Our Dane Huffman will be providing live updates today from Operation ACC Basketball in Charlotte and will be voting with the other ACC basketball writers on the following categories. Prior to the official voting by the sportswriters in attendance, I thought I’d weigh in on preseason honors.

Predicted Order
Duke
Virginia Tech
UNC
NC State
Florida State
Maryland
Clemson
Miami
Boston College
Georgia Tech
Virginia
Wake Forest

First team All-ACC
Kyle Singler, Duke
Nolan Smith, Duke
Malcolm Delaney Va. Tech
Tracy Smith, NC State
Harrison Barnes, UNC

Second team All-ACC
Dorenzo Hudson, Va. Tech
John Henson, UNC
Chris Singleton, Florida State
Kyrie Irving, Duke
Jordan Williams, Maryland

Third team All-ACC
Jeff Allen, Va. Tech
Seth Curry, Duke
Tyler Zeller, UNC
Demontez Stitt, Clemson
Durand Scott, Miami

All-Freshman team
Harrison Barnes, UNC
CJ Leslie, NC State
Ryan Harrow, NC State
Kyrie Irving, Duke
Reggie Bullock, UNC

All-ACC Defensive team
Chris Singleton, Florida State
Iman Shumpert, Ga. Tech
Jordan Williams, Maryland
John Henson, UNC
Soloman Alabi, Florida State

At the beginning of the season, Duke fans dreamed that Sean Renfree would live up to his potential as quarterback and sneak the Blue Devils into a bowl game. He hasn’t, they won’t.

Renfree even threw five interceptions last week against Miami before being lifted for freshman Brandon Connette, who moved the ball better. But Duke coach David Cutcliffe says he will start Renfree and that he and the team have confidence in him.

“He understands the responsibility, and out squad has confidence in him,” Cutcliffe said. “I can’t make that happen, nor can he. Ultimately what it comes down to is performance on game day. He can’t fix this in one day, but rather one play at a time.”

Those plays this week come against heavily favored Virginia Tech.

“The quarterback has had a little bit of a problem here lately, but I think he’s got a tremendous upside,” VT coach Frank Beamer said.

He pointed out that Duke averages about 400 yards per game, of which 278 are passing yards, and that Renfree completes 57 percent of his passes. And, to be fair, several of the interceptions were tipped passes.

Cutcliffe said that the team is depending on Renfree to be prepared mentally and physically. “He is a big boy and he is taking that challenge on. He is not running away from it,” he said.

Too bad the first opportunity to atone for those five interceptions comes at Virginia Tech.

Carolina Panthers coach John Fox released a statement today saying that Matt Moore will return to replace Danny Clausen as quarterback.

This “quarterback controversy” isn’t exactly Montana vs. Young or Jurgensen vs. Kilmer. Whatever Fox’ gut tells him to do is ok I guess. Whomever practices better probably should start. But the franchise needs to decide if Clausen is the future or Moore is the future.

“We have struggled on offense since the beginning of the season and sometimes it helps to step back and watch and Matt has had a chance to do that,” Fox said today.

Somehow I think the Panthers intended to stick with Clausen when he took over, not merely give Moore a break to observe. Perhaps both quarterbacks have a future in the NFL but it doesn’t appear that this season will be good for either. It probably doesn’t matter which guy is quarterbacking as far as wins but it might as far as developing the future.

The Panthers, who play 1-5 San Francisco Sunday, stand at 0-5 and are one of two teams who are winless – the Bills are the other.

NFL Note: At FedEx Field Sunday night, about 50 Washington Redskins alumni were introduced including former Duke and Wilmington product Sonny Jurgensen. When the new HD television screen showed Jurgensen, his name was misspelled as “Jurgenson.” You’d think that a five-time all-pro who threw for more than 32,000 yards and was proclaimed by legendary coach Vince Lombardi as the best quarterback he’d ever seen, could have his name spelled correctly by his own team.

