ACC Basketball has already played official conference games for the 2019-20 season. What are the early takeaways from those matchups?
It’s a very unusual sight in college basketball, watching conference foes take on one another in the opening days of the season. But that’s where we are with ACC Basketball. It’s the first year with the league going to 20 conference games, electing to play one of them at the very beginning of the season.
There are pros and cons of this new venture, including playing a very consequential game that has an impact on the conference standings. Many of these ACC Basketball teams were underhanded while dealing with some injuries, while all of them clearly have some fine-tuning to do. It certainly showed in all of the games, particularly with “most” of the freshmen.
The games though were still fun to watch and were a better alternative than the many other lopsided matchups that other power conference teams were playing. We got to see the defending national champion Virginia Cavaliers take on a new-look Syracuse squad, while Cole Anthony was on full display against Notre Dame. With the exception of Duke, who was busy beating Kansas in the Champions Classic, the other 14 ACC teams were matched up against one another in the first two days of the season.
So which players and teams did well? And who raised some eyebrows in their first game? It’s only one game so I won’t go too overboard and overreact but you certainly could take more from ACC Basketball than many of the other contests. Without further ado, here are my takeaways from all seven matchups.