ATLANTA — Florida State's locker room was decorated late Sunday afternoon in a manner usually reserved for ACC blue bloods North Carolina and Duke.
Various wall signs from the bowels of Philips Arena were stuffed into more than a half-dozen lockers: "Team Locker Rooms" that used to point the way, "Media Press Room" with another arrow, and a large, round Atlantic Coast Conference logo.
Each locked also had a smaller "2012 ACC Tournament" logo. To the Seminoles, the signs are more than just keepsakes from a pretty cool weekend. They represent history and the strengthening of a culture that once viewed ACC basketball as a mildly interesting interlude between fall football and spring football.
And Florida State's 85-82 victory over North Carolina in the ACC championship game also breathed life into an event that in recent years has lost some of its luster.
The ACC needed this.
This is Florida State's first ACC hoops title and is the second for a school not named UNC or Duke since 1996. Maryland won the tournament in 2004, two years after it won its only national championship.
"It's been very rare for anyone other than Duke or North Carolina to win it, and I feel blessed to be in that category, especially knocking out Duke and North Carolina in the same year twice," senior Bernard James said. "I don't think many people have done that."
Not many schools have stood in the winner's circle at the end of this event, either. Wake Forest won consecutive titles in 1995 and 1996, and Georgia Tech captured the crown in 1990 and 1993. That was when fans of at least half the schools went to the ACC Tournament thinking their teams had a chance to win. The optimism began with the first tournament in 1954 and lasted for some time.
But UNC's and Duke's dominance over the last two decades, which began when Florida State joined the league, has grown a bit stale. Other bases have become apathetic about the tournament, tiring of seeing the two programs that get all of the national attention cut down the nets every selection Sunday.
So ticket demands started dropping several years ago, and the smallish (only 19,520 seats) Philip Arena was never quite full this weekend. Other factors have contributed, but having little hope of a championship has kept fans of the other 10 schools away.
"This is good for the ACC," said sophomore FSU guard Ian Miller, who is from Charlotte, N.C., and has an understanding of the tournament's importance along Tobacco Road. "North Carolina and Duke are great team, programs, but it's good to have another team win, especially with it being us."
This is also huge for Florida State, a football factory if there ever was one.
The school is known for some incredible teams Bobby Bowden put on the field during his 34-year run as head coach. He won two national titles, had two Heisman Trophy winners, and had one stretch from 1987 to 2000 when the Seminoles finished ranked among the top four team nationally.
But basketball has been more consistently competitive in the past several years. Florida State will make its fourth consecutive trip to the NCAAs and has won 20 or more games in six of the last seven seasons, with the odd season a 19-win campaign.
Last year, Florida State reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, but lost to Virginia Commonwealth, a game the players still strongly believe they should have won. So their response was to work harder.
"The loss to VCU really sparked our work ethic and pushed us to another level that none of us had ever been to," James said. "Last summer, I saw my teammates work harder than I've ever seen them work."
That worked has paid off, and the fans are buying in.
Florida State had a pretty good year at the gate in league play, and the turnout in Atlanta was impressive. Florida State has played in just one ACC football title game since the inaugural one in 2005, but has played in two basketball title games, and now it owns a conference championship in round ball.
"It changes it," tournament MVP Michael Snaer said when asked how this title will change the culture. "A lot of people think of us as a football school. Now we're both. We have a great football program, and now we have a great basketball program."
The Noles came to Atlanta on a mission, and they achieved something Clemson never has, Virginia has done once, and N.C. State, with all of its history, hasn't accomplished since the 1980s.
Florida State might not be a basketball school yet, but it certainly helped that process Sunday. And even more, it helped the ACC. The monotony has been broken, and the garnet and gold are the flavor of the year along Tobacco Road.
