And one of those teams isn't named North Carolina. Very impressive showing by the conference.
I was not expecting much from the conference. Pretty incredible that UVA was one fluky banked-in shot away from knocking out NC State and now it's the Wolfpack in the Elite Eight.
They showed signs of being inconsistent, or at least have a dud of a game, all season. Just look at ND’s win against them this season - we weren’t anywhere close to a team capable of blowing out a top team and blew them out. Sure, we played well that game, but they were pretty awful in that game.
I’m actually not surprised at NC State. They’ve figured things out, and they use Burns very well. In the first half against Marquette, they were very good at getting the ball to Burns and finding the open man after a double-team. On top of that, Horne is playing very well too.
The things that surprised me were 1. UNC losing (didn’t help that Davis had a poor game, but they still should have pulled it off), and 2. Duke won. However, the ACC was 2 points from being half the teams in the Elite 8…
Clemson at 19 is next lowest E8 team.
Had UVa merely made 2/4 of FTs in waning seconds of ACCT semis, NCSU would've been hoping for a NIT bid. Had ND not blown an 11 pt 2d half home lead (and missed key FTs late), NCSU and ND would've both finished 8-12 in ACC. ND would've had tiebreaker for ACCT.
With about 5 minutes to go, puts his right shoulder down and absolutely plows into the defender's sternum, and gets the call. It wasn't just typical banging down low, it was lowering your shoulder and running over the defender.
Houston was toast without Shead, but that was a horrible call at a critical moment.
I’m surprised they kept it as close as they did.