the line. After the game Jim Larranaga had some weary comments about his team, saying that “We haven’t been able to put together a really solid defensive effort. Some of it has to do with the fundamentals of the game. Some of it has to do with athletic ability, some with size. But we had a very hard time guarding them. Kelly was tremendous both ends of the court. We keep making the same errors, and it shows up every game.”

Pretty good chance it’ll show up again soon. The next three opponents for Miami are Arkansas, Clemson and Tennessee. That’s not going to end well.

Georgia Tech got out to a 10-0 lead and basically rolled over Scottie Pippen’s alma mater. The biggest problem for Tech was that the Yellow Jackets let Central Arkansas shoot 14-32 from behind the line.

They’ll need to tighten that up, but the Jackets shot a respectable 40.6 percent on threes themselves.

Lance Terry had 25 points to pace Tech. Naithan George had a nice game with 16 points, 11 assists and just one turnover. Bay Ndongo finished with 13 points and nine rebounds. Jaeden Mustaf is building a nice role off the bench. He had 18 points in this one. That flows the last game where he had 16 in 24 minutes in a 91-67 win against...who was that again? Oh yeah.

Charleston Southern.

Now on to the bright spot, Notre Dame’s loss to Creighton.

Come again?

Yes, it was a loss. But it was also a bright spot.

Why?

Because Notre Dame has been without star guard Markus Burton since losing to Rutgers in overtime. They then gave Houston a tough game and now Creighton.

That would be impressive with Burton. Micah Shrewsberry is building an excellent program.

Tae Davis and Braeden Shrewsberry hit for 17 points each. Matt Allocco had 12.

It’s a bit early for this, but we feel pretty confident in saying this: Notre Dame and Louisville are both about to make moves in the ACC. They’ve been as impressive as anyone so far.

Everyone is on break until Tuesday when the first day of the ACC/SEC Challenge starts.

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