Tourney Time

The pairings have been announced.

Here are my predictions for the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament:

Thurs:
#5 Georgia Tech beats #12 Clemson. GT is a very athletic team that plays good fast basketball. They have had some time as a ranked team and deserve more recognition than they get.

#8 NC State beats #9 Wake Forest. State already has 2 wins over Wake this year. I think they can do it again.

#7 Boston College beats #10 Miami even though Miami has been playing really well late this season. BC's new coach played at UNC and knows ACC basketball.

#6 Virginia beats #11 Virginia Tech. Virginia already has 2 wins over VT but this rivalry game is always a toss up. I'll take a close game with the win to the nationally ranked Virginia.

Fri:

#4 UNC most likely plays Georgia Tech. GT won at GT and UNC won at UNC during the regular season. I think UNC can win on the neutral court of the tourney. Clemson's only chance against UNC is if UNC players try to coast through it and not play Carolina ball.

#1 Maryland plays NC State or Wake Forest. MD will likely beat either.

#2 Florida State plays Boston College or Miami. FSU ended up with a piece of the regular season title but they had a puff schedule with all the top ranked teams on their home court. Lets see what happens in neutral territory. Both BC and Miami have a chance here but BC is more likely to pull off this potential upset. As much as I would like to see BC win, I expect FSU to push on through to the next round.

#3 Duke plays either Virginia or Virginia Tech. I think Duke can hang on, even if it faces the very good Virginia team which will likely want revenge on their loss during the regular season.

Which brings up to the semi finals on Sat where I still have top 4 seeds playing.

#4 UNC vs #1 MD
#3 Duke vs #2 FSU

And Sunday's Final game where I predict UNC beats Duke in another great game.

We shall see. The ACC is a great conference with 5 nationally ranked teams and a couple more that should be ranked and will likely go the NCAA tournament. This year is even tighter than years past. This is good for the game, good for the conference, good for the teams, and good for the fans.

Go Heels!
-SML