The ACC is making a strong case for the nation's premier league
ACC commissioner John Swofford will spend most of this weekend courtside at Greensboro Coliseum, where his conference is hosting an NCAA women's tournament regional, but he'll also be monitoring his conference's record five -- yes, five -- teams playing in the men's Sweet 16.
"We've got a room in the arena right off the floor where we'll be watching the games on television," Swofford said Tuesday.
Last week, ACC entrants Duke, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Louisville, NC State and Virginia delivered one of the best opening-week performances by a conference in NCAA tournament history. They went a combined 11-1, with all but regular-season champ Virginia advancing to the second week. Five Sweet 16 berths marked a record for the conference, which was founded in 1953, and tied the Big East's 2009 tourney record.
Granted, the conference is a lot bigger than it was in 1953, or even 2003, when it still had just nine members. That number now stands at 15 for basketball. But moments like this are exactly what Swofford and the league's membership had in mind when they aggressively pursued expansion a few years back.
"There hasn't been a league that's been stronger historically in the sport of basketball, but you have to do it in the present and the future," said Swofford. "There's no substitute for going out and wining games and establishing a standard, and I think this year has certainly helped us reestablish that. [Five Sweet 16 teams] sets a bar for our new configuration of schools, with the 15 members we have now."
The ACC has long viewed itself as the nation's premier hoops conference, with more Final Four (24), Elite Eight (39) and Sweet 16 (79) berths over the past 30 seasons. But its performance in recent years lagged behind the hype, and in fact, most metrics indicate it wasn't even the nation's top conference this season. The Big 12 topped the final regular-season conference RPI ratings; the ACC came in fourth. It entered the NCAA tournament third in Ken Pomeroy's conference ratings, behind the Big 12 and Big East.
This despite the fact it ended the regular season with four teams in the AP's top 15 (No. 4 Duke, No. 6 Virginia, No. 8 Notre Dame and No. 15 North Carolina.)
The ACC's size actually hurt it in the computer rankings. The 10-member Big 12 and 10-member Big East both had less dead weight and thus placed a higher percentage of teams in the Dance (the Big 12 sent seven, the Big East six) than the ACC's six out of 14. (Syracuse was ineligible.)
But rightly or wrongly, the public judges conferences mostly on tourney performances. While the ACC went 11-1 on opening weekend, the Big 12 and Big East both went 5-5 and advanced three teams combined to the Sweet 16. All those wins against quality non-conference teams helped the ACC move up to No. 2 in Pomeroy's ratings. (The RPI is not updated in the postseason.)
"I think the public generally values the performance of the [leagues'] top teams and I am mostly fine with that," said Pomeroy. "By that measure there's a debate to be had between the ACC and Big 12. The problem with that approach is that it's difficult to compare a 10-team league to a 15-team league. In its current configuration, the Big 12 will probably never send five teams to the Sweet 16, just because it's difficult to have five teams both capable of doing it and lucky enough to win two games against other good teams."
No question luck plays a significant factor in March. Were Notre Dame and Louisville, for example, considerably better than Iowa State and Baylor, both of which suffered last-second upsets? Probably not. But in the public's mind, the Big 12 was now retroactively overrated while the ACC appears dominant.
Of course, now at least one of those teams needs to reach the Final Four, or the ACC's newfound luster will prove temporary.
In 2011, pre-realignment mania, the Big East sent a staggering 11 teams to the tournament but caught considerable flak when just three reached the Sweet 16. Then UConn went on to win the national title and that narrative went kaput.
Roughly six months later, the ACC dealt the first of several eventually fatal blows to the old Big East, announcing the additions of Syracuse and Pittsburgh. To that point, football had been the driving factor in most conferences' realignment decisions. Basketball was so secondary that for one brief moment during the Big 12's upheaval it appeared Kansas might get relegated to the Mountain West.
But the ACC's Syracuse/Pitt move in September 2011 proved particularly pleasing to the league's basketball coaches, many of whom had tired of playing second fiddle to the Big East's loaded 16-team lineup.
"Over the last 25 years, if you had to pick the best conference in basketball it is the ACC. Lately, it hasn't been that," Duke's Mike Krzyzewski told ESPN.com at the time. "It's been a really good conference. But to me this is in some ways a coup for basketball."
The coup continued over the next few years at the continued expense of the crumbling Big East. In 2013, Notre Dame joined the league as a partial member. The most obvious benefit figured to be the boost to five ACC teams' football schedules each season, but the Irish won both the men's and women's basketball tournaments this year, and Mike Brey's team just reached its first Sweet 16 since 2003.
Finally, when Maryland announced its impending exit to the Big Ten, the ACC countered by adding Louisville, seen as an upgrade in both revenue sports. The Cardinals both reached a bowl game and their fourth straight Sweet 16 in their first year as members.
Asked if this is the strongest the ACC has ever been in both sports at the same time, Swofford said, "Probably so. ... We've strengthened ourselves in both sports. It's all part of establishing the new ACC. On the court, and on the field, setting our own standard to live up to."
But all is not golden in Greensboro these days. Off the court and the field, two league members have not lived up to the league's purported standards.
An academic fraud scandal has rocked one of the conference's most prestigious institutions, North Carolina, and NCAA sanctions could be forthcoming. More tangibly, the Committee on Infractions earlier this month handed down punishments against Syracuse, including significant scholarship reductions, and Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim announced he will retire in three years.
Instability at one or more of the league's marquee hoops programs could potentially hinder its progress going forward.
"Syracuse basketball is a strong enough brand to withstand in a very successful way what they're dealing with," insisted Swofford. "I think Syracuse will weather this and continue to be very successful on the court and continue to be a real contributor to ACC basketball."
The Orange's struggles on the court this season may have contributed to the ACC's low standing in the various metrics. Syracuse, a top-four NCAA tourney seed the past six seasons, went 18-13 and would have made the NIT at best had it not self-imposed a postseason ban. Pittsburgh, another March staple, finished 19-15, missing the NCAAs for just the second time in 14 seasons.
Meanwhile, one-time tourney regulars Georgia Tech and Wake Forest have struggled for several years.
Swofford said six tourney berths should not be considered acceptable for a 15-team league. For comparison's sake, the old Big East earned at least eight berths six times from 2006-13.
"I don't think we've reached our standard in that regard," he said. "It's going to be difficult, because we don't schedule in a way that favors the strong teams and getting the most teams in the tournament. We try to be as equitable as possible from year to year. But at the same time, the competitive level is so high and will continue to be high, so you better be pretty good.
"...I've used the adjective 'brutal' to describe the competitive level, and I think that has bore itself out."
At least one ACC team won't make it out of the next round, as East No. 4 seed Louisville meets No. 8 seed NC State in a Sweet 16 game Friday. In the South, No. 1 seed Duke faces No. 4 seed Utah; Midwest No. 3 Notre Dame meets No. 7 Wichita State; and West No. 4 North Carolina takes on No. 1 Wisconsin. Collectively they need three more wins to match the league's all-time high of 14 (1990 and 2004), six more to reach the Big East's tourney-record 17 wins in 2009.
"Any conference would be pleased with five of the final 16 in the field," said Swofford. "It gets us back on track in terms of our standards and expectations. But anyone who's been in this for any extended time, you understand how quickly it can change."
Indeed. For four months the Big 12 got the most praise this season. It took four days for the ACC to steal its glory.
Stewart Mandel is a senior college sports columnist for FOXSports.com. He covered college football and basketball for 15 years at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter @slmandel. Send emails and Mailbag questions to Stewart.Mandel@fox.com.
