ATLANTA — College basketball purists may understandably shake their heads this morning about the state of Atlantic Coast Conference hoops.
First the College of Charleston stunned No. 9 North Carolina last Monday night. Then No. 20 Georgia Tech, fresh off a humbling road loss at hated rival Georgia, shocked No. 5 Duke 71-67 on Saturday inside Tech’s Thrillerdome.
“That’s ACC basketball,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said after his team lost for just the second time in 15 games and for only the third time in 19 contests against a Paul Hewitt-coached Yellow Jackets squad.
“(Gani) Lawal hit the shot he hits all the time. We had an open 3 and didn’t hit it. Sometimes the game is kind of that easy to understand.”
To a degree, Coach K’s right. Shooting covers up a multitude of shortcomings. With 1:11 on the clock, Tech clinging to a two-point lead, Hewitt called a timeout after the play Tech was supposed to run fell apart.
“A guard was supposed to go left and he went right,” the coach said later. “It was too important a moment not to get it right.”
So Hewitt again drew up the play he wanted and sent his Jackets back onto Bobby Cremins Court, hopeful that the magic the former Tech coach had worked Monday against the league’s Baby Bluebloods in his current role as Charleston coach would rub off on Hewitt’s bunch against the ACC’s darker blue royalty.
“I always want the ball in that situation,” said Lawal, the junior forward who pulled his name from last year’s NBA draft for moments such as this. “After losing at Georgia, we really needed this win.”
The ball came to Lawal on the right side of the basket, about 10 feet away. Slightly fading away, he launched his patented turnaround. Good. Tech led by four. On the other end, Duke’s Kyle Singler missed the 3-pointer. The Blue Devils never again drew closer than two points, and never with the ball.
“I knew it was good before it left my hand,” said Lawal, who finished with 21 points and nine rebounds as Tech improved to 12-3. “This is a huge win for this program. Now we have to make sure we build on it.”
The ACC has carefully crafted its image as the nation’s best basketball conference. And it may yet prove to be that again. After all, North Carolina is again the defending national champ just six years after winning its fourth NCAA title in 2005. Maryland and Duke have also hoisted the hardware in the new millennium, and Tech played for it all in 2004.
So they have their reasons to be America’s Cockiest Conference.
But one full week into 2010, Duke has played two true road games and lost both, also falling at Wisconsin in December. UNC has the Charleston embarrassment. No. 18 Maryland has lost by double figures at Florida and Ohio State. Tech has lost to Dayton, to Georgia and at home to Florida State.
“I just think it says we’re a young league,” said Tech senior Zach Peacock, who came off the bench to score 11 points against the Dookies and earn this praise from Coach K: “He’d be a starter on most teams in our league.”
And Peacock is pretty much on the money that UNC, Wake Forest, Tech and Florida State all have had to reload to an extent. Even Duke heavily relies on only one senior, though guard Jon Scheyer does lead the Blue Devils in both scoring (19.7 ppg) and assists (6.2).
Nor does Tech’s loss at unsung Georgia look quite so bad after the Bulldogs nearly upset No. 3 and unbeaten Kentucky in Lexington on Saturday afternoon.
“That’s sports,” Hewitt said when asked how his team could lose at Georgia and defeat Duke in a span of five days. “That’s just the way it is.”
Or maybe there’s something else in play. Something that we in the Scenic City witnessed last month when the Yellow Jackets spanked our University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs by 31 inside the Roundhouse.
Said UTC coach John Shulman after that 95-64 loss: “That’s a basketball team built to have a lot of success. Their two inside guys (Lawal and freshman Derrick Favors) are special. Those guys are (NBA) lottery picks.”
Added Coach K on Saturday: “(Lawal and Favors) are going to play basketball for a long time.”
After his team’s narrow but stirring victory, Hewitt said, “I’ve said all year this team has a high ceiling. I think they know how much they can do.”
How much the ACC can do when the NCAA tournament begins in mid-March remains to be seen. But for at least one icy January afternoon, Tech proved better than Duke within the ACC.
Or as Hewitt said, “Today it was good enough for a four-point win.”
Sometimes the game is kind of that easy to understand.