Tournament Update


A lot has gone on in the last few days - some good, some bad for the ACC teams. Here is an update on where these early season tournaments are now:


Let's start in Charleston with Georgia Tech.  The Yellow Jackets lost their first game of the year in a pretty uninspired effort to St. Joseph's, 66-53.  They were able to come back and beat VCU, last year's NCAA Tournament darling, 73-60.  That sets up a fifth place game on Sunday against LSU, a team that has been an SEC doormat for the last couple years.


In Puerto Rico, Maryland had a very tough first game.  They managed only 42 points against Alabama, with very little production from their starters.  Alabama is a very solid team, but this was definitely a bad performance from the Terps.  Fortunately for them, they were able to bounce back the next day to earn a nice win over Colorado.  Colorado is a little bit of an unknown commodity, having come close to the NCAA Tournament last year.  That sets up a fifth place game on Sunday against Iona, an underrated team that lost to Purdue by just one point.


The most disappointing loss for an ACC team has to be Virginia's two point defeat in the Virgin Islands yesterday to TCU.  The Horned Frogs were picked to be near the bottom of the Mountain West.  Former Hokie Hank Thorns came up big against Virginia, and the Cavs were only able to shoot 37.5% for the game.  The other bad news for Virginia is that since Norfolk State was able to upset Drexel, they will have to play a Drexel team that is supposed to be very solid in the CAA.  Virginia's third game will be against either Winthrop or Drake.


Virginia Tech took care of business in their NIT Tip-Off game against Florida International.  All four top seeds advanced to Madison Square Garden next week.  So the Hokies will take on Syracuse on Wednesday, followed by either Stanford or Oklahoma State.


The other game of note from yesterday was Boston College going down by 22 points to Holy Cross.  This is not a good sign for a team that is expected to be quite bad this year.  They need to right the ship against UMass on Monday before heading to the 76 Classic.