What we learned (midweek edition)

• Roy Williams can use timeouts effectively
• Seth Greenberg can coach
• N.C. State can be a functional basketball team

Roy Williams can use timeouts effectively 

At least at the end of the half, or when applicable, at the end of a tight game. With his team up 42-40 with 30 seconds left in the half against Clemson on Wednesday, Williams called timeout and set up a play for Wayne Ellington.

That the Clemson coaching staff, and players, were the only ones in the Smith Center who didn't know Ellington would get the ball on the wing to take a 3-pointer — see UNC's win at Clemson last season — is irrelevant.

There's no one in the business who prepares his team better for such situations or diagrams a better last-second shot than Williams. They don't always go in (cough, Georgetown) — and we can argue about who the shots are called for (cough, Tyler Hansbrough) — but bottom line, Roy puts his boys in the right spots to execute. 

That seems like Coaching 101 but you'd be surprised how many coaches fail remedial game management. Williams excels at it.

Ellington's 3 with 3 seconds left was the proverbial dagger. UNC, after trailing by six in the first half, led 45-40 and it felt like the game was over.

Seth Greenberg can coach

When teams improves as the season progresses, that's the sign of good coaching. When players develop as their careers progress, that's the sign of good coaching.

Greenberg does both in spades. If you want to pick nits about the starts, or overlooking a certain famous almuni's children in recruiting, fine, but this side of Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski, there's no better coach in the ACC.

And given what Greenberg's working with, there are some aspects that he does a better job than Roy or K. Note the word "some."

And no one should be surprised Virginia Tech beat Wake Forest on Wednesday. Certain ACC teams match up better with certain ACC teams. Miami owns Maryland, N.C. State owns Virginia Tech and Virginia Tech has won five of six with Wake Forest. 

N.C. State can be a functional basketball team

Would you rather win ugly or lose pretty? State looked clumsy in beating Georgia Tech in overtime on Saturday but showed promise in a 17-point loss to Duke on Tuesday.

Obviously, you take the wins where you can get them, but in the toughest environment in college sports — add up the crowd, the refs, the rims, how good Duke is — State showed some signs of hope in the next 12 ACC games.

Start with the rebounding. State's an awful rebounding team yet out-rebounded a good rebounding Duke team, 31-24. Rebounding is about hustle and positioning but mostly the work it takes to get into position. Effort's a positive step forward for this team that has been outworked by countless lesser programs in the nonconference schedule in the past two years.

Plus, Tuesday's game showed Ben McCauley and Brandon Costner are out of their Florida State fog. Sidney Lowe challenged — and benched — the veteran forwards in the FSU loss and they responded.

Now Lowe needs to keep one, the other, or both on the court for more minutes. Rotations and bench points are nice but McCauley needs to play more than 26 minutes, ditto for Costner and his 30.

It's college basketball. It's a 20-minute half with 600 TV timeouts, use them efficiently — a defensive possession here, an extra breath there — to rest your best players. Don't get cute with the wholesale subs.

There are no 10-6 miracles in Raleigh, but there's no reason in the jumbled bottom half of the conference, State can't win six ACC games and at least show mathematical progress from last season.