We mentioned on Tuesday that while these days, the SEC is the best college basketball conference, the ACC remains the greatest. Down though it may be, the SEC is a football league, just like the Big Ten and the Big 12. The ACC? The ACC is for basketball. You can colonize the Bay Area. You can take all the money you want from SMU. You can hire Bill Belichick and sue each other over the Grant of Rights. Tobacco Road will always be the ACC’s beating heart.
This is part of what makes it so funny that The CW currently broadcasts two ACC men’s basketball games each week. What else makes that funny? It’s hard to explain. I struggle to articulate why “ACC Basketball on The CW” makes me chuckle. Yet chuckle I do, and with major NIT stakes, those two games have become the highlight of my week. You can keep College Gameday. You can keep Inside the NBA. You can keep Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime. Give me ACC Basketball on The CW, and I’ll die a chuckling man.
As an effort to deepen my understanding of ACC Basketball on The CW, this morning I sat down to study it in depth. Here’s what I found:
In case you’re a former Jim Boeheim recruit, what you’re looking at here is a graph.
On the x-axis, we’ve got ACC Basketball. This is a measure of how much, right exactly now, the team in question embodies the spirit of ACC hoops. This is a mostly static variable, but our measure does move around week-to-week based on things like whether Boopie Miller hits a buzzer-beater and how much people are talking about firing Hubert Davis.
On the y-axis, we’ve got On The CW. This is a measure of how much, right exactly now, the team in question feels like they play On The CW. Are you losing every game by thirty because the guy who pioneered NIL recruitment quit when NIL stopped being fun? Did you go from a magical Final Four run to being unlikely to make the NIT? Does your season resemble a death march for a man named Ron Sanchez? Lordy, lordy. Bless your heart. You belong On The CW.
This data is helpful. Some of the natural clusters—Cal, Stanford, and Boston College—are expected. Others—Notre Dame and SMU—are less intuitive. I’m particularly intrigued by that zone in the middle which includes Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Florida State, and Pitt. It doesn’t scream ACC Basketball. It doesn’t scream On The CW. But there is some serious ACC Basketball on The CW within those five programs.
Enamored with this graph (I’m a visual learner), my research continued. I pulled up ChatACC* and asked, “If ACC Basketball and On The CW played each other at a park in Greensboro, who would each team’s starting five be this week?” Here’s what it told me:
*I’m pretty sure ChatACC is just a guy in Raleigh who went to UNC Charlotte and works in the service industry. Because ChatACC never answers me at night, and every now and then I get a little signature on the answer that says, “sent from the iPhone of Matt Wilson.” I happen to venmo a guy named Matt Wilson fifty dollars a month for access to ChatACC.
ACC Basketball: Boopie Miller, Chucky Hepburn, Ian Schieffelin, Steve Forbes, Khaman Maluach
We alluded to Miller’s John Paul Jones-sinking buzzer beater, but the guy also had nine assists in SMU’s beatdown last weekend of Georgia Tech, the one highlighted by Tibet Gorener getting some significant playing time for the first time since November. I love Tibet Gorener. Before Tibet Gorener, I never understood what people were talking about when they said “Free Tibet.” Now, I’m all the way on board. Get this man more minutes!
Chucky Hepburn still doesn’t feel like he should play anywhere but Wisconsin, which combines with Louisville’s red uniforms to often make me think I’m watching the Badgers when I am in fact watching the Cards.** Hepburn had a big week on the road. Some quieter contributions against Pitt. Some louder contributions against Syracuse. He torched ‘em up in Onondaga County.
I was also surprised to see Ian Schieffelin at the three, but upon follow-up, ChatACC claimed that Steve Forbes isn’t very mobile. Is this fair? I don’t think so. I think Steve Forbes is quick and light on his feet. I think ChatACC might have gotten the ACC’s Steve Forbes confused with the rest of the world’s Steve Forbes, the one who played at Stetson and then professionally in Argentina. Either way, we’re going with a big lineup. Customary solid week for Schieffelin, the guy who really makes Clemson a college basketball team, as opposed to some other kind of basketball team. Went home to Atlanta and tore up Georgia Tech on both ends.
Wake Forest is in a beautifully Wake Forest place, 13–4 overall and 5–1 in the ACC with only one good win to their name. Are they good? No one knows! I wish I had a picture of Steve Forbes in a magician’s hat. I wish that for a lot of reasons.
Down low, how about we show Khaman Maluach a little respect? Everyone talks about Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel, but do you know how hard it is to coordinate a 7’2” body as an 18-year-old man who was grew up a refugee and supposedly only started playing basketball because a guy on a motorcycle pointed out he was tall? Me neither. I cannot empathize with any of those life experiences. I bet it’s pretty hard.
**You will not believe the number of times I’ve thought my Smart Television is messing with me during a Louisville game this year. “Jerome!” I cry. “I asked you to show me Louisville! This is Wisconsin!” I should be less suspicious of Jerome. Jerome does her best.
On The CW: Nijel Pack’s Ghost, JMA Wireless, The 2024 NCAA T*urnament Final Four, Thomas Jefferson, That Big Tower in Berkeley
Again with this lineup, we alluded to our point guard above.
