Clemson Against UNC for ACC Crown

WRALSportsFan

Clemson Against UNC for ACC Crown

Mar 16, 2008

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Charlotte, N.C. — This isn't your father's Atlantic Coast Conference tornament. In today's 1 p.m. final game, No. 1 North Carolina, having survived by perhaps the thickness of Tyler Hansbrough's jersey against Virginia Tech, goes up against Clemson, which is 16-54 in the tournament, hasn't been in the final in 46 years and knocked off Duke on Saturday night.

See the game on WRAL-TV.

Odds-makers probably would make Carolina a favorite heavy enough to tilt Cahrlotte Bobcat Arena crazily toward Chapel Hill – if this weren't a weekend of both wild weather and wild basketball.

Carolina pulled out a 68-66 victory with less than a second left to play when Hansbrough grabbed the ball off the floor on an offensive rebound, turned on the baseline and dropped it into the net for two.

Duke could have used Hansbrough's double, or some kind of help, to pull it ahead. Instead, the Blue Devils found themselves looking at 78-74 on the scoreboard as the buzzer sounded and thinking about the NCAA tournament rather than an ACC traditional matchup with Carolina for Triangle bragging rights.

Clemson and Carolina tip off at 1 p.m. Invitations to the NCAA tournament come out at 6 p.m. Carolina's only doubt is whether it gets a No. 1 seed there. Clemson would be guaranteed a bid by winning, of course. Without winning? The Tigers are in the same seats as the Hokies, waiting to see if the NCAA invitation committee knows how good they are.

Clemson goes into it the underdog, but how much? UNC is 29-2 in ACC title games. Clemson lost both regular-season games to UNC, but it took the Tar Heels overtime to get the victory each time. Clemson has not been in the ACC Sunday game since 1962, though Coack iliver Purnell said he didn't know and does not much care about it.

"I didn't know that," said Purnell, in his fifth year at Clemson. "I knew it was a long time ago, and I knew we'd maybe only been in it once and never won it.

"I don't spend a lot of time with streaks with these young guys and that kind of thing," he added. It's this year's team. ... I think those weights are too heavy and insignificant."

More important are this team's foul shots. Duke got the tally to 71-69 with 48 seconds left Saturday night, but Clemson his three of four from the foul line.

"If they hit their free throws, they're as good as anybody," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

In the earlier game, Virginia Tech got everything but the win.

“I told [Virginia Tech coach] Seth [Greenberg] after the game – and I really meant it – that I thought they really outplayed us,” said UNC coach Roy Williams. “We were very fortunate and made a couple of plays at the end.”

“I couldn’t be more proud of our basketball team. The game played out basically the way we wanted to play it out,” Greenberg said. “We basically controlled the game for 39 minutes and 59 seconds.”

Whether the committee sees Tech the way Greenberg does, as a strong contender, remains to be seen.

Stay in the game with live blogging from WRAL.com. See post-game coaches' interviews on WRAL.com and coverage of all the games in WRAL.com's Hoops Headquarters page.