ACC tournament live updates: Bracket, scores and how to watch Wednesday’s games

The 2022 ACC men’s basketball tournament’s second round begins Wednesday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

With a chance to advance to the quarterfinals on the line, Wake Forest takes on Boston College, Syracuse plays Florida State, Virginia Teach goes up against Clemson and Virginia faces Louisville.

The News & Observer has seven journalists on site in New York covering the tournament, including C.L. Brown, Steve Wiseman, Luke DeCock and Andrew Carter. They will be providing live updates and analysis here throughout the week. We’ll also post scores and recaps of each game.

If you’re looking for a printable bracket for the ACC tournament, we have you covered.

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ACC tournament live updates and scores

Virginia 51, Louisville 50

UVA head coach Tony Bennett called it a “knucklebuster” kind of game. The Cavaliers didn’t have a lot of offense, but had just enough to hold off the Cardinals in a game that had 11 ties. Virginia’s biggest lead of the second half, four points, did not come until a Reece Beekman layup with 40 seconds left.

Beekman may have had the play of the game on the ensuing possession. U of L called a timeout and designed a play that got the ball in the hands of guard Noah Locke. He thought he had Beekman beat for a shot, but made a split second decision to try and keep his dribble. Locke was called for a travel

“We’ve struggled to shoot this year at times, there’s no mystery there,” Bennett said. “And when we played last time we knock down some shots and boy does that open up the floor and do things. But you got to play true to who you are and just find ways and that’s where our defense hangs us in there and you find some tough baskets.”

UVA held the Cards to just 32 percent shooting in the second half and forced seven of their 12 turnovers in the second half. In a low-scoring, low-possession game, those seven chances they took away Louisville’s chances to score was the difference between winning and losing.

It was the second time in their past six games that the Wahoos did not make a 3-pointer. They were 0-for-6 against the Cards. In a 62-53 loss at Virginia Tech, the Hoos went 0-for-9. But forward Jayden Gardner, a Wake Forest native, powered them through with a game-high 17 points.

Louisville ends what has been a tumultuous season that began with head coach Chris Mack suspended by the university for six games. Mack ended up quitting in late January and was replaced by assistant coach Mike Pegues as the interim head coach for the remainder of the season.

Virginia Tech 76, Clemson 75 (OT)

There wasn’t a ton of drama to start the tournament on Tuesday, but Wednesday certainly delivered more than its share, thanks especially to Virginia Tech’s Darius Maddox and his buzzer-beating overtime Hokies heroics.

The early game was nearly a historic blowout, but it generated the suspension of Syracuse’s best player for Thursday’s game against Duke. The second afternoon game went to overtime after Wake Forest blew a double-digit second-half lead against Boston College and lost.

And in the evening’s opener, Clemson and Virginia Tech traded buckets and the lead down the stretch – four times in the final minute and change! – as the Hokies blew a double-digit lead of their own to end up in the day’s second overtime game, only to win it on a Maddox 3-pointer at the buzzer, 76-75.

“We’re luckier than hell,” Virginia Tech coach Mike Young said. “That’s basketball. That young man got in the air and hit the big shot and we go home happy.”

Maddox got the inbounds pass with 6.7 seconds to play after a P.J. Hall free throw gave Clemson a two-point lead, then dribbled all the way up the left wing before pulling up for the shot over Al-Amir Dawes as time expired.

Virginia Tech subbed out star forwards Keve Aluma and Justyn Mutts to put five guards on the floor for the final play, but only Maddox ever touched the ball as Virginia Tech, which appeared to have an easy victory assured, ended up escaping by the narrowest of margins.

“We got a little goofy,” Young said. “We had a couple quick shots. We had a couple just really really bad turnovers. Just head-scratchers. We got outside of ourselves a little bit.”

Aluma had 19 points and Storm Murphy 15 for the Hokies, who advanced to face second-seeded Notre Dame on Thursday. The Hokies have won three straight against the Irish over the past two seasons.

ACC suspends Buddy Boeheim for one game, 6:38 p.m.

The ACC has suspended Syracuse’s Buddy Boeheim for Thursday’s Duke-Syracuse game after he punched Florida State’s Wyatt Wilkes during Syracuse’s win Wednesday.

About halfway through the first half, with Syracuse up 25-10, Boeheim bumped shoulders with Wilkes under the basket. As they turned to run up the floor, Boeheim very clearly reached across his body and slugged Wilkes in the solar plexus with his right hand.

“In the heat of today’s game, after some shoving in the lane, I swung my arm while turning to go back up the court. It was wrong to act out in frustration,” Boeheim said in a statement. “I apologized to Wyatt Wilkes multiple times in the handshake line. He said not to worry about it, but I know I was wrong. I pride myself in respecting the game and our opponent. I will not react that way again.”

Even though Wilkes crumpled to the court, the officials somehow missed the play and it was never video-reviewed. The ACC announced the one-game suspension after the conclusion of the day’s second game, between Wake Forest and Boston College.

There is a very famous precedent for that: In 2005, Chris Paul was suspended for Wake Forest’s ACC tournament opener after punching N.C. State’s Julius Hodge in the groin in the final regular-season game, even though no foul was called on the play.

During a post-game press conference after saying he watched the video clip, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, Buddy’s father, initially defended his son by saying it wasn’t a punch and he should face no discipline.

“I don’t think he hit him,” Jim Boeheim said. “He just swung around and there was contact. The kid pushed him twice. You can’t just let people push you around.”

Later, Jim Boeheim said Buddy Boeheim simply retaliated to Wilkes’ earlier contact.

