Is the ACC down? Yeah a bit. Ever since the league expanded from 9 to 12 teams several years ago, the league hasn't been as deep with solid teams as they've had before. Certainly this isn't the ACC of the 1980s or 1990s where there were 3 or 4 really, really good teams each year.
But stop it with the "ACC sucks" chants. The ACC has held its own.
After all, what conference have the last two National Champions come from? That's right, the ACC. And since 2001, what conference has won 5 of the 10 championships in that time frame? Yep, it is the ACC.
The Big East and SEC have two each. The Big XII has one.
How about since 1988? Yep, the ACC has won 8 National Championships (they've also won 10 titles since 1982). The only years since 1988 when there wasn't an ACC team in the Final Four? 1996, 2003, 2006 and 2007. That's it. In the last 23 years, there have only been four Final Fours that didn't contain one ACC team. In fact, in 1990, 1991, 2001 and 2004, two ACC teams made it to the Final Four. So in 23 years, 23 times an ACC team made it to the Final Four.
Over the last 12 years (since 1999), an ACC team has been in the championship game 7 different times. Duke (3), North Carolina (2), Georgia Tech (1) and Maryland (1).
Everyone is on the Big East's bandwagon. But did you know that the last time a Big East team made it to the NCAA Championship game was back in 2004 when UConn beat Georgia Tech for the title? In that same time span, the Horizon League, Conference USA and the Colonial Athletic Association have each sent a team to the title game.
That last Big East title appearance was a season after Syracuse won it with Carmelo Anthony. Add in UConn's 1999 title and the Big East have won just three championships over the last 25 years.
Look, the Big East is ... top to bottom ... a beast of a league. Every week there are a bunch of games between ranked teams. But to say that the ACC is done or isn't in the elite status as before ... well, you haven't been paying much attention to the last weekend of the season.
2 comments:
All the statistics of the past success of the ACC are great, but they have no bearing on how good or bad the ACC is this year. Further, the fact that one team (or even two) from a league makes it to the final four does not really speak to how good the league is as a whole.
I can help you with this one, and give you inner peace on the matter.
We (New Englanders) do the YANKEES SUCK chant all the time. Many episodes have went down where a New Yorker challenges me on it.
Them: "Yankees suck? We've won like 25 titles, and generally beat you every year."
Me: "That's WHY you suck."
The ACC is the same thing. They always win, and people get sick of it. Rooting for the ACC (read UNC/Duke) to win a basketball game is like rooting for the sun to set.
BC is ACC now, so don't think I'm snobbing on the southerners.
You might get a kick out of knowing that, when I came here from France, I had never seen baseball. By the end of my first summer in Massachusetts, I hated the Yankees. I think they do subliminal stuff on the local news or something...
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