Doug Doughty

Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.

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Just when I was beginning to think that last week’s Notebook Plus had given readers a chance to reflect on Miami’s membership in the ACC, along came the following e-mail from New River gadfly Lee Wrenn:

Notebookplus=weak

Wrenn, who is not to be confused with media gadfly Jeff White of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, does not have the same appreciation for Virginia Tech athletics as many of his fellow New River residents and does not always respond positively to my work.

Subject lines for some of his e-mails have included “What a dumb ass!” and “time for a vacation/a rest?” and “Desperate?”

And those are just the ones I still have in my in-box, for what reason I don’t know.

So, Wrenn probably would rather I didn’t rehash last week’s column, but I did receive an e-mail from another reader, Roanoker Allen Wilkerson, who wanted to know which three teams I would have added as part of an expansion to get the ACC to 12 teams.

Actually, I had planned to comment on that, but I’m so addled that I can’t remember what day it is (check the first-edition Roanoke Times account of the Tech-UVa basketball game, when I said the game was played Wednesday and not Thursday).

I don’t know what three teams I would have added, but I do think that South Carolina would have made a better fit than either Miami, Boston College or one-time ACC target Syracuse.

Of course, South Carolina already had been in the ACC once and it’s doubtful the Gamecocks would want to return, based on the feedback I’ve gotten from my cousin, the only South Carolina fan with whom I’ve regularly corresponded.

There are people, I’m sure, who think that this Miami business is all about my distaste for flying and my desire to have all the ACC teams within driving distance of Roanoke (Hey, Allen, what about West Virginia?).

“I am not sure I understand why you feel that ACC schools need to be in middle of nowhere locations,” another e-mailer, Bob Vanasse, wrote. “It seems to me that having schools in places like Miami, Boston and Atlanta creates more interest in major media markets and provides better locations for fans who want to travel.”

Other than Virginia Tech fans, who else really travels? That would be my response.

“As for your comment that ‘Blacksburg is more in line with the other ACC schools than Boston or Miami,’ I think Coral Gables and Chestnut Hill are not dissimilar from Chapel Hill or Charlottesville except that they have major vibrant cities nearby,” Vanasse continued.

“You commented that you found ‘exorbitant hotel rates, steep cab fares’ and ‘outrageous” traffic in Miami. (But, then you said good things about Washington, clearly a high cost and congested location).”

I can’t argue with that but, most of the time, I drive in and drive out of Washington, D.C., without staying overnight.

“I would like to see the ACC move its tournaments out of Greensboro and start rotating between Boston, Washington, Atlanta and Miami,” Vanasse concluded. “The Big East tournament in New York is awesome, but really, Greensboro is just, well, Greensboro. At least it is a mid-size city with a few good restaurants and decent weather.”

FAR BE IT from me to have e-mailers write my entire column, but Thursday’s log-in brought a question from Bobby Howell that merits some elaboration.

“Doug, I would have thought that the VT logo in the JPJ b’ball court would have been a real topic of conversation in the morning paper,” Howell wrote.

In hindsight, I wish I had written something about the VT logo etched into the corner of the JPJ Arena floor. I was at UVa for interviews Tuesday when a television reporter spotted it.

Charlottesville reporter Whitelaw “Whitey” Reid did a commendable job with the story, but headlines that referred to “vandals” having defaced the floor simply were misleading.

The logo was barely the size of a silver dollar and could be spotted only from certain angles and in a certain light. Since it was underneath an enamel coating, it clearly had been done during the production of the floor and not during the installation. I would compare it to the initials that schoolchildren will carve into wet cement, although those are easier to spot.

The word out of UVa was that the logo would be gone by tipoff Thursday night for the Virginia-Virginia Tech game, the first played at the JPJ Arena. If there were efforts toward that end, they were to no avail. In fact, considering the Cavaliers’ 69-56 victory, there was some thought about keeping the VT logo as a memento.

(NOTE: Staff photographer Matt Gentry shot photos of the VT logo after the game Thursday night. We will try to post a link to those photos as soon as Gentry can be located. – DD)