The bubble is starting to get more defined and the race for first place is as close as ever as we head down the stretch in ACC play.
After Miami beat Virginia on Monday night, they appear to be locked into an NCAA Tournament spot. That gives the league seven near-guaranteed bids with a week and a half still left in the regular season. Four or five teams in the ACC still sit on the bubble depending on who you ask, so double-digit teams in the field for the conference seems likely at this point.
The race at the top of the conference is no joke either. Five teams sit within 1.5 games of first. The first place team, UNC, still has to play Duke and Louisville, the two teams tied for second. There is a lot of work left in the ACC regular season for just about every team, so let’s get down to ranking them.
No, the Wolfpack aren’t last in the ACC standings and have six more total (including two ACC) wins than last place Boston College. They get the last spot in the rankings this week, though. Firing your coach midseason will do that. They fired coach Mark Gottfried after a second blowout loss to North Carolina and named their interim as … Mark Gottfried? Not only is Gottfried out of a job, but he’s spending the next few weeks coaching for the school that fired him. With nothing left to play for, NC State will face off against a slumping Virginia this week. Something tells me that even picking up a couple of wins won’t make Gottfried feel better. Here’s to hoping his team rallies for a miraculous run in the ACC Tournament so he can get one last bid before he leaves.
Boston College lost badly two times this week and still moved up in the rankings. Another team’s total futility may be the only reason for that, though losing by a combined 40 points to ranked Notre Dame and Florida State seems about par for the course here. This week the Eagles have just one game, hosting Virginia Tech. Spoiling another team’s NCAA Tournament hopes could be good motivation for the team. It’s one of their best remaining chances to pick up one more win, too. Considering they’ve already won two more conference games than most thought they would this season, one more would just be icing on the cake. Jim Christian probably showed enough hope this year that he’ll keep his job, especially since the school’s athletic director just stepped down. He’ll need to improve again next year to keep it again, though.