Why ACC Stumbled in NCAAs

Now that Florida has been crowned as the men’s national champion, and the women’s title is about to be decided among squads that knocked off the top-seeded ACC teams, thoughts turn inevitably to next season. Dwelling on disappointment and defeat is no fun, especially when you follow a conference that fancies itself, with some justification, as the best in college basketball.

But, before we move on, it’s worth pausing to ask what happened to the seven ACC men’s teams that reached the NCAA Tournament, only to suffer a collective stumble.

We posed just that question to seven ACC coaches -- four head coaches and three assistants -- and got a variety of answers and perhaps a glimmering of insight.

“There’s no excuses. We just lost,” said an ACC head coach. “When you’re called the best conference, there’s a target on your back when you go out and play. In the past, the ACC was able to handle that.”

Not in 2007. This was the first time since 1979 the ACC did not advance two teams to the Sweet 16, the first time since 1979 and 1980 the league went consecutive years without a Final Four participant. The ACC’s 7-7 record in the NCAAs was its worst since 1996.

“Maybe it’s just an anomaly,” an ACC head coach said. “The perception was, we had the best league. But certainly one team in the Sweet 16 and none in the Final Four would fly in the face of that.”

One possible explanation is that the ACC was not as good as advertised despite its No. 1 power rating, annual victory in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge, and impressive early nonconference wins such as Florida State beating Florida, UNC topping Ohio State and Duke besting Georgetown. “Ultimately, I think conference for conference we match up with everybody,” a coach said, admitting “surprise” at the ACC’s quick NCAA exit.

To be sure, every ACC team faced unique circumstances in the NCAA Tournament. Several squads were dominated by freshmen in key positions, a dangerous soft spot that nevertheless did not seem to bother, say, Ohio State. Perhaps more telling, no one at Virginia or Virginia Tech had previously experienced an NCAA Tournament, and almost no one had such grounding at Georgia Tech or Maryland. “I’m sure they were a little wide-eyed,” an assistant said.

“It definitely made a difference,” agreed a coach from one of those teams, pointing to such factors as limited practice times and being in unfamiliar surroundings. He quickly acknowledged opponents often faced similar disorientation. “I think it’s more who you play than anything else,” he said.

Regardless of opponent, ACC teams did not exactly get smoked in the NCAAs. Other than Virginia Tech’s defeat by Southern Illinois in the second round, no ACC squad lost by more than 7 points in regulation play. Five of the seven defeats were by 4 or fewer points, or in overtime in the case of North Carolina. (Commenting on the Tar Heels missing 22 of their last 23 shots, NBA gadfly Charles Barkley remarked, “Stevie Wonder could make one of 23 shots.”)

And of course there’s the simple fact the power conferences are not head and shoulders above the mid-majors anymore. “I think the biggest thing is, there’s more good teams,” an ACC coach said.

But inexperience, the rise of mid-majors, and bad breaks in close games only partially explain the ACC’s overall showing in the ’07 NCAAs. “You have to be able to beat those other teams on a national stage, and this year we didn’t,” one coach said.

Several coaches speculated that the ACC’s much-ballyhooed internal parity hurt come NCAA Tournament time.

Uncommon competitiveness is supposedly perennial within the ACC. Coaches have routinely boasted, at least since Dean Smith’s days at North Carolina, that, top to bottom, night in and night out, there are no breathers in the ACC. Teams wear each other out, it’s a grind, and so on and so forth. Close observers can recite this argument by rote, often throwing in Smith’s nasal twang for emphasis.

Old as the claim may be, there is evidence ACC parity was more pervasive in 2007 than is usually the case.

The closeness of competition was reflected in the standings. North Carolina and Virginia tied for first place during the regular season with 5 ACC losses each, the most defeats for the top finishers since three squads went 9-5 in 1985. Three more teams – Virginia Tech, Boston College and Maryland – were a game off the pace at 10-6. Not since the ’85 season have five ACC squads been separated by a single loss at the top of the standings.

Two more teams were 8-8 within the conference (Georgia Tech, Duke), while Clemson and FSU were 7-9. “Duke was seeded higher in the NCAA Tournament (sixth) than in the ACC Tournament (seventh),” a coach marveled.

Despite 5 ACC victories during the regular season, N.C. State was good enough to reach the ACC Tournament finals and the third round of the NIT, becoming one of 10 ACC squads with at least 20 wins. Young Wake Forest improved down the stretch, as did depleted Miami, a tough out in the ACC Tournament.

“Parity in our league was unbelievable,” an assistant coach said. “Ultimately it may have taken a toll on our teams, maybe not so much physically as mentally. By the time we reached the tournament, no one was at their best.”

The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee apparently respected the league’s overall strength, awarding seven bids, compared to four a year ago.

Where parity hurt was in seeding the NCAA field, according to one head coach.

Certainly the ’07 seeding was atypical for the ACC. For the first time since 1990, only one ACC squad (North Carolina) was seeded among the top dozen teams. The seven ACC entrants averaged a 5.3 seed, worst for the conference since 1996.

Tellingly, no ACC team defeated a higher seed.

The lower the seed, the coach explained, the better opponent you play in your first and second games. That in turn raises the risk of quick elimination. “I think seeding has a lot to do with how you do in the NCAA Tournament,” he insisted, an argument that resonated with several colleagues but not all.

 “I don’t think seeding had anything to do with it,” protested another head coach. Where parity hurt, he said, was in transforming the regular season into a grueling ordeal that left many teams scrambling to secure an NCAA berth. “There was a tendency to feel like you accomplished something to get in the NCAAs,” he said. “We were just trying to win, trying to make the NCAAs. Then there may have been a little relaxation when we got in.”

One head coach, sounding an old refrain, said the inordinately physical play in the NCAAs hurt ACC squads. “We’re not used to it,” he said. “Our officials protect teams.” He insisted half the teams in the Sweet 16 benefited by being allowed to play rough. But other coaches dismissed that theory; one noted that Georgia Tech was the most physical team in the league, yet got bumped in the opening round.

Several coaches wondered if ACC expansion had an effect on the league’s performance in the NCAAs. “Is football better? Is basketball better?” one asked. “Maybe it’s too early since expansion to say that was a factor.”

Or, maybe not.

An assistant pointed out that a geographically larger footprint, necessitating longer and less familiar trips, may exacerbate the burdens of playing in a competitive league, at least in the short run. “For every reaction, there is a reaction,” he said, doing a decent imitation of physicist Isaac Newton.

The internal strain may be about to increase, according to several head coaches. They expect the league, spurred by television, to move to an 18-game ACC schedule as early as next season. That compares with the 16-game slate in effect since Florida State joined the fold in 1992, and means less leeway to add sure wins to fill out a team’s schedule.

So, what happened to the ACC in the 2007 NCAA Tournament?

“I think it’s a number of things, I don’t think it’s just one,” said a coach, an explanation that for now may be as good as any.