Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

I know, we are all Maryland fans here, and because of that we are all looking especially forward to Saturdays showdown with Duke, but before we get carried away with that, I wanted to take a quick look at the state of the ACC as we head towards another huge Saturday of match ups. 

Surprises-First and foremost looking at the standings, the one thing that jumps out at you is Virginia Tech.  Though Tech has the same record as Maryland, they are 3-1 in conference and have the honor of being the first team to knock off Wake Forest.  They have to be feeling pretty good about themselves at this point.  I don’t know if you can throw Miami in this category quite yet, but here is another team that seems to be heading in the right direction.  The Hurricanes are 3-2 and 14-4 overall.  I don’t know many Hurricane fans who wouldn’t be happy with 3-2 and 14-4, and you know now that I think of it, I don’t know any Hurricane Basketball fans period, but if I did, they would probably be happy with this. 

Set Your Clock By ‘Em- Duke is in first at 4-0 and 17-1 overall, no shock there (though that perfect record gives me a little more confidience for Saturday, I mean they are going to lose a conference game eventually!).  Though it is surprising to see UNC with 2 conference loses already (3-2 and 17-2), I’m not about to dance on their grave.  Whatever problems they have had I’m pretty sure Roy Williams will figure them out. I don’t expect them out of the top 3 come ACC Tournament Time.  Wake Forest could be in the Surprise Category being that they were undefeated as of 24 hours ago and sitting at the Nations #1 ranking, this loss will undoubtly knock them down some, but to quote Dennis Green “Wake is who we thought they were”, which is pretty solid. 

The Hmmmm’s- You never quite know which way this bunch is heading.  Clemson is your typical Hmm team, they play such a soft non-conference schedule (though my sister is quick to point out they beat Temple) that you really don’t know what to make of them at least until we are half way through ACC play.  This version of the team is no different.  I can see them making the NCAA’s easily, and I can also see them making the NIT, the jury is still out on them with me.  FSU is also a Hmmm team.  In fact they have been a Hmmm team for quite some time.  The Seminoles are 15-4 overall which is not bad, but the 2-2 doesn’t really tell us much yet.  I think they have less upside than Clemson, but again, I’m certainly not going to write them off by any means.  Maryland is also most definitely in this category.  I hate to look ahead, but I think next week when they play BC, we will learn a lot more about them.  And speaking of the Eagles, at 2-3 and 14-6 BC rounds out the category.  BC is just holding on, and as mentioned above, we will learn a lot about the Eagles when they match up with the Terps early next week.

Thank You, Come Again’s- Now I have written off teams in the past that have come back to bite me in the…well you can probably figure that out, but I’m pretty comfortable writing these guys off.  Georgia Tech is practically the walking dead at this point, at 0-5 and 9-9 it is safe to begin planning for the 2009-2010 campaign.  UVA is also in critical condition, but at least they can still mock the Yellow Jackets because the Wahoo’s do in fact have an ACC W.  NC State is the TYCA team with the most upside.  I don’t think they find their way out of this category, but between them, UVA, and GT, they’d be the team I’d be least psyched to play. 

So there you have it.  We all know things can change rapidly in the ACC and the Hmmm section are certainly going to be the teams to watch moving forward, but from what I can tell on January 22nd, this is how the conference looks to me.  I guess all there is left to do is watch it play out.  Enjoy this weekends games.

Extra Droppings:

True story, anyone who knows me well knows that I love the TV show “Intervention” (I’m a sucker for shows that give you closure at the end).  Anyway, I was watching the show with my wife this week, and this particular episode shows a girl from West Virginia who travels to Baltimore to, I guess we’ll say sell herself for drugs.  Well as the camera’s roll, a truck comes by to pick her up.  The License plate is obviously blurred out, but I’ll be damned if when the truck turns back into traffic you can’t see a Testudo Sticker on the back window clear as day!  Of course my first thought was GO TERPS!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.