The ACC has had better players than the league has now — the Basketball Hall of Fame would be half-empty without its representatives. The conference certainly has had more powerful teams, squads with four and sometimes five future pros, some with multiple No. 1 draft picks. But it probably never has been so tight from top to bottom, nor been so much better than every other college basketball league in the country.
"Don't use the word upset, because how many of results this weekend could really qualify as an upset?" the great Phil Ford said. "I've been following the league and tournament since the mid-'60s, and I don't think I've ever seen it like this."
If we're picking bandwagons to jump onto before Selection Sunday, I hope to find a spot on Georgia Tech's. The Yellow Jackets, now 23-9, might be every bit as good as Duke despite Saturday's loss. They've got four multi-position players who can all handle and shoot the ball. They've got a 7-foot-1 center in Aussie Luke Schenscher, and a Fort Washington kid named Jarrett Jack who has the game to back up his cool demeanor in the clutch. Nobody in his right mind should want to play the Yellow Jackets in the NCAA Tournament — and they finished fourth in the regular season standings.
As someone who grew up in the Midwest insisting the Big Ten is often as good as the ACC, it pains me a bit to say this but here goes: No other conference in America has such a large percentage of its teams worthy of participating in the NCAA tournament. The ACC has a shot at putting seven of its nine teams in the 65-team field. Duke, North Carolina State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Wake Forest are in; it's a done deal. Maryland, the sixth-place team, is a virtual lock. Florida State didn't help itself, in another close game, by losing to N.C. State on Friday. Virginia, the eighth-place team, likely would have finished second in the Pacific-10, perhaps third or fourth in the Big Ten. But having to negotiate the ACC all season will leave the Cavaliers with a spot in the National Invitation Tournament. But how many times has a league's eighth-place team entered its conference tournament needing two wins to earn an at-large bid? The Cavaliers would certainly have been in line for one had they beaten Duke in Friday's first quarterfinal.
And poor Clemson, the last-place team in the ACC, would have been around .500 in any other league. Coach Oliver Purnell, after his team's loss to Virginia in the play-in game Thursday night, was happy to lobby for Florida State and Virginia.
"We're probably the last conference in the country playing a double round-robin schedule," he said. "The teams in our league should get credit with the tournament selection committee for playing murderers' row. There were no layups in this league, no nights off. ... There's no question you look around at the other leagues and think, 'If I was only in that league.' Every game this weekend is pick 'em. It's one of the best days of basketball here in many, many years."
Terry Holland, the former Virginia coach who is here for the games, has seen the conference top-heavy with a couple of power teams some years — often Duke and North Carolina — but likes the even play he has seen this year.
"This is happening to a degree throughout the country," Holland said. "There aren't as many power teams because the best players go to the NBA so early, and there's an evening-out process that takes place. The very best recruiting programs rarely have seniors, and the other programs do have seniors. So things become more level. I do like this, though. It keeps the other programs, the ones not traditionally at the top, from thinking of themselves as second-tier, from having maybe six games a season where they just get killed."
That's not to suggest that the ACC, which will expand to 11 teams next year, hasn't frequently been deep. In 2001, Duke, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and Wake Forest finished in the top 25, and Maryland and Duke reached the Final Four. In 1986, Maryland, led by the incomparable Len Bias, was seeded sixth in this tournament. That same year, North Carolina State had five future NBA players: Vinny del Negro and Nate McMillan, Spud Webb, Charles Shackleford and Chris Washburn.
But the ACC wasn't any better than the Big East during that stretch. In fact, the previous year, 1985, was when the Big East sent St. John's, Villanova and Georgetown to the Final Four. There's absolutely nobody this season breathing down the ACC's neck in such a way. The Southeastern Conference and Conference USA may send more teams to the NCAA tournament, but each has more members than the ACC and the top four in those leagues can't match Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Wake Forest.
The great thing for the ACC is this isn't a one-year deal. The league is stocked with really good players, but has no underclassmen who should even be thinking of leaving for the NBA after this season. Duke loses Chris Duhon, but has four big-time returnees and a 6-foot-7 recruit coming to play the point. Florida State's two best players next year will be Von Wafer and Alexander Johnson, and both will be sophomores. Carolina loses nobody, and returns Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants and Sean May. Felton, with 21/2 minutes to play against Tech on Friday, threaded a sick 45-foot bounce pass that resulted in a layup. Maryland, like Carolina, has no seniors to speak of, except Jamar Smith. Virginia has a big loss in guard Todd Billet, but returns everybody else. Wake will bring back its five or six top players. Tech, while losing three seniors, will still be positively loaded.
All of this led Billy Packer, Mr. ACC, to assert: "What you could see next year, if all the underclassmen return, is the ACC separate itself from the other leagues more than any conference has ever separated itself from the rest of the nation. You could easily make the case that six teams will be in the top 20."