Current State Of The ACC

[midline]

I'm old, but for the great majority of my life the ACC had been without question the leading basketball conference in the country. That status has weakened over the last years, even though the conference has had a couple national championships, and schools that advance far in the tournament. But in those years, there only seemed to be a couple teams that had a serious shot to go deep. And now we get to this year. Don't have anybody sniffing the top 10. And right at this moment, I can't point to one team that I can say with confidence would advance to the round of sixteen. Clemson is somehow undefeated at the top of the league. And they somehow have done this with a loss on their record to a South Carolina team that may be the worst South Carolina team in their history. And that is a low bar. Did the conference just chase football so hard that it had a negative effect on basketball? I miss the days where even a .500 team in the ACC was feared. Let me know what you guys think because I can't figure out how the conference just seemed to lose their grip on unquestionably being the best

 

[vbrs]

I'm old, but for the great majority of my life the ACC had been without question the leading basketball conference in the country. That status has weakened over the last years, even though the conference has had a couple national championships, and schools that advance far in the tournament. But in those years, there only seemed to be a couple teams that had a serious shot to go deep. And now we get to this year. Don't have anybody sniffing the top 10. And right at this moment, I can't point to one team that I can say with confidence would advance to the round of sixteen. Clemson is somehow undefeated at the top of the league. And they somehow have done this with a loss on their record to a South Carolina team that may be the worst South Carolina team in their history. And that is a low bar. Did the conference just chase football so hard that it had a negative effect on basketball? I miss the days where even a .500 team in the ACC was feared. Let me know what you guys think because I can't figure out how the conference just seemed to lose their grip on unquestionably being the best

I am old too and I agree with you. This is strange. I am even a little sad that Duke isn't good anymore. Just a little sad, of course. I remember how fun the 70's and 80's were. Even a bad team could beat a top squad and it wouldn't be a surprise. Maybe things will start to improve. I am hoping they do.

 

[Old_School59]

I’ve been watching since 1966 and the biggest change I’ve seen is that money has been the driving force in change as we see it. It’s just going to get worse. Sadly, gone are the glory days of earlier decades…..

 

[gauchoheel]

Hopefully we leave the ACC ASAP. We probably already would have if not for the Grant of Rights.

 

[JimmyNaismith]

I'm old, but for the great majority of my life the ACC had been without question the leading basketball conference in the country. That status has weakened over the last years, even though the conference has had a couple national championships, and schools that advance far in the tournament. But in those years, there only seemed to be a couple teams that had a serious shot to go deep. And now we get to this year. Don't have anybody sniffing the top 10. And right at this moment, I can't point to one team that I can say with confidence would advance to the round of sixteen. Clemson is somehow undefeated at the top of the league. And they somehow have done this with a loss on their record to a South Carolina team that may be the worst South Carolina team in their history. And that is a low bar. Did the conference just chase football so hard that it had a negative effect on basketball? I miss the days where even a .500 team in the ACC was feared. Let me know what you guys think because I can't figure out how the conference just seemed to lose their grip on unquestionably being the best

Yes. Swofford chased football so hard, it screwed up basketball. The thing that really gets me is that any ACC team’s chances of winning the football championship didn’t improve with all of this. When there were 7 teams, we consistently had 2 teams in the Top 20.

 

[Tarheel75]

I believe more than any other reason that it's the parity in play that has watered down the competitiveness of the ACC as a whole. From the 60's thru the end of the century the ACC was the conference that most of the better talent wanted to play in. Today, with the AAU traveling squads and basketball played nearly year-round by those younger talents has produced more talent and they are finding places to play other than the ACC.