Sunday, March 15, 2009

ACC Tournament Recap

Jeff: I attended all of the ACC tournament games Friday, Saturday and Sunday for my second year in a row. I must say, for those of you who haven't been, please look at the list of upcoming sites and try to make a point of attending one year if possible. I liked the tournament being in Atlanta because more people were able to get into the building with average attendance around 26,000 per session compared to less than 20,000 per last year. Also, there was much more to do in Atlanta aside from watching basketball. Reservations were honored at restaurants unlike in Charlotte last year and even if you didn't have a reservation, there were plenty of dining options that required minimal waiting. Last, but not least, finding accommodations close to the games was no problem despite there being an auto show going on and a Hawks game on Sunday.

But on to BC basketball. The loss to Duke on Saturday night hurt a lot because we had a sizable lead at the half and had the lead again in the last minute and obviously, had the final shot to win the game. The refs did not help our cause but they were consistently biased towards North Carolina and Duke throughout the tournament so if you are any of the other ten teams you need to just know what is coming and consider it a road game and don't expect to get any calls. What did surprise me though was that the biggest reaction to a non-call the entire weekend was after what looked like a traveling violation in the lane by Henderson in the second half. All the non-Duke fans erupted immediately unlike any reactions to the numerous questionable calls you would naturally have during the course of the 11 tournament games. I know things often look different on television than in person so maybe it didn't look bad at all on TV but in the stadium it was terrible.

Then finally onto our last possession. I liked the fact that Skinner used the timeouts and had an inbounds opportunity on our side of midcourt with 5.5 seconds left. We often criticize him for not using timeouts so I think we have to applaud him here. Watching it live, it felt like Sanders then had the ball for several minutes and moved nowhere before hoisting the long 3. This clearly was not exactly what Skinner had drawn up but I don't think we can blame Sanders either given the fact that he did take his time, get set, and nearly made the shot. In hindsight, a victory could've easily resulted in a BC ACCT Championship, but now all we can say is what if.

On Saturday morning I attended the ACC Legends luncheon where Danya Abrams represented BC and got a nice reaction from the crowd when he said that Al Skinner is doing a great job but needs to work on some inbounds plays.

For those of you who were there and might have seen the 2008 tournament highlights playing before the games, during University Day, or at the Legends luncheon, my wife was the one shown purchasing a tiger paw between games in Charlotte. (her new claim to fame)

Mrs. Jeff and I both liked the Georgia Dome a lot and hope to be back there to see BC play in the Chic-Fil-A bowl before the ACCT in 2012.

2 comments:

Raj said...

Other than abrams, were any other notable alums there? Matt Ryan?

Jeff said...

This was a basketball legends luncheon. Despite his legend continuing to grow, Matt Ryan did only play football and will probably never be invited to the ACC tournament basketball legends luncheon.