2025 ACC Tournament Roundup - Georgia Tech, Cal Showed The Most Heart Wednesday
And Virginia made it official, firing Ron Sanchez
In Wednesday’s ACC Tournament Action, Georgia Tech knocked off Virginia 66-60, UNC smacked Notre Dame 76-56, Stanford slipped by Cal 78-73 and SMU clubbed Syracuse 73-53.
We talked about Georgia Tech in our Duke preview so we won't add a lot here other than to say, like Notre Dame against UNC, they may play with tired legs on Thursday.
Also, after the loss, Virginia announced that interim coach Ron Sanchez would not be retained.
As much as any team that has played so far in Charlotte, Cal has shown a lot of heart. They played six overtimes since Saturday and still were in position to beat Stanford at the end of the game. Maxime Raynaud and former Duke guard Jaylen Blakes were too much to overcome though.
Raynaud finished with 23 points and eight rebounds while Blakes had 21 points, six assists, three rebounds and three steals.
Making Cal’s effort even more impressive, the Bears played without starting guards Jeremiah Wilkinson and Jovan Blacksher. That was an incredibly impressive outing. If you are a Cal fan, you should be really proud of your team.
We thought Notre Dame would be tired against UNC and they sure played like it. Their two best players, Markus Burton and Tae Davis shot 3-11 and 3-13 respectively and the Tar Heels were just consistently faster and more aggressive.
For UNC, Ven-Allen Lubin shot 8-13 and Jae’Lyn Withers hit 7-10 and they led the Tar Heels with 17 and 21 points respectively. Lubin also had 10 rebounds and Withers had nine.
Not to knock those guys but those are atypical performances.
In the nightcap, Syracuse hung around in the first half, down just 31-28 at halftime.
In the second, SMU turned on the afterburners, outscoring the Orange by 17.
Somehow, Eddie Lampkin got just precisely two shots, just as many as Petar Majstorovic. Getting the ball to him a bit more might have helped.
So on Thursday, the matchups look like this:
- Georgia Tech vs. Duke || 12:00 || ESPN
- UNC vs. Wake Forest || 2:30 || ESPN
- Stanford vs. Louisville || 7:00 || ESPN2
- SMU vs. Clemson || 9:30 || ESPN2
We admire Tech’s gutsiness and how they’ve risen to overcome so much, but Duke is deeper, more talented and fresh. It may be closer than a lot of people expect in the end, but that’s still a lot to overcome this time.
UNC and Wake Forest should be interesting. If Lubin and Withers match Wednesday’s productivity, we’ll be hugely impressed. All season, UNC’s scoring has come from the perimeter. On Wednesday, RJ Davis had 13, but Elliot Cadeau, Ian Jackson and Seth Trimble combined for eight points on 3-10 shooting. That probably won’t happen again, but Wake coach Steve Forbes will be thrilled if it does.
The great thing about Stanford and Louisville will be watching Blakes and Chucky Hepburn going at it. Louisville will have some trouble with Raynaud but should win this game with relative ease.
Clemson should also top SMU but the Mustangs are a pretty solid team. They dipped late when Boopie Miller was out but has looked pretty good since his return. You can reasonably toss out the loss to Florida State because it was Leonard Hamilton’s final curtain call and that would have been tough for any opponent to overcome.
Miller was out from February 15th (a loss to Wake Forest) to March 4th (a win over Syracuse).
In those five games, SMU was 2-3. Since he returned, the Mustangs are 2-1.
They could give the Tigers some trouble but we’d still go with Clemson because that team is so mentally tough now.