FanHouse DeronWashington

With the fall beginning and college basketball just around the corner, it's time to look back at what our favorite teams did during their summer vacations. Some did some good things; some had a bad time. So let's look back at who did what in our How I Spent My Summer Vacation series.

Today's look is the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Roy Williams Hits Jackpot When All His Guys Return

The Tar Heels were at quite the crossroads. After a great season ended with a disappointing loss to Kansas, Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green all decided to take a look at the NBA Draft. Hansbrough decided to come back, but the other three entered the draft with the opportunity to come back to school if they didn't like their draft status.

If any or all left, the Heels were facing some uncertainty heading into the season. Yes, they'd still be a good team but they'd have a few holes.

In a somewhat surprising move, all three Heels decided to come back for one last hurrah. That means Ol' Roy gets everyone back from that Final Four team (sans a transferred Alex Stepheson and a graduating Quentin Thomas -- both role players). They also bring in three McDonald's All Americans.

Congratulations to NC State's J.J. Hickson, who was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers with the 19th overall draft pick in last night's NBA Draft. Hickson was the lone wolf of sorts -- the only ACC player to be drafted in the first round.

As I said a couple weeks ago, the league is in a bit of a crisis mode about why they've been in a down period and creating only one first rounder was a sign of that. However, ACC Now points out this is the third time this decade that only one ACC player was taken in the first round ... and it may be a great sign.

For the third time this decade, the ACC had only one player taken in the first round. It also happened in 2000 (Georgia Tech's Jason Collier) and 2004 (Duke's Luol Deng).

Those seasons were also the smallest overall draft classes for the ACC. Only two players were drafted in 2000 (Duke's Chris Carrawell was the other) and four total in 2004.

This 2008 draft also was small, overall (UVa's Sean Singletary, Maryland's James Gist and Va Tech's Deron Washington also were drafted last night). Now, what happened in the college basketball seasons after the 2000 and 2004 drafts? Oh yeah. An ACC team went on to win the National Championship.

Duke beat Virginia Tech Thursday night, and the player of the game was Duke freshman Kyle Singler, who scored 10 of his 16 points during an 18-9 run that allowed the Blue Devils to pull away in the second half.

But the real story of the game was Virginia Tech's Deron Washington, who played dirty throughout, tripping Singler at one point, undercutting DeMarcus Nelson on a dunk at another, and intentionally bumping into a Duke huddle. Here are some YouTube highlights (UPDATE: Better video courtesy of Awful Announcing):

Washington got an intentional foul and eventually fouled out of the game, but he never got a technical, and I find it shocking that he wasn't ejected. Duke loses some sympathy because its players flop too much, but last night, Duke was in the right and Washington was in the wrong.

The A-10's hot streak just won't stop. Richmond, an afterthought thus far, has given the league another upset win by knocking off Virginia Tech 52-49 tonight. The league can double their pleasure if Xavier beats Virginia as well this evening.

As you can tell from the final score, it wasn't an offensive spectacular and almost turned into a Richmond blowout. The Spiders opened up a nine-point lead late in the game on the back of a 14-2 run and stifling defense. They forced 23 turnovers and kept turning them into points. David Gonzalvez carried the scoring load with 17 points for the Spiders, five during that big run, and hit two free throws to ice the game.

The Spiders shot just 39.6% for the game but the Hokies couldn't buy buckets. They were 4-of-17 from three and, despite the strong defense, had enough good looks to win the game. A.D. Vassallo, Tech's leading scorer, was just 3-of-12 and Deron Washington missed a key free throw that would have tied the game at 50. Richmond is no offensive juggernaut but VT couldn't execute at all and deserved their fate.

Richmond probably isn't going anywhere this season but their defense is going to make for a lot of unpleasant nights for A-10 opponents. Just another reason why the league schedule should be dynamite night in and night out. For the Hokies, a second straight trip to the NCAAs seems beyond their reach at 8-6 and without a quality win entering ACC play.