Check out the Outer Loop Sports Show online as high school sports experts discuss the football playoffs, including Wake Forest-Rolesville’s big win over Garner and Panther Creek’s high-scoring win over Fayetteville Seventy-First.
Outer Loop Sports Show: December 1, 2010 from Outer Loop Sports Show on Vimeo.
ACC RELEASE – Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor, who has led the No. 12 Hokies to 10 consecutive victories and his third berth in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game following an 0-2 start, is the ACC Player of the Year for 2010.
Taylor, a senior, was the choice of 27 of the 57 members of the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association (ACSMA) that voted. Russell Wilson of NC State was second with 19 votes.
Clemson defensive end Da’Quan Bowers won ACC Defensive Player of the Year.
Taylor, also the offensive player of the year and the league’s first-team All-ACC quarterback, has played for four years, and set himself up for a big finish this summer.
“I think I put in the work this offseason and previous years to come out and have a big season and I think it just paid off,” Taylor said of his All-ACC selection.
The Hokies will play No. 20 Florida State for the championship on Saturday night in Charlotte, N.C., with the winner earning the conference’s berth in the Orange Bowl.
Taylor said he will approach this game like any other – with high expectations.
“I challenge myself every week to be the best player on the field,” he said. “That’s my mindset going into the week and when I step onto the field, I want to let it be known that I was the best player on the field in that game.”
Taylor was the MVP of the 2008 ACC Football Championship Game against Boston College. He is the first Hokies player to win the ACC Player of the Year honor since quarterback Bryan Randall in 2004.
Taylor leads the ACC in passing efficiency, having completed better than 60 percent of his attempts while throwing for 20 touchdowns and just four interceptions. He also is the Hokies’ second-leading rusher with 613 yards, and has two runs of more than 70 yards.
Bowers, who led the nation with 15½ sacks, received 36 of 55 votes to finish ahead of Boston College linebacker Luke Kuechly, the nation’s leading tackler, who had 14 votes.
Voting for the 2010 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year awards, as voted on by the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association (ACSMA)
North Carolina basketball has committed 73 turnovers in the last four games, including 18 turnovers in a 79-67 loss at Illinois Tuesday night.
Also troubling is the free throw shooting. UNC missed nine of 17 foul shots.
Harrison Barnes, the heralded rookie, was taunted by Illinois fan as being “overrated.” He hit only two of nine shots. UNC coach Roy Williams said Barnes hasn’t found his niche yet, isn’t playing smoothly and needs to move better without the ball.
Williams said the Tar Heels need to do a better job of getting the ball to Barnes while guard Kendall Marshall said that the Tar Heels are getting the ball to Barnes too far away from the basket.
Carolina is now 4-3 on the season – that’s already a third of the number of losses that Barnes had in four years of high school ball.
For more on the game itself, please click here.
Another penalty kick shootout has given the North Carolina men’s soccer team a 5-4 NCAA playoff victory and sends them to quarterfinals for the third straight year. UNC’s Enzo Martinez was the hero Sunday.
Read Tim Candon’s piece in the Raleigh News & Observer here.
While North Carolina had to overcome the College of Charleston’s Andrew Goudelock – something the Heels couldn’t do last year – to win 74-69 at home tonight, Goudelock only hit 11 of 27 points and he went 10 minutes without a point. Dexter Strickland mainly had the responsibility in covering Goudelock.
During the two minutes in which Goudelock hit 13 points, including three threes, he really had no open shots. He just hit very, very long or tightly-covered shots en route to a game-high 28 ponts.
Carolina got into the more uptempo, fast-breaking style in the second half and tired the Cougars. John Henson led the way with 19 points. With a little better free throw shooting and without those wild threes from Goudelock, it would have been a comfortable margin.
But it wasn’t.
“I loved our poise,” UNC coach Roy Williams said. “They go up five and Goudelock’s making some unbelievable shots, and we kept playing. I don’t want to call a timeout and have the kids panic. I think you get stronger through the course of your program if the kids can figure it out themselves.”
Even though Williams seems to be trying to inject confidence in his young team for the way they persevered, it’s going to be tough for the Heels to win at Illinois Tuesday.
Click here for a game story and click here for a photo gallery.
In the weekly broadcast TV ratings, three of the top 10 shows, including the No. 1 show for the week, were National Football League related. In the weekly cable TV ratings, ESPN, on the strength of pro and college football, was the top-ranked network.
Glee, at No. 3, is the top-ranked broadcast show not related to sports. The top five cable networks for the week, in order, are ESPN, USA, Disney, TBS and FoxNews. The NFL Network, which is not available in all markets, was still the 24th highest rated network. FoxNews was the only news channel represented in the top 25. Hey, football is the news this time of year.
Should be clearing but cold for tonight’s high school football playoffs. I went 5-1 in predictions for last week’s games and 12-1 the week before for a 17-2 mark which is close to 90 percent. In bold below are the predicted winners for tonight’s games. Games tonight are at 7:30 p.m. My record of predicting games in the regular season was 97-23, which is an 81 percent accuracy.
Panther Creek at Seventy-First
East Bladen at Carrboro
Cedar Ridge at Northwood
Northern Guilford at Cardinal Gibbons
Lee County at Hillside
Southeast Raleigh at New Bern
Garner at Wake Forest-Rolesville
Check the scores in our Sports Roundup on the left navigation bar. Good luck to Cardinal Gibbons – I hope I’m wrong… again.
“On Tuesday, Josh Hamilton realized the talent projected for him when he was made the first overall pick in the 1999 amateur draft: He was named the American League’s MVP.”
That’s how sportswriter Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News starts his article which examines how the Raleigh native won the award and what might be next.
North Carolina is fighting for a berth in the Music City Bowl while Duke is considering the finale at home against the Heels as their bowl game.
Duke coach David Cutcliffe said that the last game a team plays leaves “a little taste in your mouth that lasts.” He said through recruiting and into Spring practice it stays fresh in your mind.
“It certainly kicks off the offseason the way you would like it to be kicked off,” he said, especially if the last victory comes against chief rival North Carolina.
“I think it’s a great tradition, one of the better traditions in college football,” Cutcliffe said of the rivalry and the winning team getting the Victory Bell. “We just need to recreate a rivalry by playing well at Duke and winning a few of these ball games.”
Carolina has won 19 of the last 20 meetings, losing 30-22 in 2003 in Chapel Hill. Duke hasn’t beaten the Tar Heels at home since 1988.
UNC coach Butch Davis said that Cutcliffe has improved the Blue Devils team every year. “Statistically they’re better, athletically they’re better, and fundamentally and schematically they’re a better football team,” he said.
On top of the challenge from Duke, Davis said that losing two games in a row has been disappointing. “Emotionally and psychologically this will put our football team very much to the test of just bouncing back and playing to the very best of our ability this week,” he said.
North Carolina, behind Tyler Zeller who hit his first seven baskets and ended with a career-high 23 points, got out to a commanding 22 point-lead but saw UNC-Asheville pull within six late before wrapping up an 80-69 win at home.
The Tar Heels had their best free throw shooting game of the year (74 percent) and it was needed. Carolina hit eight of its last 10 free throws over the last three minutes to keep the Bulldogs at bay.
The 7-foot Zeller looked like a man among boys against UNC-Asheville as did John Henson, who led the team in rebounding and recorded his third double-double of the young season. Coach Williams said Henson, who many had figured to go pro early, needs to focus more on being a Dennis Rodman-type player than a Magic Johnson-type player. If so, maybe the sophomore will stay around at least through his junior year.
For a game story, please click here.