Atlantic Coast Conference
ACC Women's Basketball Tournament: A Diary, Day One | March 7, 2024
Read Val's other ACC Tournament Diary entries: Day 2
Wednesday, March 6th, 12:00 noon
It is always a treat to travel south in March. The forsythia have popped and daffodils are in bloom. This is my second straight ACC Women’s Tournament and I am joined by First Official Friend of Cavaliers Now©, Lora. We’ll be seeing a veritable orgy of women’s hoops from the best conference in the land. ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme has nine teams slotted to make the NCAA tournament with Virginia on the outside looking in. Matt and I, in our tournament preview, agree that Virginia will have to make some serious noise, like beating Syracuse in the third round, to have any hope of making the Big Dance.
It takes me four tries to find the media entrance, all in a heavy drizzle. The notion of a “press box” is an antiquated one; there is too much media. What there is is a press basement, but nevertheless, my credentials are ready when I arrive. There’s just time to get to my seat and review the day’s announcement of the All-ACC teams before the game begins.
Serious grade inflation seems to have the ACC this year. The first team has 10 players. The second team has 10 players. Yet basketball is played 5 on 5. Matt and I will have to revise our predictions next year to account for the glut of awardees. The top five vote getters are the same as we predicted: Virginia Tech’s Liz Kitley, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair, Virginia Tech’s Georgia Amoore, and FSU’s Ta’Niya Latson. Virginia’s Kymora Johnson is on the second team and she was the second highest vote getter for the all-rookie team.
Game I: #13 Boston College vs #12 Clemson, 1:00pm
During team introductions, the jumbotron features each team’s highlight video. BC’s vid is very average consisting of shots of the women pointing, wagging fingers and glowering at the camera. In other words, mugging it up like the men. Clemson’s is better as the video cuts from each player, similarly mugging, to game action for each player. Clemson’s band gets to play the national anthem, and on the day, the Tiger band will out-duel the BC band singing almost English-soccer worthy chants. Advantage Clemson.
1st Quarter, 6:44
Clemson’s Dayshanette Harris, a Pitt transfer, is off to a good start. She’s 2/2 from deep and Clemson is up 10-9. She wanted to be featured and she’s going to have the ball in her hands most of the game.
5:18
Clemson’s band plays a nice version of the oh-so-obvious Eye of the Tiger. It will be the only time they play it.
3:16 BC’s T’yana Todd drills a three off a lovely feed. BC up 15-11.
2:44 BC’s Andrea Daley gets a steal, goes coast to coast and converts the And-1. BC up 18-11.
2:20 Daley gets the steal, feeds Todd for the And-1. BC up 21-11 and this game is getting away from Clemson.
2nd Quarter, 8:57
Clemson’s Ruby Whitehorn scores on a pair of drives to the rim. Clemson still down, 23-17.
7:49 BC’s Teya Sidberry gets away with a travel. This is great, actually. The men travel like this all the time, taking the first step before they have started their dribble. The men are just more powerful and explosive so they get away with it, while the women get called. Seriously, the women’s game can see four or five travel calls, which just slows the game down. If the call is not going to be made against the men, it shouldn’t be called against the women.
6:05 Another pair of Whitehorn drives. She’s doing everything she can to keep this game close, but Clemson will still go into the half down 42-34.
3rd Quarter, 9:22
BC’s Todd picks up where she left off hitting a three. She’s got 19 points thus far on 7/10 shooting and 4/5 from deep.
5:45 Boston College’s band is really disengaged in this contest. Their cheerleaders are out doing a number, and it is the Clemson band that is playing during the first half of it. For the second half of the routine, the cheerleaders are performing to canned music.
0:44 Forgotten skill in the women’s game: going 2 for 1 at the end of the quarter. With 44 seconds left, the goal is try and get a quick shot, maybe 7 to 10 seconds into the shot clock so that there will be time for another possession with 7 to 10 seconds remaining. BC held the ball too long, failed to score, and allowed Clemson to take the last shot of the quarter. Clemson couldn’t take advantage, so no harm, no foul. But both of these teams would no doubt feel that their seasons have been disappointing. Games are won and lost on the margins. This seems an exploitable margin to me. Boston College is firmly in charge, 64-51.
4th Quarter, 9:50
Whitehorn scores her 24th point. BC’s Todd has 22.
7:23 Clemson commits four fouls in 31 seconds. Down by 11, putting BC at the line for the rest of the period is not a good move.
6:17 Clemson’s Harris is quite the sparkplug. Four times now in the second half, Harris has taken the ball to the rim in transition. Four times she’s been fouled and she’s failed to convert. Harris is a great foul shooter, she’s going to go 9/9 from the line, but trailing by double digits, Clemson needs the old-fashioned three-point plays. And they’re just not getting them.
