Bullock's four three pointers changed the game quickly for UNC

The three-point shot can certainly change games in a hurry and it did so during North Carolina's 106-74 drubbing of Boston College. It looked as if BC might continue its ACC dominance at home after hitting four threes in a row to get out to an 18-13 lead.

But UNC's Reggie Bullock went unconscious over a three-minute period with four three-pointers. His three from the right corner gave Carolina its first lead at 19-18. About 40 seconds later Bullock hit a three from the left corner and just over a minute later he swished a three from the left side to put the Tar Heels up 29-22.

At the end of the day, Boston College had 13 three-pointers compared to 11 by Carolina. But the time of the game in which the threes were made was big plus BC shot a lot more threes. You live by it and you die by it. Carolina hit 52 percent of its three pointers while BC hit 39 percent.

For more on the Boston College game itself, please click here.

Florida State grabs dominant recruiting class

Back at Operation Basketball in October in Charlotte, a Florida State media relations person made an interesting comment in the hallway. The conversation turned to football, where the Seminoles had once owned the ACC.

“We’re going to be what we used to be,” he said. Really? Asked a Capital Sports reporter. Why?

Jimbo Fisher is just bringing it together, he explained. The coaching staff, the organization, the entire program was falling into place.

On signing day, we’ll see it. North Carolina has a good recruiting class and N.C. State has a perplexing one, but the Seminoles have a great one. Football coaches love to say you can’t truly gauge a class for five years, and there is some truth in that, but the teams that win big on the field tend to win big on signing day. Just look at Alabama – Nick Saban came in and turned the program around with some monster recruiting classes.

Florida State is poised for a tremendous day Wednesday. The Seminoles have 25 commitments and 10 are ranked in the Top 100 by Scout.com. Four are five-star recruits, 10 are four-star recruits and 11 are three-star recruits.

The next closest ACC team is Clemson, at No. 18, followed by UNC at No. 19. As of Tuesday night, Carolina had one five-star recruit and five four-stars. Ratings are just guesses – Russell Wilson was a two-star – but the chance of getting a stud goes up with the number of stars.

One interesting note on Florida State’s class – its only quarterback so far is three-star recruit Jacob Coker of Mobile, Ala.

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Wolfpack goes blank on Saturday, and for a moment Monday morning

N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe obviously has more to worry about than the ACC media teleconference, but there was an awkward moment Monday morning when his phone line died in the middle of an answer to The News & Observer’s Joe Giglio.

Giglio asked about how hard the Wolfpack plays, and whether Saturday’s loss at North Carolina was an aberration.

“Um, I think this group will play hard. Saturday, that was just a game. I don’t know, it was a weird game. Guys seemed to be ready n the locker room, ready to go to and excited, with good energy,” Lowe responded.

“Initially, when we don’t hit a few shots early, our defense seems to suffer a little bit. Our energy goes down. And we can’t have that.

“We have to be better at overcoming that early drought of not hitting shots and picking up on the defensive end.”

Whoops! Not long after that, Lowe’s line went blank (Wonder if he has AT&T as his cell service?)

After a minute or so, he was back on the line. In the remaining time, Lowe touched on a variety of points involving the Wolfpack team. One was that State doesn’t seem to have great balance when it comes to scoring, and the return of Tracy Smith after an injury hasn’t bolstered the team as expected.

“I can’t remember the last time we had a game where everybody played well. We haven’t had that in a while,” he said. “Having Tracy back certainly helped but we need other people to play well for us. We’ve had a couple of times now where we would take three or four players who played the majority of minutes and they went 4 for 16. And we can’t do that.

“But with Tracy back we should be better defensively. I don t think we’ve taken advantage of that. I don’t think we’ve defended as well as we need. We need to get games where we have more than two guys playing well.”

Speakingly broadly, Lowe had an almost deflated tone in this news conference. He talked about how tough the Wolfpack’s schedule has been in ACC play, and how this team still has time to make a run, but if you listened to his tone of voice, you had a hard time believing this team is about to roar through the rest of the season.

Vision, facilities lead to successful All-Star Weekend

The ultra-successful All-Star Weekend in Raleigh was a testament to two critical factors when it comes to professional sports – facilities and vision.

Raleigh had the foresight to commit to building the RBC Center before it had a hockey team, which was a key reason the Hartford Whalers moved south. Pro teams follow the money, and money often means a swank place to play with friendly rent.

Raleigh’s big mistake, as the weekend also highlighted, was the failure to build the arena downtown. Then-mayor Tom Fetzer led the decision to go to cheaper land at the Fairgrounds, even though the downtown renaissance was already under way. The expectation then was businesses would grow up around the new arena, but that hope has never materialized. Meanwhile, the downtown area was the focus of three days of partying for the weekend.

Also due a heaping amount of credit is Jim Cain, the Raleigh product who was the Carolina Hurricanes’ president at a time when the future of the franchise was no given. Cain’s name hasn’t come up much in the reports on the weekend, but he was essential to what happened this weekend.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman promised an All-Star Game in five years if the Canes hit 12,000 season tickets, and Carolina announced on May 31, 2001, that it had sold 12,309 season tickets. A late push by Harris Teeter, which bought 1,000 season tickets, put Carolina over the goal.

“People don’t have to talk about this franchise anymore as a franchise that doesn’t care about hockey,” Cain said at the time. “We’ve got a great community here, a great fan-base and a great organization.”

The NHL hemmed and hawed on its commitment but finally delivered this weekend. The wait was longer than it should have been but wow, was it worth it.