Tuesday, December 8
Boston College at Minnesota
Illinois at Duke
North Carolina at Iowa Ohio State at Notre Dame
Penn State at Virginia Tech
Purdue at Miami
Syracuse at Rutgers
Wednesday, December 9
Georgia Tech at Nebraska
Indiana at Florida State Maryland at Clemson Michigan State at Virginia
Pitt at Northwestern
What are your predictions everyone?
I think the B1G is in a pretty good spot here. Even with losing a couple likely wins from COVID
Tuesday, December 8
Boston College at Minnesota Illinois at Duke
North Carolina at Iowa Ohio State at Notre Dame
Penn State at Virginia Tech Purdue at Miami
Syracuse at Rutgers
Wednesday, December 9 Georgia Tech at Nebraska
Indiana at Florida State
Maryland at Clemson Michigan State at Virginia
Pitt at Northwestern
Maybe this is discussed on the podcast, plan to listen today, but does anybody else wish some of these “lower level” matchups were being played in the afternoon? There’s a zero percent chance I watch Boston College-Minnesota tipping at about the same time as ND-OSU and Iowa-UNC, but if it were on at 2 PM today, it would be on while I’m working. Wish ESPN and the conferences had tried to take advantage of the pandemic/WFH environment and spread the schedule a bit.
The cancellation of two games should give a bit more TV breathing time for the main games. I wouldn’t be surprised if Michigan’s game is an afternoon tip so it doesn’t overlap with the challenge.
I haven’t even tried to wrap my head around predicting winners. But watching this board throw picks out there ranging from B10 8-4 all the way to ACC 7-5 means we should be in for a fun week. That’s a wide range.
I’m taking UNC, but if I were to go with Iowa (which I considered) it would more be because of a lack of faith in UNC. They were bad last year, and obviously they replenished with a top tier recruiting class hence the top 15 preseason ranking. But early results for them haven’t been great (loss to Texas, struggled with Stanford) and similar to last year their guard play has been rough to start the season.
That being said I’m taking them because I think they match up better with Iowa than potentially any team in the country? UNC might have the deepest frontcourt in the nation. Brooks is a preseason ACC POTY contender, Bacot was good as a freshman and has gotten off to a scorching hot start, and they have 2 5 star freshmen in Walker Kessler and Day’Ron Sharpe coming off the bench.
UNC can legitimately throw 4 big guys at Garza that can compete. They can withstand any foul trouble Garza may get them in while, and they can rotate those 4 guys in and out to stay fresh while Garza’s pretty much gonna have to go the whole game. I would imagine they’d just keep attacking Garza on defense until he either starts to tire out and becomes even more of a defensive liability, or go at him until he gets in foul trouble. And if he’s struggling or off the court, I don’t see Iowa keeping pace with UNC.
I’m picking Iowa, but I think the matchup is closer to something like a 15th ranked team vs an unranked one than what it actually is. Not a fan of UNC at all.