ACC men’s basketball is in full effect and there’s a weekend full of matchups

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See website for details. Big weekend ahead of ACC Hoops. North Carolina Clemson could is one of the highlights really of the schedule if you think about it. I mean Clemson right now I believe is the highest ranked ACC team although they did go to Miami and get beat. Miami has kind of fallen under the radar. I think Miami's excellent and I think there are five maybe six really good teams in the league.

I think Miami is one of them. We'll see if Brian Geisinger concurs. Our college hoops maven guru 24-7 sports buzzbeat podcast. How are you my man? I'm doing well. How about you guys? Doing very well. Real quick, I know we're not going to talk about it but in terms of specifics and in depth but North Carolina, Duke, Miami, Clemson, maybe Virginia, five of the five best teams in the league?

Yeah I think pretty safely. I think you could probably try to make cases for you know Pittsburgh or maybe Virginia Tech or whatever. I guess Pittsburgh's 0-3. I just really like their personnel but players but I think they'll I mean I don't think they're gonna finish last in the league but yeah yeah real quickly I think that top five is pretty like unassailable honestly but let's so let's get to one of the fun matchups although wait hold on real quickly did you mention Lake Forest in that mix? I did not but they are on my next grouping of teams because they they have real upside offensively and defensively they're rounding into form like they they're pretty legit they're they're right on the fringe if they're not in there already too in that in that mix I think. Good for Steve Forbes. Let's talk about Carolina's trip to Clemson.

So I'll just open the floor for you. The Tar Heels didn't shoot it very well and haven't I've been surprised they haven't shot it well from the perimeter. They've shot it okay at best. Where do you see the Tar Heels and how do you see this matchup? I think it's going to be I mean it's a very exciting matchup. Two of the better you know post guys in the league. PJ Hall, Armando Bacott. I'm not sure how much those guys will be sort of like one-on-one matched up. My guess is Bacott will take Ian Shefland and you know Hubert Davis will have Jalen Withers out in space against PJ Hall and all the pick and pop and and uh right you know Princeton offense stuff that Brad Bernell likes to run so my guess is you try to keep Bacott closer to the closer to the paint and keep a good offensive rebounder like Shefland off the glass maybe a little bit but you could see like when when um you know Clemson losing to Miami I mean I think that had more to do with Miami just having you know they've got a ton of offensive firepower they've got a bunch of future a couple future pros on that team um so that you know was hands down the worst defensive game Clemson's had all season but also I mean like I know PJ Hall had 17 points in that game but one of five on threes four turnovers no assists like the thing that makes Clemson like dynamic and tough to defend um offensively is like Hall's ability to stretch the floor and then be like a playmaker at you know whether he's playing four or five um and if you if you shut that if you shut his water off on some of that stuff but then they sort of like lose their uh kind of their top gear offensively and and then just I think this is like stating the obvious but it seems to me like a big game for RJ Davis in terms of shooting Clemson's a team that's going to be in gaps um there's going to be opportunities for RJ to to pull up and shoot off the dribble and in score out of the pick and roll which he's very very good at doing um and so this does feel like one of those games where if he has a cooking with the pull-up that just loosens everything else up for UNC's offense so I do do like UNC in this game um but like it seems like it's going to be a really fun game between two of the best offenses um you know in the country. When was the last time you could say uh two of the best offenses and one of these teams you were talking about was Clemson uh they have not had great offensive performances uh with they're always a great defensive team under Brad Brownell but they have not been great offensively uh just looking at North Carolina and having seen them enough uh I've kind of been surprised that they haven't been better uh shooting the ball from the perimeter here we know Harrison Ingram is more than capable the numbers have been okay but I think the real surprise is that Cormac Ryan really has not given them what they have needed what they've expected in term he's playing okay otherwise but I mean they didn't bring him here to shoot 28 from three yeah I mean Ryan's the guy that's uh you know I think of him as I think he shot 40 two seasons ago like the last good Mike Bray Notre Dame team but really for all his most of his career he's been like mid-30s but with good volume which is like a really useful shooter and sure if you've watched Ryan play a lot he's he's been in college basketball for a long time now he like he's he shoots he takes tough shots he can shoot off movement he can shoot out of the pick and roll like he's pretty versatile but I wouldn't worry too much about the jumper at this point like he's still shooting well from the field overall he's shooting well from the line like Cormac Ryan may have a month where he just over six games or whatever he shoots 40 some percent and he ends the year at 35 on volume but they do need him to shoot because his shooting gives them lineup versatility allows them to you know move Harrison Ingram to the to the four um and get some uh get like a spacier lineup on the court with with Ryan and with Cadeau and Davis and Bacot but they also need a shooting because in lineups where they're playing Bacot and Withers together as awesome as Armando Bacot is and he's one of the best players in the country like they're playing two non-shooters and you're also seeing Jalen Withers is getting the and this is not like specific to just Jalen Withers because this happens with Mark Mitchell at Duke or Ryan Dunn at UVA but you know sort of like non-shooters at the power forward position that teams are willing to to play off of and have another defender in the paint