For the ThisAbility organization, the countdown to their annual Christmas giveaway is underway. To help their efforts, the group has partnered with former UNC basketball star Armando Bacot. Now a professional basketball player, Bacot, a Richmond native, expressed his strong connection to the cause, particularly as it supports children with disabilities. (WTVR.com)

The season is fast winding down. Newcomer SMU has surprised most people, and FSU has surprised almost everyone by being so flat all season. They have 1 win and that was a fluke that they should have lost.

All games this week are on Saturday.

7-2 (6-1) Clemson closes its ACC slate at 7-2 (3-2) Pitt. Pitt QB Holstein is not fully healthy even if he plays. This a must win for Clemson if it wishes to play in the ACC CCG.

6-3 (3-3) Syracuse heads all the way to Berkeley CA to take on the 5-4 (1-4) Bears. After 4 ACC losses by a total of just 9 points, Cal finally got off the schneid. That plus the need to secure 6 Ws for a bowl and Home Field should scare the Orange, who have already choked a Home Game to Stanford.

6-3 (4-2) Louisville heads to Silicon Valley to face 2-7 (1-5) Stanford. Cardinals vs. The Cardinal. That just seems to belong on that Mike Judge show. Stanford has only next year to play for. Louisville is playing to get the best bowl possible.

5-4 (2-3) BC goes to Big D to face the 8-1 (5-0) SMU Mustangs. If the Ponies win out, they will win the ACC regular season outright and be ranked Top 10. BC, changing QBs, is trying to secure bowl eligibility to build for next year.

5-4 (3-3) UVA plays the 8-1 Irish in South Bend. ND could be as high as a #5 seed in the playoffs, and UVA is playing to reach bowl eligibility.

My iPhone (XR yes I’m cheap and old lol) started to freeze up last night from what I thought was from being almost out of storage. So I did a restart on it and it came on and up very slow but I noticed some of the app were missing or not fully installed so I did another restart. Finally it comes up slowly and when I entered the password it would begin to reboot and do that very slowly for about six times. I decided to charge it overnight and try again in the morning. So the next day it was working better so I transferred some of the pics to free up space and hopefully help with its performance. Shortly afterwards I noticed I can no contacts and can’t find a way to restore them anyone with a suggestion? I don’t ever recall doing a backup either. Apple customer service was shocked as well when I called them. TIA

The Tar Heels are on a flight headed to Hawaii as I type. They are flying direct, no stops unlike before. It should be a 10-11 hour flight. They will practice tomorrow at the arena in Honolulu and Saturday make the short flight to Maui.