Cardinal Couple: ACC Women's Basketball -- Conference race still wide open...THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Thursday, January 21, 2016

ACC Women's Basketball -- Conference race still wide open...THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

SIX TEAMS WITHIN ONE GAME OF FIRST PLACE

A look at the most recent ACC women's basketball standings show five teams with either no or just one loss in conference play. Some of them you would expect to be up in that rarified air...a couple are surprising.

Louisville and Notre Dame are atop the standings...the Cards at 6-0 and Notre Dame 5-0. The Irish are no surprise...but will have a tough test tonight against Syracuse...who invades South Bend for a 7 p.m. tip. After the Cards slow start to begin the season, there may be a few eyebrows raised by the casual observer that they are unblemished in ACC play...but the current Cardinal team has withstood the rigors of tough road contests and is hard to beat in The KFC YUM! Center.

Miami, Florida State and Syracuse have one loss each in league play...the 'Canes will host the Noles Sunday and Florida State brings in dangerous two-conference loss Virginia Thursday night.

Beside Virginia, NC State and Virginia Tech have lost twice in conference play. Either the Hokies or Wolfpack will drop to three conference losses tonight...they'll match up in Blacksburg for a 7 p.m. contest.

Duke and North Carolina have three ACC losses, surprising to some undoubtedly. Duke heads to Clemson tonight and North Carolina will hop on I-40 to visit Wake Forest. If either Duke or UNC lose these match-ups...it may be time to call in the crisis intervention folks.

Georgia Tech has one conference win and in the cellar of the standings are Boston College, Clemson, Wake Forest and Pittsburgh.

BIGGEST SURPRISE?

I'll go with Miami...followed closely by Louisville. The Canes have been beating up on the lower echelons of the ACC with wins over Wake Forest, Clemson and Pitt...but they did down NC State and North Carolina...so it's not like they haven't been tested so far. Louisville started the conference with a bang with a convincing win over FSU and romped Duke. The comeback win over NC State was impressive also.

BIGGEST FLOP?

Duke. A team full of incredible talent and dominating height...the Blue Devils were hammered by Louisville and Syracuse, beat by NC State in Cameron and got wins over Boston College and Wake Forest. Turnovers will keep any coach up at night and JoAnne P. McCauley's squad has been baking up some beauties so far.

WHERE WE EXPECTED

We didn't let the pre-conference successes of Boston College or Pittsburgh fool us...both have major work to do in recruiting and it's showing so far in conference play. Clemson hasn't been relevant in ACC women's basketball in quite some time and Wake Forest is in that same boat.

TEAM TO BEAT?

For now...Notre Dame...but we'll know a bit more on how strong Muffet McGraw's team is after their battle with Syracuse. They'll also have to travel to Louisville this season and bring in Miami on Valentine's Day. A trip to Florida State on George Washington's birthday should be a tough test as well.

The Irish have lost to just Connecticut on the season and handled Tennessee with relative ease earlier this week. They remain the team to topple for claims on the ACC regular season championship.

There is, of course, plenty of ACC women's basketball yet to be played before the conference tournament. We're sure there will be the upsets and shockers we'll discuss down the road. For now, though...the two teams atop the ACC are nowhere near the Atlantic Coast...just the Great Lakes and Ohio River

paulie
xxxxx

17 comments:

Wade1/21/2016 3:44 AM
Pitt just got an early start on recruiting landing South Carolina transfer Shay Colley.
Great write up If Nc State beat us their would be one more team to add to the bottleneck at the top.
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Wade1/21/2016 3:50 AM
Without Faith Randolph Virginia is in huge trouble.
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vivian1/21/2016 6:18 AM
I think Muffet is a very good coach year in and year out. And, she should be recognized every year for her ability to squat for long periods on the sidelines while wearing high heels. Paulie, your picture is perfect.
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Mike D1/21/2016 8:11 AM
Nice write-up, Paulie.

I sure would like to see the Cardinals finish in the top four and earn one of those double byes. It's tough enough to win three straight games in a conference tourney, much less four (or, heaven forbid, five).
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Cardinal Couple1/21/2016 11:59 AM
Miami, Syracuse and Notre Dame for the Cards will all be tough but if someone guaranteed Coach Walz a 13-3 conference record right now...chances are he'd look long and hard at that deal.

paulie
Xxxxxx
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Anonymous1/21/2016 12:20 PM
There are a lot of games yet to be played. I would grab that in a heartbeat
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Anonymous1/21/2016 7:26 PM
Syracuse laying an egg in South Bend. Irish up 28-11 after first period.
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