It shapes up to be an interesting weekend up and down the ACC as the league begins the final push of its inaugural 20-game regular season schedule.
If it seems like its been about four months since league play began, it’s because it has.
And here’s what this weekend looks like for some of league’s postseason hopefuls.
ACC regular-season title contenders No. 8 Florida State and No. 11 Louisville are eyeing a huge matchup Monday evening in Tallahassee.
But first FSU heads to Raleigh to face a North Carolina State squad that destroyed Duke Wednesday evening. Louisville gets a bit of a break, facing a reeling North Carolina team.
The Louisville-FSU game Monday could go a long way to determining the regular-season championship. But both have business to take care of Saturday first.
The Cardinals returned to the top-perch of the league standings earlier this week with a pasting of Syracuse while the N.C. State win over Duke dropped the Blue Devils to second.
Duke, meanwhile, looks to stay close to the top as it hosts Virginia Tech in Cameron Indoor Stadium .
The Blue Devils have an elite defense that failed to show up in the PNC Arena Wednesday night in an 88-66 loss to the Wolfpack.
Virginia, and its recently discovered offensive prowess, travels to the Steel City on Saturday to face the Pittsburgh Panthers.
The Cavaliers scored a season-high 78 points in a 78-65 win over Boston College Wednesday. In the win UVA placed five players in double figures.
Virginia has a two-game lead over the field for the coveted double-bye in the standings (top four teams).
Pittsburgh has lost three straight and is reeling. The Panthers postseason future appears to be an NIT bid at best. So a win over Virginia would be a huge boost to even the modest goal of reaching the NIT,
The remainder of the league’s teams are simply playing to hopefully gain some momentum heading into the ACC Tournament beginning in just a few weeks in Greensboro.
The stark reality for those teams and the ACC is a tournament championship is likely their only path to March Madness.
Story by Scott German
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