Going to back to last season the ACC is a sterling 23-6 in the NCAA Basketball tournament. The conference was 17-5 last season and a solid 6-1 to start this year.
Actually let’s change that from solid to astounding considering the carnage that took place against the rest of the power 5.
The Pac 12 went a disastrous 2-5.
The Big 12′s annual flop resulted in a 3-4 record. This from arguably toughest conference in America.
The Big 10 was more respectable at 4-3, but losing your best team Michigan State to 15 seed Middle Tennessee State is a black eye.
The SEC won 2 games, but lost badly when Vanderbilt got crushed by Wichita State. Let’s face it, when you only get 3 bids, you’re conference has already had a disappointing tournament. Things are so bad in the SEC they have had to hire a consultant to try and improve their basketball programs.
That’s an 11-13 record for the rest of the power 5.
It’s not the ACC’s problem to figure out what’s going on in the rest of country. Maybe that SEC consultant can do it, but I do have some thoughts on why the ACC has taken control of the NCAA tournament the last twos years
Notre Dame, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Louisville brought variety of styles to the ACC. The ACC had become too much of a finesse league in recent years, and that left the conference unprepared for NCAA tournament basketball where fewer fouls are called. Also in the last couple of years, the bottom of the ACC has featured quality teams.
Wake Forest for example finished near the bottom of the ACC, but beat Indiana. Georgia Tech had a win over VCU.
The conference is as deep as it has been in years. This is the ACC basketball many of us grew up with, and it’s great to see that again the ACC is playing the best basketball in the country.
Some favorable matchups have opened up for the ACC with Duke playing Yale and Syracuse playing Middle Tennessee State. We could see 4 or 5 ACC teams in the Sweet 16, and that would be great for fans of the ACC and those schools.
