2008-09 in review: A conference that once dominated March has, of late, become a league with one team that dominates March while 11 other teams sit in their dorm rooms and watch. For the third straight season, North Carolina was the only ACC team to reach a regional final. Duke became the only team not named “North Carolina” to make the Sweet 16 since 2006, but the Blue Devils were brusquely dismissed by Final Four-bound Villanova. ACC teams not from Chapel Hill have just a 9-16 NCAA Tournament record in the last three tournaments.

Before continuing with the ACC negativity, I must first pay homage to the team of last season, the Tar Heels. UNC perhaps didn’t sail through the ACC season as smoothly as many assumed — in fact, Roy Williams’ team started ACC play 0-2 — but, by the time the NCAA Tournament rolled around, there was nothing stopping the Tar Heels. UNC’s offense was one of the best in recent memory, and only Oklahoma came close to slowing it down in the NCAA Tournament. Behind the inside-outside combination of Ty Lawson and Tyler Hansbrough, and with Wayne Ellington hitting his stride — not to mention about six or seven other players who would start on any team in the country — North Carolina was hardly challenged in winning each NCAA Tournament game by at least 12.

At one point or another, three ACC teams besides UNC had the look of a top team last season, but each had their flaws revealed and saw their seasons end in embarrassing March departures. After a 16-0 start to the season, Clemson lost nine of its final 16, including a three-point loss to No. 10 seed Michigan in the first round of the NCAAs. Wake Forest also started 16-0, but the young Demon Deacons then lost five of nine, briefly righted the ship in early March, but fell in the first rounds of the ACC and NCAA tournaments, including a 15-point loss to No. 13 seed Cleveland State. Duke didn’t fall nearly as hard after its 18-1 start, though the Devils did lose four-of-six at one point. Duke was terrific in the ACC Tournament, winning the final over Florida State, and the Devils knocked off a tough Texas team to reach the Sweet 16 but fell by 23 in a wretched display of shooting in Boston.

Since the ACC expanded to 12 teams, the league has gone from the best conference in the NCAA Tournament to fifth, ahead of only the SEC among major conferences. This is how the conferences have improved or gotten worse in March since 2006, according to average NCAA Tournament Conference Score.

It’s not as simple as saying that Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College have killed the ACC, but it’s part of it. While the Big East added top-20 programs in Louisville, Marquette and — they hope soon — Cincinnati, the ACC added something less valuable. Of course, Herb Sendek’s departure from Raleigh, which turned the Wolfpack program into a nightmare (15-33 in conference over the last three seasons) hasn’t helped. Four years is not a sample that will impress any scientist, but the basketball folks in the ACC have to at least worry if the league hasn’t lost its preeminence in exchange for not much gain at all on the football side. (The Pac-10’s improvement is due almost solely to Ben Howland’s turnaround in Westwood.) Read More »