“He got pushed and he retaliated,” Jim Boeheim said. “He shouldn’t have done it but he did. He swung around, and contact was made. If the referee had seen it, it would have been a flagrant one. That would have been it.”

Boston College 82, Wake Forest 77 (OT)

The Eagles rallied from a 10-point deficit with six minutes left in regulation by outscoring the Demon Deacons 15-5. BC guard Jaeden Zachary then scored five of his 12 points in overtime to lead them to an upset win. The Eagles had five players score in double figures, led by 19 from DeMarr Langford.

Wake’s Alondes Williams, the league’s Player of the Year, had 17 points but fouled out in overtime. The Deacs were led by 19 points from Jake Laravia.

No. 13 seed Boston College advanced to face No. 4 seed Miami in the quarterfinals.

Wake will now be left to sweat out Selection Sunday, hoping that its fifth place finish in the conference will be enough to get them into the Big Dance. The last time the league’s Player of the Year did not make it to the NCAA Tournament was in 2013 when Erick Green won the award despite playing for a last-place Virginia Tech squad.

Wake coach Steve Forbes said he was “not holding his breath” over their chances of getting an at-large bid.

“Here’s the thing about the profile,” Forbes said. “They’re going to try to find something that don’t look good. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t think there’s 68 teams better than us, but we’re about to find out.”

What could ultimately hurt the Deacs the most is their non-conference schedule. Wake’s NET non-conference strength of schedule is 338. That’s the lowest rated among power conference schools with the exception of DePaul, which was 339.

“We didn’t play a very tough non-conference schedule, but I don’t think there’s anybody in here that thought we should,” Forbes said. “We had nine new players. We didn’t have any (bad) losses in the non-conference. We did our part. We didn’t have a marquee win, either, but I didn’t know Oregon State was coming off an Elite 8 with about four starters back. I didn’t know it was going to be like that. You can’t predict that.”

Why does Boston College go by The Heights anyway?

The Eagles wore their alternate gray jerseys with “The Heights” replacing Boston College on the front. Asked why they chose to go with that nickname, BC head coach Earl Grant turned to his players on the podium, who didn’t know the reason. Grant then replied, “Good question, we’ll have an answer, if we get back to this stage.”

The school’s fight song has a reference to the Heights and the school’s newspaper is named The Heights. It mainly stems from the campus being built on a hill. Ultimately, Boston College wearing “The Heights” on a jersey would be the equivalent of Penn State having an alternate jersey that read “Happy Valley.”

Syracuse 96, Florida State 57

Cole Swider turned in a monster performance for the Orange, tallying 28 points with 13 rebounds, as No. 9 seed Syracuse routed the No. 8 seeded Seminoles in Wednesday’s first game. Joe Girard added 16 points and the Boeheim brothers, Buddy (14) and Jimmy (12) combined to score 26 points for their father’s team. Florida State failed to solve the Syracuse zone, shooting just 32% while making 2 of 24 3-pointers.

Florida State nearly relieved Mike Krzyzewski of his most dubious ACC record: The 43-point ACC tournament loss to Virginia in 1983.

ACC faces uphill battle toward Selection Sunday, 1:22 p.m.

The ACC, after a historically bad nonconference season, faces some serious challenges in the NCAA selection process, hoping to get Miami, Notre Dame and Wake Forest across the line for a total of five bids, barring some sort of miracle run by Virginia Tech or an upset champion.

Selection committee chairman Tom Burnett, the commissioner of the Southland Conference, reiterated Wednesday that the ACC’s overall strength (or lack thereof) or past reputation does not play any role in that process.

“The committee really doesn’t look collectively at the conferences,” Burnett said. “We look at each individual team sheet and it clearly spells out where a team stands, whether it’s during the season or during selection week. We’re not spending a lot of time on the collective of any one conference. We’ll dig into the team sheets.”

How to watch the ACC tournament’s second round

ESPN and ESPN2 is televising all four games Wednesday, beginning with the matchup between eighth-seeded Florida State and ninth-seeded Syracuse.

ESPN and ESPN2 are available through Spectrum cable or over satellite with DirectTV and Dish Network. You can stream the ACC Network on WatchESPN.com with a valid cable or satellite subscription. Alternatively, cable cutters can access it via YouTube TV and Hulu+ Live TV or ESPN’s streaming service ESPN+.

ACC tournament schedule

Wednesday, March 9 — Second Round

Thursday, March 10 — Quarterfinals

Friday, March 11 — Semifinals

Saturday, March 12 — Championship

ACC tournament betting odds

According to the Action Network, Duke is the strong favorite to win the ACC tournament with odds sitting at -130.

UNC has the second-best odds at +800 (8-to-1), followed by Wake Forest, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, which all have odds of +1000.

Ticket prices

According to a release from ticket broker TickPick, the get-in-the-door price for Wednesday’s first session (Syracuse-Florida State and Wake Forest-Boston College) had an average price of $45 and the late session (Virginia Tech-Clemson and Virginia-Louisville) was $58. The cheapest ticket for the afternoon was $3 and the evening $4.

The cheap prices won’t last. Thursday’s quarterfinals were selling for an average of about $84 per session. The get-in price for Friday night’s semis is $110 with an average ticket of $177 -- and the title-game average Saturday was $204 as of Tuesday.

All-session passes for the ACC were reselling for the most of any Power 5 conference: $904 compared to $889 for the Big East across the East River at Madison Square Garden, $772 for the Big 12, $677 for the SEC and $663 for the Big Ten.

This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 10:00 AM with the headline "ACC tournament live updates: Bracket, scores and how to watch Wednesday’s games."