clogging other stuff up so so Ryan's really crucial for them in part because as good as Harrison Ingram is I'm not sure he's going to shoot 43 from deep ball season so they need someone else um in the wing guard room uh along with outside of Davis and Ingram to get going and Ryan's the most obvious candidate and I would bet on him you know picking it up here all right look let me let me flip this over and I maybe that's a pun uh to the Blue Devils uh because Kyle Filipowski has we knew he was going to be basically their everything has he been more of their everything than even you anticipated uh yeah because I because I think he's been even better defensively so far this year and I know Duke is not by no means is this like uh an elite elite defense but they're probably top 25 top 30 in terms of you know points allowed per possession and a big part of that is I think a couple of guys probably deserve like outsized credit you know Mark Mitchell despite his issues offensively at times is you know is a warrior for them and does a lot of different stuff defensively I think Jaylen Blake's has been a spark plug uh like you know winning play hustle guy off the bench um I think Jared McCain after a rough start has like just like been solid not great he still has like a breakdown or two per game but but McCain's been much better than he was the first like five six games of the year where it was just constant issues for him on that side of the court but Filipowski like anchoring the defense in gold I'm not just talking about like rebounds and blocks which he's getting a ton of that um I'm not even just talking about steals and deflections which he's getting a lot of those too like he's so active um uh in a bunch of different spots of the floor defensively but what they're asking him to do like like John Shire spoke about this either after the queens game or the win over Syracuse I don't remember which one but he basically said like he was describing flip and he said I don't think there's anyone like him in the country and I think he's right because there's no one that's asked to carry such there's no like center that's asked to carry such a play-making load you know you think about how much offense flip initiates and finishes and then you come down on the other side of court he can't chill defensively like he's the one guarding pretty much every screen and they're asking him to do in the Syracuse game alone I highlighted this on twitter they they used probably four or five at least four or five different screen coverages with Kyle Filipowski so sometimes he's switching out on Judah Mintz who's an NBA point guard sometimes he's in a drop playing below the level of the screen sometimes he's hard hedging sometimes they're in a zone and they're not guarding pick and roll that way sometimes he's up at the level like he's doing so much on both sides of the court it's really impressive like I mean I think he's totally solidified himself at this point as like a top 10 lottery pick and and probably the best player in the ACC and one of the best players in the country he's been awesome yeah and Duke Duke has kind of settled into at least they did against Syracuse they went to a lot of four guard sets um and they were effective in that the pack therapy podcast is in session Tim Donnelly here host of the drive and your guide for pack therapy every episode is your chance to score inside information on the pack we set you up for wolf pack games all season long and we break down the ACC competition what to watch for as we roll towards the tournament madness plus special guests to keep your wolf pack hope alive follow pack therapy wherever you discover your favorite podcasts or watch it on youtube with lucky land slots you can get lucky just about anywhere this is your captain speaking we've got clear runway and the weather's fine but we're just going to circle up here a while and get lucky no no nothing like that it's just these cash prizes add up quick so I suggest you sit back keep your tray table upright and start getting lucky play for free at luckylandslots.com are you feeling lucky no purchase necessary void were prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply see website for details yeah I mean that's been big for them there was one game earlier in the year too um I'm blanking on it now where they went four guards and it proved to be really fruitful for them they've got a ton of guard you know potential and what's cool is like when they go to those looks uh I mean they can actually play five out with flip right and that's huge and they can do that some when they play tj power because he can stretch the floor at the four spot um you know they're they're they found some workarounds with the way teams are guarding mark mitchell by really not like closing out and really playing off of him the other night you saw syracuse opened the game by putting seven foot three nahima lean on mark mitchell and just sticking him in the paint so dupes finding some stuff to work around that but when they play those four guards and all of a sudden you have flip in the middle of the court or flip in the post and then you've got all of these guys that can I mean mccain's a big big big time shooter who really moves super well without the ball he's just a really smart skilled offensive player roach tyries proctor's back he's he's obviously awesome caleb foster like a little up and down but certainly talented and jaylen blakes gold he made like this is boring maybe boring to talk about he made probably like a half dozen plays in the syracuse game that were just so smart like uh being in the right spot defensively being patient with the ball in transition waiting for his teammates to catch up so he could feed them for a layup um and then when he plays there like de facto small ball four uh you know jaylen blakes is you know maybe a little bit shorter than i am so it's funny having him play play power forward right but uh but he he tries hard and he can do it and and flip is you know um all of a sudden he gets to play with the the right amount of space in the post or on the short roll and duke can really open things up offensively but i think my guess is you would agree with me here which is that like those looks can't be duke's base lineup you know they they need michelle for his