Conference tournaments are about basketball but also so much more: the fans, parents, bands, cheerleaders, etc. The ACC Tournament is taking place this week in Washington, DC, and we could not be more excited to be there in person! HoopsHD will be covering all the angles so you can look forward to an abundance of articles in the days ahead. Jon Teitel continues our coverage with a recap of tonight’s ACC title game.
I finished on a high note with the food: street tacos/street corn…both delicious. Let’s tip it off:
NC STATE-NORTH CAROLINA
The crowd is mostly blue but there are plenty of patches of red and are all hyped for tonight’s title game:
North Carolina is the heavy favorite, as NC State is the 10 seed and has not won this tourney since 1987 (when they had a 68-67 win over UNC at the Capital Centre in Landover, MD). After some inconsistent performances earlier this week it was exciting to see all the stars show up big in the 1st half. For the Wolfpack it was their 180-pound DJ (Horne) who made a ton of jump shots and a 3 from the top of the key and their 275-pound DJ (Burns), who not only dominated in the lane but also knocked down the 1st 3-PT shot of his career (he had been 0-9!). The Tar Heels turned to their own dynamic SR duo with RJ Davis making a trio of trifectas (including 1 of the step-back variety followed by a stare-down of the NC State bench) and Armando Bacot scoring plenty of points in the paint. It looked like they would come up just short in the 1st stanza but thanks to a Cormac Ryan corner 3 at the buzzer they held a 40-39 lead at halftime.
Different half, same star-power in the 2nd stanza. Bacot made layups/dunks (finishing with a double-double), Davis made everything else (finishing with a team-high 30 PTS), but it was simply not enough. Horne eventually fouled out but not before converting an old-fashioned and new-fashioned 3-PT play en route to a team-high 29 PTS, while Burns kept backing down Bacot in the post before sinking shots around the hoop (and earning tourney MVP honors). When the confetti settled NC State somehow had won 5 games in 5 days including the final 1 by the score of 84-76 to win its 1st ACC tourney title in 37 years and secure a spot in the field on Selection Sunday. No postgame press conference but check back tomorrow for my best photos from the postgame celebration…but see below for a sneak preview:
The Hoops HD Selection Committee – Friday, March 15th
Tonight was the second night of our Hoops HD Selection Committee meetings via Zoom conference call; we were able to vote more teams into the field in tonight’s voting as well as to begin seeding the top 6 seed lines in the tournament field. The first order of business was to nominate 8 more teams to add to the field (along with carryovers TCU, Colorado State and St. John’s); in this round of voting we added five more teams – Mississippi State, Seton Hall, New Mexico, Indiana State and Florida Atlantic. After each committee member ranked these teams one through eight, we added Colorado State, TCU, St. John’s and Mississippi State to the field. Seton Hall, New Mexico, Indiana State and Florida Atlantic all carried over to the next round of voting.
While we waited for more results to go final, we began the process of seeding the top 6 seed lines in the process. For the first round of voting, we debated and each individual member would nominate their top 12 teams on the Auto-Bid/At-Large board. We then took the top 12 teams and then ranked the teams 1 through 12. As you can see in the board above, our 1-line included UConn, Houston, Purdue and North Carolina; our 2-line included North Carolina, Arizona, Marquette and Iowa State.
The next step was to again have each person nominate their top 12 teams not yet seeded or carried over (the initial round of carryovers included Baylor, Creighton, Illinois and Duke); the top 8 teams would be added to the four carryover teams and we would rank this group of teams 1 through 12. Our 3-line included Baylor, Creighton, Kentucky and Duke; our 4-line included Illinois, Alabama, Kansas and Auburn. (The four carryovers were South Carolina, BYU, Texas Tech, and Saint Mary’s).
We repeated the process one more time to fill out the 5-line and 6-line; the 5-line had BYU, Texas Tech, Utah State and South Carolina; the 6-line had Saint Mary’s, San Diego State, Nevada and Gonzaga. The four teams that will carry over to the next round of seeding will be Florida, Clemson, Boise State and Texas.
After this, we took a break to watch other games go final; as a result of tonight’s games, we were assured of bids opening up in the Big East and Big 10. There is a possibility of bids being stolen out of the ACC thanks to NC State advancing to the ACC Championship as well as the Pac-12 thanks to Colorado and Oregon advancing to the Pac-12 Championship (even a stronger possibility considering both the Buffs and the Ducks remained Under Consideration at the end of the night). At the time this article was posted, New Mexico was leading Colorado State in the Mountain West semifinals – the Lobos could also steal the automatic bid here. Also remember that a bid will likely be stolen out of the Atlantic 10; there is a remote possibility that they could be a 1-bid league if Dayton is voted off the at-large board.
Therefore, we decided to only add two more teams to the at-large board tonight and vote in any remaining teams tomorrow night after more results go final. Each committee member nominated six teams to add for this round of voting; there was a three-way tie between Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Colorado that was broken when Texas A&M and Oklahoma advanced via roll-call vote. Both teams were ranked along with the four carryover teams one through six; Florida Atlantic was finally added to the field on their fourth attempt and Seton Hall was also added to the field. Texas A&M and Oklahoma will carry over to the next round of at-large voting; New Mexico and Indiana State moved back to Under Consideration after failing ot advance on back-to-back votes. There was also a motion to add Oregon to the Under Consideration board that successfully passed, but it was more of a procedural move since the Ducks are basically playing the role of bid thief tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night will be the busiest night for our Committee; we will do a further scrub of the Under Consideration board and entertain any potential motions to move teams off of the At-Large board (for example, Dayton’s at-large spot could potentially be moved back to Under Consideration if there are enough votes to do so). We will do a final round of voting in teams along with any contingency spots (SEC, ACC, Pac-12, Mountain West, American) that can open along the way. We will also finish seeding the rest of the field and do an initial scrub of the seed list to account for game results and debate from our Committee to make any changes that we feel are necessary.
Stay tuned to the website tomorrow to see how our initial seed list plays out!