In case you didn't think Olivier Hanlan was the best freshman in the ACC this season, the Boston College guard made his case again on Thursday in the first round of the ACC tournament.
Hanlan scored 41 points to lead the eighth-seeded Eagles to a runaway 84-64 win over ninth-seeded Georgia Tech in the first game on Thursday afternoon at the Greensboro Coliseum.
Boston College moves on to face top-seeded Miami at noon on Friday.
There wasn’t much of a crowd to kick off the ACC tournament with Georgia Tech playing Boston College, which is a mistake anyone who filtered in over the course of the game won’t make again.
Olivier Hanlan, Boston College’s star athlete from Quebec who isn’t a hockey player, is clearly worth the price of admission. Early admission.
ATLANTA — Nothing is ever easy for N.C. State team and it wasn't on Sunday but the Wolfpack found a way to pick up a needed road win.
With 18 points from Richard Howell in the first half, and 11 from C.J. Leslie in the second half, the Wolfpack beat Georgia Tech 70-57 in another physical, deliberate, ACC basketball game best suited for Tums stockholders and amnesiacs.
The Wolfpack, as it has all season, put together a stretch brilliance, which was enough to carry it to a 14-point lead in the first half, but the Yellow Jackets jammed the tempo of the game into a grinder, like sausage into casing.
RALEIGH — N.C. State will play No. 1 Duke on Saturday, but Georgia Tech got the Wolfpack's attention on Wednesday.
No. 20 N.C. State needed 21 points from Lorenzo Brown and 20 from Scott Wood to hold off the resilient Yellow Jackets, 83-70 to improve to 2-0 in the ACC and set up Saturday's big game.
The Pack (13-2, 2-0 ACC) had to take care of Georgia Tech first. The Jackets didn't make it easy.
ATLANTA — Miami's opening-round game of the ACC tournament with Georgia Tech was supposed to be a means to an end. For about 25 minutes, it looked like the end of Miami's NCAA tournament hopes.
Instead, the Hurricanes exploded in the second half for a 54-36 win in an ugly game devoid of any redeemable artistic quality.
Updated (Sunday, 8:35 p.m.)
North Carolina will go to Atlanta as the No. 1 seed in the ACC tournament, just as everyone predicted in the preseason.
The Tar Heels (14-2 in the ACC) took the regular-season title with Saturday's 88-70 win at Duke. The Blue Devils (13-3) will be the second seed in the conference tournament.
Thursday's games
No. 8 Maryland vs. No. 9 Wake Forest, noon
No. 5 N.C. State vs. No. 12 Boston College, 2:30 p.m.
No. 7 Clemson vs. No. 10 Virginia Tech, 7 p.m.
No. 6 Miami vs. No. 11 Georgia Tech, 9:30 p.m.
GREENSBORO – The shots just didn't fall.
For the N.C. State women's basketball team, there was no getting around its poor shooting performance on Saturday afternoon, and the result was a disappointing 87-61 loss to fourth-seeded Georgia Tech in the semifinals of the ACC tournament at Greensboro Coliseum.
The ninth-seeded Pack shot 31.1 percent from the field and never had a chance to catch a hot-handed Georgia Tech team that led 50-32 at halftime and kept adding points to the scoreboard – many of them by sophomore guard Tyaunna Marshall, who scored a game-high 20 points.
The Yellow Jackets solved all of its problems with made baskets – shooting 53.3 percent from the field. They hit 24 of their first 34 for a 70.6 efficiency rate.
GREENSBORO – Georgia Tech never makes it easy.
The North Carolina women's basketball team found out again in today's first quarterfinal game at the ACC Tournament in Greensboro.
This time, after falling to the Yellow Jackets 56-54 on Feb. 12, the Tar Heels came prepared for another physical contest that came down to the two teams trading buckets late.
And again the Yellow Jackets emerged with the win, pulling out a 54-53 victory as the Tar Heels tried to score in the final seconds.
A layup by Georgia Tech sophomore Tyaunna Marshall gave the Yellow Jackets a lead with one minute, 35 seconds left. Marshall's basket would be enough as her team tried furiously to keep the Tar Heels from scoring.
In the end, UNC freshman Brittany Rountree had one final look – her deep 3-pointer hitting the front of the rim as the buzzer sounded.
ATLANTA -- N.C. State’s 61-52 ACC victory against Georgia Tech on Thursday was built on the memories of what happened the last time the two teams played.
It was a month ago, when the Yellow Jackets exposed the Wolfpack defensively, shooting 51 percent in an 82-71 win in Raleigh.
“That hurt us,” said Wolfpack Mark Gottfried.
But it also served N.C. State well on Thursday in Philips Arena. The Wolfpack (18-7, 7-3 ACC) clamped down defensively on Georgia Tech (9-15, 2-8), forcing the Yellow Jackets into a 32.2 percent shooting night on its way to a third consecutive triumph.
Mark Gottfried cut to the chase in his post-game comments about N.C. State's 82-71 loss to Georgia Tech on Wednesday.
The first-year coach called it one of his team's "poorer" performances of the season. He gave a rather amusing philosophical answer in trying to explain what went wrong against a struggling Tech team that entered the game with a 7-8 record.
"Sometimes, we'd all like to come up with this grand answer of why your team doesn't play good," Gottfried said. "Sometimes you just don't play good. Hell, I go golf, (expletive), sometimes I'm terrible, sometimes I'm a little better. It's part of life."
