ACC Basketball News & Notes: North Carolina Win Streak at Nine

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It is starting to look like the team to keep up with and beat in the ACC is the North Carolina Tar Heels. Their win streak is now at nine after Saturday’s road win at Boston College. Then, they took down Wake Forest at home on Monday night. The nine-game winning streak has something else going on. The Tar Heels have won all of these games by at least 10 points. It’s the first time they have done this since the 2008-09 season when they did it during a 13-game winning streak. They have a two-game lead in the loss column over NC State and play on the road on Saturday at Florida State.

As was the case last week, the ACC has nine teams in the Top 70 of the NET Ranking. UNC at #7, Duke at #19, Clemson at #24, Wake Forest at #42, Virginia at #47, Virginia Tech at #51, Miami at #64, Syracuse at #68, and Pittsburgh at #69. Despite that, only two schools are ranked in both the Associated Press Top 25 Poll, and the USA Today Coaches Poll. North Carolina at #3, and Duke at #12 are in the AP Poll. They are in the same positions in the USA Poll. Home teams have a small advantage in the overall record so far. The 28-24 record is good for 53.8%. The 24 road wins are getting some notice. The win percentage for road teams is at 46.2%. If that continues, it would be the third-best in league history. The other two are, 47.3% in 1955 and 46.4% in 1987.

The ACC Player of the Week is Virginia guard Reece Beekman. He led his team to wins over Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech by averaging 17.5 PPG, five rebounds, 7.5 assists, and three steals. He leads the conference in assists averaging six assists a game. Beekman also leads in steals at 2.22 a game.

The Rookie of the Week is Pittsburgh guard Jaland Lowe. He averaged 18.5 PPG, 4.5 assists, and 1.5 steals. Lowe came up big in a win at Duke last Saturday finishing with 17 points, six assists, and zero turnovers.

The Syracuse Orangemen (13-5, 4-3) are creating a very difficult home environment for teams to try and win at. So far at JMI Wireless Dome, the Orangemen are undefeated at 9-0. Their offensive production is up as well. Syracuse is averaging 79.7 PPG at home, while their defense is holding teams to 69.2 PPG. Syracuse still finds itself in the middle of the pack in the league standing on both offense and defense. They are 10th in scoring at 75.6 a game and on defense, they are 9th, allowing 71.6 a game.

One of the better transfer portal pickups in the league may be Jordan Minor who is playing his graduate year with the Cavaliers (13-5, 4-3) after spending four seasons at Merrimack. In his last three games, all starts, Minor is averaging 12.7 PPG and four rebounds. In his first 13 games, Minor was at two points a game and 1.8 boards. In Virginia’s win last Saturday vs Georgia Tech, Minor had 11 points.

The Boston College Eagles (11-8, 2-6) have done a good job of protecting the basketball. Their turnover rate of 9.4 is 13th in the country, and third best in the league. If they can stay under ten for the season, it would be the fewest turnovers per game since the program started tracking this stat in 1979-80. On Tuesday night at Virginia Tech, the Eagles turned the ball over 15 times in a 76-71 loss.

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (9-10, 2-6) have slipped below .500 for the season. However, freshman PG Nathan George has been playing well. Going into their home game Tuesday night vs Pittsburgh, George was averaging 17.3 PPG. He was 18-of-32 from the field and 8-of-17 from 3-point land. He was also finding his teammates as his 20 assists in those games would suggest. George turned the ball over five times in those games. On Tuesday night, George had 10 points on 3-of-10 shooting and he was 2-of-7 from deep with four assists and one turnover.

That is all for this week. We will be back next week with more from the ACC.