I think a lot of us feel a little bad for Virginia, who sucks in part because their head coach got sick of college basketball and hung ‘em up with the season basically underway. I don’t think any of us feel bad for Miami, who sucks in part because their head coach got sick of college basketball and hung ‘em up with the season underway. For one thing, Virginia’s at least still trying out there, but for another, Nijel Pack’s ghost haunts these Hurricanes.
For those who don’t remember the arc Miami traveled over these last four years, the short version is that they paid Nijel Pack a ton of money to come play basketball for them. This helped them make a Final Four, and it trailblazed major NIL spending in the transfer portal. If it wasn’t Miami, someone else would’ve done over the top pay-for-play. But Miami did start it. They are NIL’s Christopher Columbus.
Where this gets funny is that when Jim Larrañaga stepped down, he said it was because NIL was out of control. We’re all trying to find the guy who did this, Jim.
Now, Miami is terrible. We’re talking 2023 Georgetown bad. We’re talking 2023 Louisville bad. We’re talking TCU in its first two years in the Big 12. And it keeps getting worse. By the end of the season, Miami might lose a basketball game by 100 points.
Jim Larrañaga leaving college basketball should be really sad. We should feel guilty for Jim Larrañaga leaving college basketball, like when you swear too much playing cards after Thanksgiving and your grandma goes home early. The difference is that in this case, Grandma started the card game by calling your aunt the c-word.
Moving on:
JMA Wireless sucks. Syracuse boosters need to refocus their efforts to getting their dome’s name back. Five-stars? Not working. The Carrier Dome? It worked.
It used to be that Syracuse was unstoppable at home. That 2017 team might have sucked, but in ACC play, only one team beat them on their own home floor. Now, Syracuse is very stoppable at home. On Tuesday night, Louisville went Guy Fawkes on their ass. Put a bunch of gunpowder under the building. Detonated it. You know. Guy Fawkes.
It’s not really Syracuse’s fault. It’s JMA Wireless’s fault. JMA Wireless, a company I’m not positive exists, outbid Carrier. JMA Wireless should have had the good sense and courtesy to find a different dome to sponsor.
At the three, we’re starting the 2024 NCAA T*urnament Final Four. NC State? Really?
At the four, it’s Thomas Jefferson, because while we feel bad for Virginia, Virginia is still a mess. I don’t know how you fix it, either. Tony Bennett was the program at Virginia. They were good because of him. Then he started being bad? It’s one thing to accidentally hire a bad coach. It’s another to hire a great coach, succeed with him, see him start to fail, then watch him walk away and leave you in a pile of ashes. Poor Thomas Jefferson. If his consciousness still hangs around that place, I bet it’s really bummed. I bet Thomas Jefferson would’ve loved basketball.
Wrapping this up, On The CW counters Maluach with that big tower on Cal’s campus. I’m not ready to turn on Mark Madsen. I’m going to blame Cal’s failures on the broader Berkeley community.
In seriousness, I would like to see Maluach play against a 307-foot tall tower. Park that thing in the paint and see what goes down.
**
This weekend, The CW blesses us with Clemson vs. Pitt and Stanford vs. UNC.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the first of those. Jeff Capel’s team is playing like it followed its rivals’ instructions and ate a bunch of shit. Clemson’s won five of six but none of those five wins moved anybody’s needle. Both these teams might get double byes in the ACC Tournament. One would be understandable. Two?
UNC’s also a candidate for the double bye, and I’ll admit it. I’m hungry. I got a taste of Hubert Davis Hot Seat talk and it left me wanting more. If only Notre Dame had closed that one out two weeks ago.
The worry with UNC is that they might be figuring stuff out. They survived NC State last weekend, which is really easy to do but is harder when you’re UNC and you know half the crowd in Raleigh brought their pocketknives. The Tar Heels looked good their last two home games. Things are trending up. That’s what’s got us worrying.
Kyle Smith and Jaylen Blakes and Maxime Raynaud are a blast, but Stanford is bad. Do I hope Stanford wins? Of course. Kyle Smith vs. UNC is that 2001 ALDS between the A’s and the Yankees. But for as much as our nation looks forward to ACC Basketball on The CW, I’m not all that excited to watch this game.
Looking ahead to next week: Did Notre Dame ask the ACC to give them this week off? Did they think they had a shot at the CFP National Championship and make the ACC plan around that? My impression is that the ACC gives Notre Dame everything Notre Dame wants. Did Notre Dame ask for this?
Louisville’s game at SMU is the actual best game on this list, but Miami’s trip to Stanford…that’s like seeing the face of God. This is a team who doesn’t want to play basketball. The ACC, a cooperative between Miami and its fellow schools, is making said team tip off in the middle of the night in an empty gym in California. If the ACC put this beyond a paywall, they could close that SEC/Big Ten revenue gap in no time.
Honorable mentions to: UNC/Wake, another actual good game; VT/GT, a very silly and sad affair; and FSU/Cal, which feels like something that was probably outlawed in Leviticus. Florida State vs. Cal? On a Wednesday night? Unnatural.
**
I hope you all enjoy your ACC Basketball on The CW as much as I do. Until next week: Dare to Defy.
