NEW YORK -- Through the first 10 games of the 69th ACC tournament, the one essential truth of this event had been proven yet again. No matter where you play it, in Brooklyn or Charlotte or wherever, and whether the league has three No. 1 seeds or is as down as it was this year, the basketball always rises above.
Almost always.
Three of Wednesday’s games went down to the final possession, two in overtime. Thursday started with Duke playing with fire against Syracuse, Miami’s breakaway buzzer-beater to beat Boston College in OT and Virginia Tech holding off Notre Dame, all entertaining in their own way.
And then there was the 11th, Thursday’s nightcap, and it’s hard to put into perspective how jarring it was to watch after a tournament full of drama, pathos, extraordinary performances and at least one simmering controversy, at least in Jim Boeheim’s mind.
Virginia set a modern-era record for fewest points in a first half with 13, outscored by Brady Manek and it wasn’t even that close. North Carolina shot 38 percent in that half … and led by 20. It only took Virginia eight minutes to score 13 points in the second half. Justin McKoy has now scored eight of his 28 points this season against his former team. And so on.
The questions everyone wanted answered in what turned out to be a 63-43 North Carolina win — Were the Tar Heels for real at Duke? Was that performance replicable? — were never really asked because Virginia was so off.
Of course, North Carolina had a lot to do with that. The Tar Heels came out with Leaky Black guarding Kihei Clark, a tactical masterstroke that took the Cavaliers’ point guard out of the flow of their offense. Manek and Armando Bacot bothered Virginia in the lane with their length, not so much defending the rim as obstructing it.
But in terms of picking up where they left off against Duke, there were some positive signs, like Caleb Love and R.J. Davis combining for nine assists and two turnovers, but it was hard to say much else. Other than Manek, the Tar Heels didn’t shoot all that well, and it never really mattered. North Carolina beat the snot out of Virginia in Chapel Hill in January — until the Tar Heels ruined Mike Krzyzewski’s Cameron farewell, their best performance of the season — and were never really threatened Thursday.
The Tar Heels were the last team to take the court in Brooklyn and the first to play in a real snoozer of a game — after Tuesday, anyway, and the only way to think about Tuesday at the ACC tournament is not to think about it at all. Even Wednesday’s opening blowout of Florida State by Syracuse had drama: the incident that essentially ended Buddy Boeheim’s Syracuse career.
He took a swing at a Seminoles player, the officials missed it, the ACC was left with no choice but to suspend him a la Chris Paul and Julius Hodge, and Duke ended Syracuse’s season a day later, after which the eldest Boeheim was no less furious at the way things played out.
Thanks to that win, Miami and Virginia Tech are the thin orange line between Duke and North Carolina and a third matchup in Saturday’s title game. The Hurricanes are the only ACC team Duke didn’t beat this season; the Tar Heels swept the Hokies in the regular season.
This tournament doesn’t need that rematch to save it; the basketball’s been entertaining enough despite the lack of buzz inside and outside the Barclays Center in the ACC’s third time playing second fiddle to the Big East in New York. But it wouldn’t hurt, either.
