March 10, 2007

• This is the second straight year the No. 12 seed defeated No. 5 in the ACC Tournament. Last season Wake Forest defeated Florida State in the first round, then topped No. 4 N.C. State in the quarterfinals before being eliminated by Duke. To put that in perspective, this is also the second year there have been 12 teams in the ACC.
• Florida State has now won six times in 21ACC Tournament contests. Four of the victories came against Clemson, including today's 67-66 result. The last time FSU won an ACC Tournament game, in 2003, the Tigers were the victims.
• Six of the 11 games in the 2006 ACC Tournament matched teams that faced each other once during the regular season. Five were rematches of teams that met twice. Of those that swept both games during the regular season, all three were victorious in the third meeting as well - Maryland versus Georgia Tech, and Virginia vs. Virginia Tech, in the first round, and Duke against Miami in the quarterfinals. That form was broken with Florida State's opening round win. FSU and Clemson had met twice previously this year, with the Tigers winning both times. By defeating Maryland, Miami advanced to face Boston College in the quarterfinals. The Eagles swept the two meetings between the teams this season.
• The ACC's two most accurate free throw shooters appeared in this afternoon's second game. Everyone knows about Miami's Jack McClinton, who qualifies as the ACC's official foul shooting leader. But there are other regularly employed players whom one is ill-advised to foul and generally elude the notice of all but opposing coaches. Among that latter group was Maryland freshman Eric Hayes, who played 21 minutes in the Terps' loss to Miami but did not get to the line.

NOTHING FOUL ABOUT IT Best Free Throw Shooters In ACC, 2007 (Minimum 10 Minutes Per Game, Majority of Team's Games Played, Through First Round Games On Thursday Afternoon)

								Mins.		Season
FT%	Player, School			FT-FTA	Per G		In ACC
.912	Eric Hayes, M			31-34	23.7		first
.891	Jack McClinton, Mi*		98-110	31.2		first
.884	Sean Singletary, V*		167-189	33.0		third
.872	Danny Green, NC			34-39	14.3		second
.857	Michael Drum, WF		60-70	23.0		second
.854	Anthony Morrow, GT		41-48	20.2		third
.846	Jon Scheyer, D*			110-130	33.4		first
.833	Engin Atsur, NCS		25-30	32.9		fourth
.833	Nigel Munson, VT		5-6	11.5		first
.823	J.R. Reynolds, V*		149-181	32.3		fourth
.818	Zabian Dowdell, VT*		148-181	33.6		third
.818	Greivis Vasquez, M		72-88	27.9		first
* Qualifies for official leadership under NCAA requirements.

• Miami is 2-2 in ACC Tournament play. Virginia Tech, which joined the league in 2005 along with the Hurricanes, has yet to win a tournament game. It took Florida State, a 1992 expansion member, eight tries to win its second ACC Tournament contest in 1999. Clemson took nine years to win two games in the ACC Tournament. The Tigers lost in their first eight tries before winning twice in 1962, advancing to the sole finals berth in school history.
• Counting Miami's triumph, the bottom seed has now won 14 games in an ACC Tournament. Wake Forest was the first, when as the seventh seed it beat No. 2 North Carolina in 1973. (Top-seed N.C. State had a bye.) The bottom seed won twice in 1977, when Virginia was the No.7 seed in a seven-team league. Maryland defeated top-seed N.C. State as an eighth seed in 1989. There were four first round "play-in" games when No. 9 beat No. 8 (1995, 1996, 2001, 2003). N.C. State had three wins as the eight-seed in 1997. Finally, there were Wake's two wins as No. 12 in 2006.