ACC Basketball News and Notes for the Week of Jan. 11-15

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The ACC pushes on doing all they can to keep things moving in the right direction. Yes, it’s has been a challenge, and will remain that way for the rest of the season. What needs to be pointed out on a weekly basis is how committed the league and its schools are to playing the season. This week, Covid-19 updates go as follows. The Wednesday night game between Pittsburgh vs Georgia Tech has been postponed. This comes about after positive results were found inside the Yellow Jackets program. Contact tracing, as well as quarantining are already taking place. Other scheduling changes are the Pitt vs ND game scheduled for Jan. 2 will now be played on Jan. 3., Because of this shift, North Carolina will now have a bye on that weekend.

The ACC Player of the Week and the Rookie of the Week comes from the same program, Duke. He is sophomore forward Matthew Hunt. In victories over Boston College and Wake Forest, Hunt averaged 21.5 points and eight and a half rebounds. He shot a team-best .567% from the field (17-of 30) and 7-of-13 from three-point range (.538). Against the Eagles, Hunt posted his second double-double of the season with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Seven of those points came in the last 5:15 of the game when the Blue Devils needed him the most. In the win over Wake, he went for a career-high 26 points with six boards. Hunt leads the league in scoring averaging 19.6 a game, is third in the league in rebounding at 8.5 a game, and second in three-point FG percentage at .444 (20-of-45).

The ACC Freshman of the Week is D.J. Stewart. He was the team’s second-leading scorer for the week averaging 17.5 and seven boards. In the hard-fought win over the Eagles, Stewart had a stat sheet kind of game with 14 points, eight rebounds, two blocks, and three steals. In the win vs Wake Forest, he had 21 points, six boards, and two additional blocked shots in 39 minutes of play.

Boston College finally broke through into the win ledger with an 84-62 victory at home vs Miami. They did it with some very good long-range shooting. The Eagles knocked down 18 three-pointers on 35 attempts. The 18 makes was one off the league record that they established last season. Rich Kelly was the best long-range shooter on Tuesday night. He went for 27 points with 21 of them from behind the arc. Heading into the game vs Miami, Kelly was knocking down on average two a night.

North Carolina senior forward, Garrison Brooks, recorded his first double-double of the season in Tuesday night’s win over Syracuse 81-75. For his career, Brooks now has 13 career double-doubles including 10 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Against Syracuse, Brooks’ night ended with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

Sophomore guard Tyrece Radford had himself quite a game vs Duke on Tuesday night. His final stat line was 18 points, 12 rebounds, and five assists. He becomes the first VT player since Kerry Blackshear, in March of 2019, also against Duke, to finish a game with at least 15 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists.

Next week we will be back with more from the Atlantic Coast Conference.