Saturday marks the end of the regular season and like every other college basketball team across the nation, Pitt, Notre Dame and Boston College are hoping to enhance their tournament chances with one final victory. Only instead of looking to squeak into the NCAA’s field of 68 like all those teams within hailing distance of the bubble, the Panthers, Irish and Eagles simply want to make it to Charlotte next week for the ACC’s championship event.
Only 15 of the league’s 18 teams will be included in the tournament bracket and because the top 14 are already set, there’s room for just one of the three. The outcome of Saturday’s games will determine who it will be.
Pitt heads into the weekend in the most advantageous position. Despite having the same 4-13 conference record as Notre Dame, the Panthers can earn the final tournament spot by winning at Syracuse based on their head-to-head victory against the Irish on Feb. 21.
A loss, however, would open the door for the winner of what could amount to a play-in game between Notre Dame and BC. The Eagles are currently 3-14 in conference play, but would earn the 15th seed based on a 2-1 record against the other two teams in a three-way tie.
The Irish could have clinched their ticket into the ACC Tournament with a win against Stanford on Wednesday, but dropped an 86-78 decision that led coach Micah Shrewsberry to rip his team in his postgame comments.
“Man, you get what you deserve,” Shrewsbury said. “I thought our focus sucked and our discipline sucked. I thought our awareness sucked. When your back is against the wall, you’ve got to come out and be better than that.
“Now you need somebody else’s help. If you just handle business, come out locked in and come out assertive, you do what you’re supposed to do on every possession. Mistakes are going to happen, but we’ve got guys not doing what they’re supposed to do. You deserve to lose when you’re not doing that.”
Because BC (10-20 overall) and Notre Dame (13-17) play several hours before Pitt (11-19) takes the court, the pressure will be on. Instead of dwelling on the desperation of the situation, Eagles coach Earl Grant has taken a different tack than Shrewsberry by stressing the opportunity still within his team’s grasp.
“To me, it’s us to play to our standard and have fun playing the game we love, making sure we go into the game with a great level of connectivity and buying into our game plan,” Grant said earlier this week. “So we’ll be excited about it. But we’ve got to face the reality of the situation.”
To that end, Grant plans to address the stakes with his players before Saturday’s game.
“Obviously you’ve got to face the reality, so knowledge is power,” he said. “If you don’t say anything about it, they may not even realize they can still get in. So you have to give them the information to remain hopeful and keep them excited.”
Pitt’s Jeff Capel isn’t dodging the subject either. But unlike Grant, he’d rather not give his players too much to think about ahead of what could potentially be the final game of their season.
“What we’ve tried to focus on is just trying to concentrate on and pay attention to what’s right in front of us and trying to get better from that standpoint,” he said.
Georgia Tech, at 2-15 in the ACC, has already been eliminated from conference tournament contention.
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Duke’s Scheyer is the Coach of the Year frontrunner, but he’s not a lock
Duke heads into the final weekend of the regular season ranked No. 1 in both national polls and KenPom’s defensive efficiency ratings, and is a Seth Trimble buzzer-beater from being undefeated in the ACC. All with a retooled roster that lost five starters to the NBA Draft from last year’s Final Four team.
It’s a performance that should make Jon Scheyer a slam dunk for the ACC’s Coach of the Year award. But considering the example of his mentor, Mike Krzyzewski, it might be best to wait until all the votes are counted before engraving his name on the trophy.
Coach K is the winningest coach in college basketball history and is generally acknowledged as one of the best, if not the best, the game has ever seen. And yet despite those 1,202 victories, 15 conference tournament championships and five national titles, didn’t win a single conference Coach of the Year award during the final two-plus decades of his illustrious career.
It turns out that there was frequently someone farther down the ACC standings getting credit for doing more with less. In Krzyzewski’s case, it was Paul Hewitt, Herb Sendek, Dave Leitao, Josh Pastner and Seth Greenberg, all of whom received the honor between 2000 and Krzyzewski’s retirement in 2022.
Greenberg, twice.
As for Scheyer, the most likely challenge will come from a former assistant. Jai Lucas left the Blue Devils before the start of the NCAA Tournament to get a head start on rebuilding a Miami program that finished last in the ACC and went 7-24 overall in 2024-25. He didn’t just reinvigorate the program with his youthful energy, he rebuilt the roster literally from scratch at a school whose financial resources are devoted primarily to its football team.
The son of Naismith Hall of Famer John Lucas has fashioned the nation’s most dramatic turnaround, winning 24 games and putting the Hurricanes solidly into the NCAA Tournament field heading into Saturday’s regular season finale against Louisville. Virginia’s Ryan Odom could also get some love from voters for elevating the Cavaliers back into a contender in his first season in Charlottesville.
In an effort to prevent history from repeating itself, Scheyer’s players are doing their part to debunk the perception that their coach has simply benefited from a roster full of five-star McDonald’s All-Americans.
