On Tuesday, one of the wildest regular seasons in recent college basketball history turns the calendar into its postseason.
Before the big dance, the madness begins early in Brooklyn.
The Atlantic Coast Conference hosted the nation’s number-one team (Virginia), a consensus top-three pick in the 2018 NBA Draft (Marvin Bagley) and wall-to-wall upsets this year.
In the last week alone N.C. State pummeled then-No. 25 Florida State at home, Virginia Tech edged out No. 5 Duke in Durham, Miami knocked off No. 9 North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Syracuse beat #18 Clemson to close its season. Now more upsets await in the playoffs.
The conference’s 15 teams, from 0-18 Pittsburgh to the 17-1 Cavs converge on Barclays Center from Tuesday-Saturday this week to crown its champ. Last year Duke, led by Jayson Tatum, won as a 5-seed by winning four games in four days.
CLNS Media’s Bobby Manning will be on-site for the whole tournament, with audio/video coverage of every game from 12 p.m. on Tuesday to the title game on Saturday night.
He’ll be joined by experts that have covered the teams and stars of the league all season, along with game-by-game recaps from the court to the post-game press conference. He’ll also be presenting exclusive interviews via the CLNS Media Youtube page.
The ACC could send as many as 10 teams to the NCAA Tournament later this month and the winner of this tourney gets an automatic bid and sure-fired seeding boost for the big dance. Several of the players who compete in Brooklyn will be joining NBA teams as first-round picks in June. This is your chance to get acquainted with these teams/players before the madness begins.
Join the conversation on Twitter, following @RealBobManning and @CLNSMedia when the games tip-off early this week. The schedule is as follows:
Tuesday
Noon: #12 Boston College (7-11) vs. #13 Georgia Tech (6-12)
2 p.m.: #10 Notre Dame (8-10) vs. #15 Pittsburgh (0-18)
7 p.m.: #11 Syracuse (8-10) vs. #14 Wake Forest (4-14)
Wednesday
Noon: #8 Florida State (9-9) vs. #9 Louisville (9-9)
2 p.m.: #5 N.C. State (11-7) vs. BC/GT
7 p.m.: #7 Virginia Tech (10-8) vs. ND/Pitt
9 p.m.: #6 North Carolina (11-7) vs. SYR/WF
Thursday
Noon: #1 Virginia (17-1) vs. LOU/FSU
2 p.m.: #4 Clemson (11-7) vs. 2pm game winner
7 p.m.: #2 Duke (13-5) vs. 7pm WED winner
9 p.m.: #3 Miami (11-7) vs. 9pm WED winner
Friday
7 p.m.: Noon vs. 2 p.m. THU winners
9 p.m.: 7 p.m. vs. 9 p.m. THU winners
Saturday
8:30 p.m.: ACC Championship Game
