With UNC-Chapel Hill securing its Final Four ticket on Sunday, the ACC has officially placed a team in each of the past three Final Fours and five of the previous 10. After an ACC-record nine schools received bids to the NCAA Tournament this year, however, the number was quickly reduced to a single school, North Carolina, after just the first weekend of action.
The questions may now be raised as to whether the 2017 ACC implosion should affect the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee’s addressing of future bids for the conference and as to whether the conference is as powerful as many college basketball pundits would have you believe.
Nine out of 15 teams, or 60 percent, made the 2017 NCAA Tournament from the ACC, a remarkable feat. Of those nine teams, four were awarded a top-four seed. One week after Selection Sunday, many were shocked to watch as during the first and second rounds, all but one of those ACC teams exited. This left the conference with an unimpressive overall tournament record of 9-8 leading up to the Final Four.
The unforeseen (at least by most) upsets of No. 7 seed South Carolina over No. 2 seed Duke, No. 7 seed Michigan over No. 2 seed Louisville and No. 11 seed Xavier over No. 3 seed Florida State drew attention to questions over the ACC’s credibility as the country’s best conference. Some even believe that the shockingly bad performance from the conference may have negative ramifications when the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee assembles in March 2018.
Before jumping to premature conclusions, however, let’s take a look at how ACC schools fared in preceding NCAA tournaments.
In 2016, the ACC all but dominated the NCAA Tournament. Six of the seven ACC teams that received bids made the Sweet 16. Additionally, the ACC controlled an entire half of the bracket in the Elite Eight, with UNC defeating Notre Dame and Syracuse defeating Virginia in their respective regional finals. This of course meant that two ACC teams also made the Final Four. All in all, the ACC won 19 NCAA tournament games in 2016, a record for any conference, and came within one shot of winning the title.
The year before, the ACC performed admirably as well. In 2015, five of the six ACC teams that received a bid reached the Sweet 16. Additionally, three ACC schools reached the Elite Eight. Duke reached the Final Four before eventually capturing the 2015 National Championship. Overall, the ACC went 17-5 in the tournament, the best of any conference.
2014 marked the first season of the ACC’s monumental alignment that sent Syracuse, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and eventually Louisville to join the storied conference. In the 2014 NCAA Tournament, the ACC also received six bids. Of those six teams, only one made the Sweet 16, however, and not a single team reached the Elite Eight.
And so, judging from previous performances by the ACC in the NCAA Tournaments following the 2014 realignment, one can see that the conference has performed in either dominating fashion or altogether quite poorly.
Using the troubled 2014 performance and the subsequent six bids in the 2015 tournament as data, though, one will find that one year’s rough patch doesn’t exactly correlate with the following year’s bids.
Now let’s compare the ACC to a conference that performed surprisingly well in this year’s tourney, the SEC.
This season, while only five SEC teams received tournament bids, three reached the Elite Eight. With South Carolina’s defeat of fellow conference member Florida on Saturday, the SEC placed one team in the Final Four. So far throughout the tournament, the SEC has the best record of any conference at 11-4. The preceding year, however, the SEC had only three teams make the tournament, one team make the Sweet 16, and posted an overall record of 3-3.
The Pac-12 is another conference that has done surprisingly well this postseason. Three of its four tourney teams reached the Sweet 16 and Oregon’s win over Kansas on Sunday guaranteed the Ducks, and consequently the Pac-12, a spot in the Final Four. Through Sunday, the Pac-12 had a record of 10-3 from only four teams. In 2016, however, the Ducks were the only Pac-12 team to reach the Sweet 16 as the conference posted an abysmal 4-7 record from seven different schools.
Yes, it is true that the ACC utterly crumbled in this year’s tournament. It is important to note though that while only one team from the conference made the Sweet 16, that team has a more than favorable shot to cut down the nets in Phoenix.
In conclusion, will this season’s poor showing cost the ACC future NCAA Tournament bids? Is the ACC toast as the best conference college basketball has to offer? Can lower conferences like the SEC contend with the ACC?
I don’t think so.
The ACC’s sheer superiority in the 2015 and 2016 tournaments are enough to prove just how good this conference can be. If history has taught us anything about the Selection Committee, the ACC will be right back up near the top of all conferences in next year’s bid category. While many ACC teams were upset this year, the same powerhouses will return next season with all the prowess of the past.
Even with another implosion, it is completely reasonable to expect one ACC school to contend for the National Championship for a fourth year in a row in 2018. How many other conferences can boast that?
