In Friday’s ACC Action, Davidson beat Boston College 59-49, Louisville survived Cincinnati 74-64, Virginia got by Northwestern 83-78, Florida State blew out Georgia Southern 98-72, Clemson took care of West Virginia 70-67, SMU trashed Arkansas State 100-69, Wake Forest nipped Memphis, 69-68, Seattle surprised Stanford 77-69 and Cal beat up on Sacramento State, 91-67.

Wake Forest had near misses against Michigan and then Texas Tech Thursday night, but prevailed against Memphis. The Tigers are 1-4 but they nearly took out Purdue Thursday and obviously nearly clipped the Deacs as well.

Against Texas Tech, Wake didn’t handle winning time well, but they nailed it against the Tigers. With 1.5 left, Wake threw the ball from under Memphis’s basket to Tre’Von Spillers and executed the same basic play that Cincinnati ran to knock Duke off in 1999 and that Valparaiso famously ran in the 1998 NCAA tournament to knock off Ole Miss. Essentially, the ball is inbounded from under the opponent’s basket to near the foul line where the guy who catches it immediately shovels it to a teammate who theoretically is open. If it works, the play allows for a quick, possibly open strike. Myles Colvin got a three off under pressure and nailed it.

Wake did a great job on this and we’ll have to see, but it could have a major effect on their season.

Spillers finished with 24 points and Colvin had 19. Juke Harris, who has played very well so far, had 10. That might be the most exciting ACC win of the season so far.

Louisville didn’t play well, especially in the first half, but winning games where you play badly speaks well of your team.

In the second half, Sananda Fru and Adrian Wooley provided an element of toughness the Cards probably needed. Ryan Conwell, who played at Xavier last season, lit up his old rivals with 5 threes. Freshman standout Mikel Brown shot poorly (4-15/2-9) but still ended up with 22. Of that, 22 came from the line.

Like any team, Louisville is going to have nights when things don’t work well. What matters then is how you respond. This was one of those games and the Cards seemed to respond pretty well.

Matt McKillop took over at Davidson for his dad, Bob, in 2022 and so far, he’s been an average coach at best.

Still good enough to beat Boston College for Davidson’s first win over an ACC team since 2008.

BC hit just 3-21 on threes (14%) and 19-49 overall (39%).

There’s not a lot to say: according to ESPN, the Eagles are shooting just 40.3% overall, which is 323rd nationally out of 361. You can imagine a team winning with poor shooting, but you have to compensate somewhere and we just don’t see how BC is going to do that. There is the normal range of performance of course, and BC will have some good shooting nights, but this looks like a long season for the Eagles.

Virginia’s rebuilt team took on Northwestern and came away 5-0. Thijs De Ridder continues to play well with 26 points and 8 rebounds. Chance Mallory had 16 points and 8 rebounds of his own, but he’s about a foot shorter.

On the downside, Virginia hit just 5-24 on threes and shot just 38% overall. However, like Louisville, winning a game when you struggle is a good thing.

Freshman Johann Grünloh had a big block with :41 seconds left as he continues to lead the nation in blocks. That shot would have been a three and would have tied the game.

Big difference in this game: Virginia had 36 free throw attempts and hit 30 (83%). Northwestern hit 17-24, giving UVA a 13 point advantage from the line.

You can’t learn a lot from Georgia Southern, but nonetheless, FSU continues to win, moving to 4-1 with only a two-point loss to Florida at Florida.

Lajae Jones hit a school-record 10 threes for 36 points. One of the early things that seems to be true under Luke Loucks is that the ’Noles are a more competent offensive team than they were under Leonard Hamilton.

Chauncey Wiggins had 11 points and 10 boards. Just a solid game even if it was against a weak opponent. We like what’s happening in Tallahassee.

Ross Hodge is in his first season at West Virginia, but so far he seems to be doing well. He came into the game with Clemson with his team at 5-0 but the Tigers prevailed behind Carter Welling, who scored 11 points in the last four minutes to help the Tigers over the hump. Jestin Porter and RJ Godfrey had 14 each.

It’s no surprise at this point that Clemson wins games on toughness. We’ve seen that from Brad Brownell since he was at UNC-Wilmington, where the Seahawks nearly upset defending national champs Maryland in the 2003 NCAA tournament.

He’s been on the hot seat periodically but for our money, the guy is a great coach.

SMU handled Arkansas State, as they should’ve. BJ Edwards got a triple-double with 24 points, 13 assists and 10 steals. We’re not sure what the ACC record is, but Kenny Dennard got 11 against Maryland when he was at Duke. It can’t be much more than that. Ten steals is a great night against any team and the Mustangs racked up 26 for the game.

SMU is now 6-0 without star freshman Jaden Toombs, who is out with a wrist injury.

Seattle controlled Stanford’s star freshman Ebuka Okorie, holding him to 17 points on 5-15/0-5 shooting. The Cardinal choked up a 13 point second-half lead.

Stanford was still up 65-64 with 3:03 left to play but couldn’t hold on, shooting just 8-34 in the second half. Ugh.

As for Cal, Sacramento State is not a huge challenge, but Cal needs to build this team and a win is a win. Chris Bell had 21 points on 7-11/3-7. Justin Pippen and Dai Dai Ames had 16 each while John Camden added 14.

Both Stanford and Cal are now 5-1.

Surprisingly, the ACC is taking Saturday off. No games until Sunday.