his length defensively but they're yeah it's an excellent like you know end of half end of game uh or just like during a stretch where you need to like juice the offense a little bit it's perfect for that to be to be like an off-speed pitch you know for john shire it's not the fastball mitchell's playing plenty i i and i have no issue he'll he'll eventually start making shots again uh he is not a four and a half percent three-point shooter but but but i give a lot of credit to like the way uh john shire his staff and the players on duke's roster have like they're doing things with miss Mitchell to sort of like offset some of the issues he's having with the shot and the way teams are guarding him either sticking him in the dunker spot getting him involved as a screener and diving to the rim you saw that uh in the duke game Tyrese Proctor hit him for multiple you know dives uh to the rim and you know Mitchell got to play some some five in that game too and then he gets going as a cutter and that's like really in my opinion like when Mitchell's at his best it's like moving without the ball cutting Philipowski has good chemistry with him going back to last season doing that stuff so like they found things that even if Mitchell did shoot you know if he doesn't make it three for the rest of the season there's still things they have that work and Philipowski is sort of like the key to unlocking all of that because he's such a good passer and generally a pretty good decision maker too i mean Mitchell also he leads the team and getting to the free throw line and that's uh there's something to be said for that uh to nc state who you know when i said i put wake forest in that next category of teams maybe i'm overestimating i kind of like state too i think state's got a lot of options they have a very deep team they have the most initials easily in the uh maybe in the entire country uh but they were they were awful for most of that game offensively and they just kind of figured it out late and i do i love dj burns i mean it just makes me laugh uh but there's something to be said for having the ability uh in a tight situation to put up a floater like that with touch uh to to win a game so what are your thoughts you know as we're what you know into the second semester now with the wolf pack yeah it can't be said also how much guts it took to go up and under with like the clock running out like that i mean burns is an awesome awesome college you know offensive center um and really his shooting touch is special like he shouldn't be as efficient of a low post player as he is but it's because he can take weird shots from you know 13 17 feet from the rim from weird angles and he just floats it in um he's he's a miraculous player and obviously his spirit um is incredible very fun player to have covered going back to to win through up um you know look for state to i guess what they didn't lead at all the entire game against no game they have they have what was outside of the old miss game their worst offensive game of the season and it would be hard for them to be worse than they were on the road at at mississippi but they horrible shooting performance um they don't really get to the line in the game all that much but the offensive rebounds and getting to the line just enough plus burns in the low post um some timely threes uh from dj horn and like that was enough to win a tough game against a not not a very good notre dame team no but i am still i'm still a little worried about state's offense like half court offense specifically i think we've seen jayden taylor's shot sort of regress to the mean um a little bit i'm not really sure what the role is for mj rice right now but i thought he was a potential you know ceiling raiser for them just in terms of like talent and that really hasn't um been borne out yet i like i like a lot of the players in the back court but i think you're still they're still looking for a guy to come in and that can be like a lead ball handler and make shots and they just don't quite quite have that player um which is why they've got to go through burns and in the post a lot so like there's a lot of good stuff here it's just hard for them i think to constantly put together lineups that are like solid half court wise on both sides of the floor because because obviously you know you need burns for his offense but then he can be a target for opposing teams to go out in the pick and roll too so um you know i like what state has cobbled together and even in some of these losses like byu tennessee i mean these are two of the top 10 teams in the country state was in both of those games you know could have won either of those games so they can play with anybody um but it's just like finding it sort of like enough half court rhythm on both sides to be sustainable yeah just watching the game it looked to me like they had a hard time uh breaking notre dame down in the half court to create opportunities yeah uh but that's why and you and i've talked about this before and we'll close on this uh i really like to see them you know get out and press more and maybe get some easy baskets uh because i think that's the way i mean uh that's the way uh kevin keats was doing it at wilmington i really think that that would uh even maybe they don't have identical personnel and that does eliminate dj from the equation because i don't think you're gonna have dj uh as a part of that particular defensive idea but they got to figure out a way to get some easy buckets brian geisinger uh at b guys underscore bird uh we'll do this every friday man i appreciate your time absolutely anytime guys have a good weekend you got it that's it we just told people fridays are uh when we get uh smarter in terms of basketball we're gonna do that the rest of the college basketball season how many more college basketball fridays do we have between now and the acc tournament we're gonna be real smart we got like a dozen yeah maybe maybe 13 or i have no idea how many it's less good to know it's actually less because it's not the end of march i i can't do math so let's uh let's stop even trying people could win a trivia though because he's gonna come with all the knowledge oh my gosh brian is crazy yes hey guys it is ryan i'm not sure if you 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