North Carolina 44, Virginia 10. It was certainly a good way to break the curse at Virginia.

Dwight Jones was a big story on offense as he caught seven passes for 198 yards and two touchdowns, including an 81-yard reception run on the first play from scrimmage. It should have been three touchdowns for Jones but officials inexplicably reversed a call to say that Jones was down at the half-yard line. Replays were inconclusive at best but he held the ball out as he was going down yet the officials moved the ball back to where his knee touched instead of where the ball was.

One other pet peeve about officiating that I have is that they let offensive linemen push the rusher forward for additional yardage. Once it even went for a first down in this game and it should have been a penalty on the offense.

Maybe after this win, the Tar Heels won’t be relegated to ESPN3 on the computer instead of “real” TV the rest of the way. Don’t know about you, but I get a choppy picture on the computer. Also, the color commentators on ESPN3 seem to be practicing for the big time. Drew Henson was the sidekick for this game. He pronounced tight end’s Zack Pianalto’s name as Penny Alto. The former Michigan QB has some insight but he’s gotta work on the monotone voice – and pronunciations.

Bad news for Carolina and Pianalto, who has been having a big year. It appears he has some sort of fracture in his leg and could be lost for the season. He’s certainly out against Miami next week. That’s a big game with the winner still in the hunt for the Coastal Division – in fact with destiny in their own hands. Of course it would necessitate a victory over Virginia Tech.

North Carolina, which was considered a Top 15 team before the season, has been shorthanded all year and the ABC crowd has been having a field day with all the off-field troubles in Chapel Hill. But the guys left on the team have managed to win four games in a row and Saturday defeated the Cavaliers in Virginia (44-10) for the first time since 1981.

On the other hand, N.C. State, which was expected to be slightly above average, started off the season in dominating fashion and ran out to a 4-0 record and was ranked in the national polls. Expectations rose and thoughts ran wild. But the Pack has lost two of its last three games including an overtime loss (33-27) in Greenville against East Carolina.

East Carolina, with a new coach and few starters returning, was expected to have a losing season but the Pirates are now 4-2 and in the driver’s seat in their conference. Historically, the Pirates may be an underdog when they play ACC teams but they are 4-4 against State over the two teams’ last eight games.

State and Carolina, in opposite divisions of the ACC, are each 2-1 in league play. The Pack stands at 5-2 overall while the Heels are 4-2.

Wolfpack QB Russell Wilson has been unstoppable in the wins but human in the losses – he had three interceptions against East Carolina. Heels QB T.J. Yates was much maligned coming into the season but he’s only thrown one interception all season and was 17 of 22 for 325 yards with three touchdowns against Virginia.

Nothing has been consistent this season so you can’t say the two quarterbacks or the two teams are headed in opposite directions but it’s interesting how many twists and turns there have been – and the season is only half over.

Miami wanted to get out some frustrations after losing to Florida State last week but the Hurricanes had 90 yards in penalties, lost a couple of fumbles and couldn’t put the Devils away.

However, Duke’s Sean Renfree threw five interceptions, some of them tipped balls, and the Devils fell 28-13 at home. One interception was returned for a touchdown. Take away that pass and maybe just one other interception and it was a winnable game.

After a rather lackluster dance/skit show during UNC’s annual Late Nite with Roy basketball season tipoff, the Carolina players divided up into two teams and played to a 31-31 tie during the 20-minute scrimmage Friday night.

The White team, led by freshman Harrison Barnes’ unofficial 13 points, led the entire game, even getting up by 12 at one point. But behind Dexter Strickland’s unofficial game-leading 16 points, the Blue team chopped away at the lead before freshman Reggie Bullock sank a three to tie it at 31-31 and that’s the way it ended.

John Henson passed up an open three to give it over to Bullock who drained the tying bucket from the top of the key.

The play started out sloppy with two turnovers and three missed shots in the first minute. The crowd of maybe 16,000 plus didn’t really get into it until Barnes broke free for a fastbreak dunk to give the White an 8-0 lead. He got the crowd buzzing again with a dunk after driving the lane to make it 13-4.

