The evening session of the ACC tournament starts with a matchup between the Duke Blue Devils and the Virginia Tech Hokies on Friday night. The Devils enter the game without forward Ryan Kelly who will miss the entire ACC tournament with a sprained ankle that he suffered in practice on Tuesday.
The Blue Devils have not lost an ACC tournament game since a semifinal loss to Clemson in 2008. They also defeated the Hokies 77-63 in the semifinals last season, the first and only game between two teams in the tournament. Duke also swept Virginia Tech during the regular season winning 75-60 on Feb. 2 and 70-65 on Feb. 25.
To defeat the Blue Devils, the Hokies will need a big game from guard Erick Green, averaging 15.6 points per game. In addition, the Tech defense will have to slow down Duke guard Austin Rivers, who averaged 20.5 points in the two games against the Hokies.
The winner of this game will face the winner of the Miami Hurricanes vs. Florida State Seminoles on Saturday evening in the ACC semifinals. The game is set for a 7 p.m. tip off with television coverage on ESPN2 and Raycom Sports. It will also be streaming live on ESPN3.com.
You can find a full ACC Tournament bracket right here.
For more on the two teams, check out the Virginia Tech Blog Gobbler Country and the Duke Blog Duke Basketball Report. For coverage throughout the tournament, keep it on our ACC Tournament StoryStream.