The ACC and the Post-Season: Update 4
The Big Dance is now down to 24 teams, as half the Sweet Sixteen is set. There are four ACC teams left: Syracuse, North Carolina, North Carolina State, and Florida State.
Syracuse was the first team to make the Sweet Sixteen, defeating Kansas State, 75-58. The game was actually quite close in the first half–although both teams traded significant runs. But the second-half was all Syracuse, as the depth of the Orange wore down the Wildcats. Dion Waiters came off the bench to lead Syracuse with 18 points, while Scoop Jardine led the starters with 16 points. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the decent play of freshman center Rakeem Christmas, who had 8 points and 11 rebounds. All in all, Syracuse looked substantially more like a #1 seed than they have in weeks. They will move to play #4 seed Wisconsin on Thursday.
Sunday will feature three ACC teams trying to make it to the Sweet Sixteen. The first game of the day will be the 12:15 pm matchup (on CBS) between #11 North Carolina State and #3 Georgetown. At 5:15 pm, CBS will also televise the game between #1 seed North Carolina and #8 Creighton. Although the talk on Selection Sunday was the potential of Creighton defeating North Carolina in a shootout–ESPN.com’s Giant Killers Blog gives Creighton a 2.7% chance of winning. Finally, at 9:30 pm, TBS will show #3 Florida State play #6 seed Cincinnati. Both teams looked great in their conference tournaments, but then failed to put together a solid 40 minutes in the opening round. All three games should be fairly exciting.
Syracuse's Rakeem Christmas slams one home. Photo courtesy of Dennis Nett/The Post Standard 2011. See http://www.syracuse.com/axeman/index.ssf/2012/03/syracuse_basketball_vs_kansas.html
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