Barnes also scored to give the White its biggest lead at 28-16. The Blue scored seven straight including five from Strickland to narrow the lead to 28-23 with 3:25 to go.

When Leslie McDonald popped in a three with three minutes left, it appeared to be in hand for the White team at 31-23.

But the White team never scored again and the Blue team went on an 8-0 run. Strickland tossed in a three and then fed Henson a nifty pass for two to draw the Blue within three at 31-28 with 1:25 left.

It stayed that way until Bullock’s three which ended the game in a 31-all tie.

Transfer Justin Knox muscled in for a couple of baskets during the scrimmage to give the Tar Heel fans a glimpse at his power. The 6-foot-9, 240-pounder is the strongest-looking player on the court.

The night started with a women’s basketball skit, dance and scrimmage. None of it was particularly entertaining (in fact the men proved to be better dancers later) but there were a couple of nice moments especially when cancer survivor Jessica Breland returned to the team being introduced last, wearing a pink uniform.

UNC grad and ESPN announcer Stuart Scott hosted the evening and often spoke about the pride all Carolina fans should have. He addressed the football scandal when he said, “This year has been a little tough” adding that because of the tradition Carolina has it was “hard to believe it could happen here.”

He praised the university for its response to the scandal and said the football team still “looks pretty good.”

Highlights of the men’s portion of the show included seeing John Henson in a Carolina Snuggie, seeing the coaches – including Roy Williams – dance with a dancing cane, and watching the videos, featuring players and Williams, which were takeoffs of popular commercials.

Carolina hosts Barton College in an exhibition game on Friday, Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m.

Photo Gallery

NEWS RELEASE – University of North Carolina senior tailback Ryan Houston has been cleared to play and will make his 2010 debut Saturday at Virginia. A native of Charlotte, Houston was held out of the first five games of the season while the University worked with the NCAA to determine his eligibility status.

Doc Moseman, a pioneer of the sports handicapping industry, says the Carolina Hurricanes will need a lot of things to go right just to approach the 80 points they got last year in a disappointing, non-playoff season.

“It always seems to be all or nothing with these Carolina Hurricanes,” Moseman says. “In their 13-year existence they have missed the playoffs seven times but have also reached the Stanley Cup Finals twice and the Eastern Conference Finals three times. Unfortunately this year has more the look of a ‘nothing’ year than an ‘all’ year.”

The Hurricanes have a lot of youth and a lot of questions, he says. “This is a full-fledged rebuilding process,” Moseman says.

A lot of veterans are gone as the Hurricanes have a youth movement which includes 18-year-old Jeff Skinner. “The only way fans may recognize the Hurricanes is by their colors and veteran holdovers, captain Eric Staal and goalie Cam Ward,” Moseman says.

Of course you can throw in veterans Erik Cole, Jussi Jokinen and Chad LaRose in there too but the point is well taken.

Two years after compiling an impressive 97 points and a year after finishing with 80 points, Carolina’s over/under for points is 86.5. They are long shots to win the Southeast Division (+2000), Eastern Conference (+4000), and Stanley Cup (+6000). NHL odds are courtesy of BetUS.

Here are 10 football games that are within driving distance in the Triangle area. After today’s rain, Friday night’s weather is nice with virtually no chance at rain. In bold is the predicted winner. Most games are at 7:30 p.m. You might want to check with local officials as some games start at 7.
My record last week was a perfect 10-0 for the first time this season. The season total is now 62-18.

Athens Drive at Panther Creek

East Chapel Hill at Northern Durham

Enloe at Broughton

Green Hope at Fuquay-Varina

Holly Springs at Apex

Jordan at Hillside

Leesville Road at Sanderson, 7 p.m.

Middle Creek at Cary

Northern Vance at Chapel Hill

Ravenscroft and North Raleigh Christian

Check the scores in our Sports Roundup on the left navigation bar.