“He’s different. The whole staff is different,” senior forward Maliq Brown told Brendan Marks of the Athletic recently. “They don’t get a lot of the flowers they deserve because it’s Duke. They deserve more flowers than they (get).”
What’s next for Stanford’s surprise freshman star Ebuka Okorie?
This year’s freshman class is among the best and deepest ever, with several one-and-done players in the running to be the top pick in this year’s NBA Draft. But for all the Cameron Boozers, Caleb Wilsons, AJ Dybantsas and Darryn Petersons living up to their five-star reputations, one of the most successful newcomers is a low-profile recruit still flying under the radar.
Ebuka Okorie is a 6-foot-2 guard from New Hampshire who was all set to go to Harvard before Stanford coach Kyle Smith spotted him while trying to convince Brewster Academy teammate Elijah Crawford to honor the commitment he made to former Cardinal coach Jarod Haase. When Crawford balked, Smith took Okorie instead and the 119-ranked prospect, according to 247Sports, quickly showed why recruiting is such an inexact science.
Okorie scored 20 plus points in each of his first four college games, becoming the first Stanford player to accomplish the feat since Brooke Lopez did it in 2007. He currently leads the ACC in scoring at 22.8 points per game and is on pace to surpass Duke’s RJ Barrett (22.6) as the highest-scoring freshman in ACC history.
His unexpected success has led to speculation that he might be considering an immediate jump to the NBA, a decision Smith has advised his star to consider carefully before making.
“I told him to enjoy this,” Smith told StanfordSI.com “With the revenue share and that stuff, he’s got a great situation and he has all the leverage, whatever he wants to do. But my pitch has been, ‘If you want to be in the place where you are leading a team and getting the most minutes to develop what you want to be as a pro, and essentially, we’re pros now, they’re getting paid. So I think Stanford’s the best option. But now if someone in the NBA says, ‘Hey, we’re gonna take you at 12 and you’re our starting point guard, well, that’s something to consider.’”
Around the rim
- SMU’s chances for staying on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble and into the field of 68 this season could rest on the health of guard BJ Edwards’ right ankle. The senior Glue Guy, who averages 12.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.9 assists, was carried off the court after coming down awkwardly on a block attempt during last week’s game at Cal. Without Edwards, the Mustangs have lost three straight, a slump reminiscent of the one that saw them go 2-3 down the stretch and get relegated to the NIT last season while leading scorer Boopie Miller was sidelined with an injury. Coach Andy Enfield was blunt earlier this week when asked if that experience could help this year’s team overcome the adversity and prevent history from repeating itself. “It’s hard to learn something from guys getting injured other than you’re not as good without your best players,” he said. “But there’s no excuse. Whether BJ plays or not we have to be prepared to play. These games matter a lot.” SMU currently stands at No. 38 in the NET rankings heading into Saturday’s regular-season finale at Florida State.
- Freshman phenoms have become as much a Duke tradition as the Cameron Crazies and slapping the floor on defense, and Cameron Boozer has done his part to uphold it this season. The son of former Blue Devils national champion Carlos Boozer is a lock to become the program’s 10th ACC Rookie of the Year in the past 13 seasons, joining a list that includes Cooper Flagg, Kyle Filipowski, Paolo Banchero, Vernon Carey Jr., Zion Williamson, Marvin Bagley III, Brandon Ingram, Jahlil Okafor and Jabari Parker. Boozer ranks second in the ACC in scoring at 22.6 points per game and leads the conference in rebounding at 10.0 per game. “Cam has been a complete stud for us from Day One,” his coach, Jon Scheyer, said. “It becomes so contagious when your best player is fully about winning. That sets a tone for everybody.” Boozer has been named the ACC’s Rookie of the Week nine times, extending a remarkable dominance that has seen 28 different Duke players win the league’s weekly freshman honor 108 of a possible 220 weeks (49.1 percent) since the start of the 2013-14 season.
- Seven ACC teams have already reached the 20-win plateau this season. That’s the most in a regular season since 2017-18 when a record eight teams won 20 or more games prior to the conference tournament. The league will match that number on Saturday when NC State takes on Stanford in Raleigh. Both teams entered the game with 19 wins. A new record would be set if either SMU or Virginia Tech reaches the 20-win mark with a victory in their final regular-season games against Florida State and Virginia, respectively.
- While most of the ACC Tournament bracket is still a work in progress, the top four seeds – and the double byes that come with them – are already set. Duke, as the regular-season conference champion, is the top seed, followed by UVa at No. 2, Miami at No. 3 and UNC at No. 4. If the seedings hold, the Blue Devils and Tar Heels will be on a collision course to meet in the semifinals at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center, the same place and round as their epic tournament showdown a year ago in which Duke prevailed, literally, by the length of UNC forward Jae’Lyn Withers’ toe. The tournament begins on Tuesday with games involving the bottom six seeds.
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