TMA: The ACC warms up

The Morning After is our semi-daily recap of last night's best basketball action. It spent much of the weekend hiding from the snow by re-watching "Inception." It's pretty sure the whole movie is a dream.

Boston College 79, Maryland 75: Is it time to take Boston College seriously? Steve Donahue's team was picked to finish near the bottom of the ACC before the season began, and a 75-67 home loss to Yale in the second game of the season seemed to confirm those suspicions. Since then, though, the Eagles have gone 7-1 -- their only loss coming to Wisconsin -- and racked up some reasonably impressive wins in the process. Consider Sunday's effort in that vein: Boston College's offense was good enough to beat a very capable Maryland team in the Terrapins' building. BC scored 1.14 points per possession and gave up 1.08 in 63 possessions Sunday. That's not exactly legendary defensive performance, but this is what Boston College does. It scores enough to erase the problems that might arise when you allow opponents to average more that a point per possession.

Florida State 75, Clemson 69: The Florida State Seminoles found a way to score. Fancy that. Frankly, compared to Florida State's usual outcomes, Sunday night's six-point win over Clemson counts as an offensive barrage on both sides of the aisle. FSU typically holds opponents to about .08 points per possession; Clemson scored 69 points in 69 possessions Sunday night. But Florida State was even more efficient on offense, thanks in large part to second-chance opportunities and accuracy from the free throw line. Clemson isn't exactly the world's toughest test, but for a Seminoles team looking for proof that its brilliant defense can be complemented with at least marginal offense, Sunday night's win was definitively positive.

Everywhere else: Villanova got out of another crosstown rivalry game alive Sunday, holding off a pesky La Salle team with a well-balanced but defensively suspect performance. ... Ohio State was forced out Value City Arena thanks to fall graduation Sunday, so the Buckeyes had to dominate Western Carolina at aging St. John Arena instead. ... Illinois had no issues with Northern Colorado. ... Virginia Tech got back above .500 with a 10-point win over Penn State; count it as a good sign that Malcolm Delaney (18 points, eight assists) finally got on track offensively. ... Mississippi State finished game No. 2 in its five-games-in-five-days blitz with a win over North Carolina A&T. ... Drake got a perhaps-surprising three-point win over Boise State. ... Fairfield topped Holy Cross. ... and Cal's bad weekend got worse after a home loss to Southern Miss.

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/19756/tma-the-acc-warms-up

Elliott Sadler Masami Kuwashima Luis Scola Kurt Busch Jason Kidd Oscar Larrauri