A surprising final week of the ACC season sets up a fascinating tournament with fascinating subplots that include a tougher road for North Carolina than UNC fans might expect.<\/p>\n
The Tar Heels won the regular-season title and open Friday at 9 p.m. against the Virginia-Miami winner. Carolina should prevail there but would likely face Clemson, which snatched the No. 4 seed, in the semifinal on Saturday. The Tigers played a tough game at UNC this season, falling by 10 when they could not hit a shot late, and lost to Carolina by only two at home.<\/p>\n
The Tigers, under rookie coach Brad Brownell, are afraid of no one, as they showed at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Brownell would endear himself to Tiger fans forever if he pulls off an upset Saturday, and it certainly is possible.<\/p>\n
Virginia Tech is the biggest loser of the week after upsetting Duke last Saturday. The Hokies followed that with a 15-point loss to Boston College at home and a nine-point loss at Clemson. Those two defeats pushed Tech to sixth in the league, which is a really nasty draw. They do not get a bye and play two straight 9 p.m. games \u2013 which really usually start at 9:30 – before the semifinal. The Hokies would likely draw Duke in the semifinals, and that is a tough assignment after two straight late games.<\/p>\n
N.C. State, meanwhile, appears ready to limp off the stage with a losing record. The loss to Florida State dropped State to 15-15 overall and a disappointing 5-11 in ACC play. Lowe has a 25-55 record in five ACC seasons, and that will not be enough to get him a return ticket for next year.<\/p>\n
2011 ACC Tournament Schedule<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n First Round – Thursday, March 10<\/span><\/p>\n Noon: #8 Virginia vs. #9\u00a0Miami<\/p>\n 2:00: #5\u00a0Boston College\u00a0vs. #12\u00a0Wake Forest<\/p>\n 7:00: #7 Maryland vs. #10 NC State<\/p>\n 9:00: #6 Virginia Tech vs. #11 Georgia Tech<\/p>\n Quarterfinals – Friday, March 11<\/span><\/p>\n Noon: #1 North Carolina vs. 8\/9 winner<\/p>\n 2:00: #4 Clemson vs. 5\/12 winner<\/p>\n 7:00: #2 Duke vs. 7\/10 winner<\/p>\n 9:00: #3 Florida State vs. 6\/11 winner<\/p>\n Semifinals – Saturday, March 12<\/span><\/p>\n 1:00: Game 9 (game 5 & 6 winners)<\/p>\n 3:00: Game 10 (game 7 & 8 winners)<\/p>\n Finals – Sunday, March 13<\/span><\/p>\n 1:00: Game 11 (championship game)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A surprising final week of the ACC season sets up a fascinating tournament with fascinating subplots that include a tougher road for North Carolina than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,79,81,1,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-duke-blue-devils","category-featured-stories","category-n-c-state-wolfpack","category-uncategorized","category-north-carolina-tar-heels","wpcat-82-id","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-81-id","wpcat-1-id","wpcat-80-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1225,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/1225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}