ACC Tournament commences in Greensboro
Greensboro, NC – The Atlantic Coast Conference Women’s Tournament has commenced in the Greensboro Coliseum. The ACC is currently the No. 1 conference according to the latest RPI ratings. It also has five conference teams in the Associated Press Top 25 (No. 4 Notre Dame, No. 5 Louisville, No. 11 Florida State, No. 18 Duke, No. 23 NC State) and six in the USA Today Coaches Top 25 (No. 4 Notre Dame, No. 5 Louisville, No. 11 Florida State, No. 15 Duke, No. 22 NC State, No. 23 Syracuse).
12 seed North Carolina (14-15, 4-12) will host 13 seed Boston College (7-22, 2-14) at 1 pm ET to begin the fight to progress further. The two teams met last on Jan. 4. The face-off at Boston College resulted in a 64-77 North Carolina loss.
Sophomore guard Taylor Ortlepp has been key in the past two, back-to-back Eagle victories over the Tarheels. In the 2016-17 season, she drilled five three-pointers, finishing with 20 points and most recently led the team to a win with 23 points. However, UNC leads the overall series (12-3).
Following the 12/13 match, No. 10 Georgia Tech (17-12, 6-10) will take on No. 15 Clemson (11-18, 1-15) at 3:30 pm ET. Prior to today’s contest, Clemson has fallen to Georgia Tech twice this season, 33-66, 48-60, respectively. Clemson leads the ACC in three-point field goal percentage defense. This will challenge the Yellow Jackets, as they are already known for their inconsistency from distance. GT’s offense runs all the way through their deep bench and is spearheaded by Francesca Pan (13.8 ppg), but it is likely it will not be a three-point shooting night for them.
The final game of day 1 will feature No. 11 Wake Forest and No. 14 Pitt. Wake Forest beat Pitt 58-49 on Jan. 4 and is 5-2 on the series. Pitt has won one ACC Tournament game; they knocked out North Carolina in an 82-72 victory on March 2, 2016.
The winner of game one will meet No. 5 North Carolina State tomorrow at 11 am ET. Game five will feature No. 8 Syracuse and No. 9 Virginia Tech at 2 pm. The game two winner meets with No. 7 Virginia. Day two will conclude with No. 6 Miami and game three’s winner.