5:27 I spoke too soon. Harris finally converts at the rim and completes the And-1. Both she and Whitehorn have 26 points.
5:18 BC’s Teya Sidberry answers with a bomb of her own. Despite Whitehorn and Harris’ heroics, its still a nine-point lead, 75-66.
3:33 It’s game over. When Dontavia Waggoner can throw up something like this, and then convert the And-1, it’s done. Clemson’s goose is cooked. Boston College advance, 85-72 to play Louisville.
0:00 Who had four 20-point scorers in this game on their Bingo card? Todd (24) and Sidberry (20) for BC and Whitehorn and Harris (26 each) for Clemson. In addition, both Waggoner (18) and Clemson’s Amari Robinson (15) scored above their season average. It was a good start to the tournament!
Game II: #10 Georgia Tech vs #16 Pittsburgh, 3:30pm
1st Quarter
7:58 The game is off to a slow start as both teams combine for five turnovers on the first five possessions. Maybe there’s a reason that Tech and Pitt are playing on the first day of the tournament.
4:32 When a Georgia Tech sub enters the game, in this case Ines Noguero, she gives what looks to be a black towel rolled up and secured with tape, to the outgoing player. It’s like they are passing the baton. It’s not uncommon to see in the women’s game, but it’s a practice only used by women. There are several ACC women’s soccer teams whose players handoff a pinnie to the departing player. It seems… demeaning. There’s only five players on this court. Does Tonie Morgan really not know that she’s coming out? Unlike football, the referees in basketball will not let play start until the correct number of players are on the court.
0:02 Georgia Tech’s Tonie Morgan has come to play. She got the game started for the Yellow Jackets, making the first two buckets and then she nailed the shot at the buzzer. Morgan is a beneficiary of the ACC’s expanded All-ACC teams as the sophomore is second team. Some people just look like ballers. Morgan is one of them. And some, like Pitt’s Aislin Malcolm just don’t. She’s got legs like toothpicks, but looks can be deceiving. Rose Lavelle, the most influential player on the women’s national soccer team, looks like a strong wind could blow her over. Malcolm is the same way. But she leads all scorers with 10 points. It’s Tech up 19-18 at the end of one.
2nd Quarter
3:26 It’s looking bad for Pitt as Liatu King, recently anointed as the ACC’s most improved player, airballs a five-footer. Seriously, that is hard to do. Tech’s Sydney Johnson hits a nice bucket to extend the lead to 33-25 but then immediately fouls Pitt’s Bella Perkins needlessly on a deep three-point attempt late in the shot clock as she was falling down. Perkins then goes 1/3 from the line. Maybe there’s a reason both these teams are playing on Wednesday.
0:55 Tech’s Morgan knows how to play the 2 for 1 game late in the shot clock! Bella Perkins hit a lovely three to give Pitt their first lead of the game, 33-32. A three by Aixa Wone Aranaz and a pair of Morgan free throws gives Tech the 38-32 halftime lead.
Halftime
UVa is hosting a tailgate party, of sorts, at Steel Hands Brewery, which is literally 40 seconds across the street from the Coliseum. I don’t drink so a brewery is of little interest to me, but getting to talk with more Virginia fans – we’ve got the next game coming up – is too much of an attraction. Lora and I leave the Pitt v Tech game and get some great shrimp nachos, all courtesy of UVa Clubs. Steel Hands is a great place for Hoos to assemble as their company color is orange. It’s a match made in heaven. We meet my old roommate, Mark, who has the misfortune of living in Chapel Hill.
Final Score: Georgia Tech 73 Pittsburgh 60
This had been a back and forth game as Pitt closed to 47-48 at the end of three. With 2:43 left, Tech was just up 60-58 but then went on the mother of all runs – 13-2 – to close out the game.
Game III: #11 Virginia vs #14 Wake Forest, 6:30 pm.
The proceedings open on an inauspicious note for Virginia. Their highlight vid is much better than Wake’s, featuring chiaroscuro shadows for the players. All well and good. The best look so far. But the vid features two highlights from last season. One of Mir McLean, who hasn’t played all year, and Cady Pauley’s SportsCenter highlight behind-the-back pass. Bad juju.
Virginia, after playing Wake pretty even for the first half, has a blow-the-doors-off kind of third quarter, outscoring Wake 23-9 in the third frame. Wake flips the script in the fourth, coming back from a 15-point deficit and ultimately winning 58-55. And the win was a little more comfortable than the margin suggests. For the third straight year, Wake Forest has knocked off Virginia on the first day of the tournament.
I’m too depressed to write much more. I actually go with Mark and Lora to a bar and have a drink, a nice scotch single malt. I know it’s a bad day when I’m drinking a single malt.
There’s still 11 games on tap. Tomorrow can’t get here soon enough.