N.C. State may not have come back to Raleigh with the ACC Tournament trophy, but the trophy is returning to North Carolina for the 48th time in 56 years. The Duke Blue Devils won their 17th tournament title Sunday with a 79-69 win against Florida State. Duke is now tied with North Carolina for the most tournament titles. N.C. State is third with 10.
The Seminoles reached their first title game after defeating No. 1 seed North Carolina by three in Saturday’s semifinal round. Duke defeated Boston College Friday and Maryland Saturday before facing off against FSU Sunday.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said this tournament triumph was special because of the team that won it.
“We’re ecstatic about being ACC champs,” he said. “I’m really happy for these guys, especially the guys in my junior class who have had to go through a couple years where they didn’t have any upper classmen.”
The 2009 edition of the tournament, which was held in Atlanta for the fifth time, had the second highest attendance numbers in the history of the tournament. 152,112 fans attended the six sessions in Atlanta for an average of 26,352. In 2001, the most attended ACC Tournament on record, more than 36,000 fans per game packed the Georgia Dome.
Although the economy did appear to hurt turnout for the weekend with regard to ticket sales, ACC Associate Commissioner for basketball operations Karl Hicks said this year’s tournament was still a success despite lower ticket sales than 2001. Hicks said ACC officials can only do so much to fight the struggling economy.
“I’d give it a nine,” Hicks said. “The only reason why I don’t give it a 10 is that we didn’t sell 10,000 or 8,000 tickets in the upper bowl to get us to 36,000. But we’re over 26,000.”
Despite lower ticket sales, the ACC Tournament remains a solid model of just how important basketball is in the ACC and shows how much the sport has grown since the inception of the tournament in 1954.
Dick Vitale, who worked the championship final for ESPN, said the ACC Tournament has grown into the biggest conference tournament in the country.
“It’s the granddaddy of them all,” Vitale said. “Over the years I’ve seen so many great players, great coaching, great moments and it’s just a special tournament.”
When the ACC held its inaugural tournament in 1954 at Reynolds Coliseum, an average of 9,800 fans attended each contest and ticket prices were anywhere between $6 and $9.
Hicks admitted that the ACC Tournament is much different now and has grown leaps and bounds.
Despite the continued success of the event, Hicks said the economy could not be ignored in this year’s turnout.
“I try to think of what’s different between now and 2001 or 2002 and it’s a huge difference,” Hicks said of the economy. “When you look at the other tournaments across the country, [the ACC] certainly has more attendance than anybody else. We’ve done extremely well. In terms of the things we can control, we’ve done very, very well.”
Hicks also spoke of the importance of having the tournament in different venues and different areas of the southeast. Greensboro is the most recognized home of the tournament and has hosted the event 21 times, but Hicks said having the event in cities like Atlanta allows fans to take in the amenities of larger markets.
“We don’t go to another city that’s as large as Atlanta,” he said. “The added amenities make it a little more special for the fans. The different things you can do here make it a great experience. Greensboro is our home and probably always will be our home because Greensboro is a special place.”
