"DEAN SMITH, legendary men’s basketball coach from 1961 to 1997, right front, is one of five basketball Hall of Fame coaches and players honored during halftime of the UNC-Virginia game in the Smith Center on Feb. 7. Standing beside Smith is Coach ROY WILLIAMS, who joined Smith in the Hall of Fame in 2007. Also present for the ceremony are, from left, unforgettable former Carolina players BILLY CUNNINGHAM, JAMES WORTHY and ROBERT MCADOO."Take all Hall of Fame coaches and players in the ACC and you can fill the stands behind these historic greats. It is hard to believe how good the ACC is and remains. A conference above all others.
Yet, in today's allegedly "mathematical" world, we have pundits who proclaim that picking teams is an art and they know how down the ACC has been for years. How the ACC is not going to the Final Four this year, apart from Louisville which is not yet a member. And how it will be that Syracuse and Pittsburgh have the best chances, along with perennial favorite Duke of course. How it is the Big East that rose above the ACC and remained there until the end.
The "science" of basketball reaches its zenith with "bracketology," where some unknown guy was able to market perhaps the biggest nonsense of all: "Bracketology." We now have "bracketologists" appearing everywhere. Specialists who claim to know college basketball so well they can tell you the last four out and in. Their bias is palpable.
And we have BPI, RPI and others that claim to gauge the strength of schedule (SOC) and other similar letters that mean less every year. It's all NPI (Nonsense Power Index).
Some pundits, like Jay Williams, are transparent in their efforts. They claim there are problems with their own conference. Yes, yet another down year for the ACC, while lauding their teams with just the right degree.
In Jay Williams' case, his mentor Jay Bilas has gained some respect by showing neutrality, which he does by constantly proclaiming the Big Ten the best conference and Michigan State the next champion. But Duke of course is always on top of the ACC. Where they both went to school.
There is safety after all in the Michigan State choice. They have almost all chosen MSU. They love their coach. And they love to chose them. From the game on an aircraft carrier to the last one in their stadium, they lose to UNC not due to coaching or players but because of the inability to adapt to moving decks and claimed losses of personnel.
The end result is that the claimed stronger conferences, where "strong" teams play each other, and a "tough" out of conference schedule as designated by the same people who "rate" teams, benefit and are able to proclaim themselves among the best even with nine losses.
Never in memory have nine losses merited a top ten finish in the polls. Yet, Kansas, playing in that great basketball conference the Big 12, does.
If I were Bill Self, this is major recruiting stuff. Come here, recruit. I want to tell you a story of how powerful our "basketball" conference is that we get our team in the top ten in the polls with nine losses. Yes, and almost all losses with their starting five playing.
Excuses abound in this nonsense world of claimed mathematical accuracy and pundit inflating "who have they played?" mentality.
NC State winning an hour from Xavier's home? Sure, because there were more Dayton University fans who booed Xavier than Xavier fans? Or maybe because NC State fans were so much better at shouting?
And again, Kansas. They play in such a superior league that a loss to one of the other "top ten" teams is perfectly alright. Understandable.
Let's not forget that the leaders of the media largely include those who are hellbent on getting the ACC as far back as they can.
The Bill Rafferty, Big East, New Jersey sportscaster and former Seton Hall coach (yes, that Big East team). The Joe Lunardi, St. Joseph's University, Big Four, Philadelphia connection whose team Villanova (another Big Four member) constantly was one of the top ten over-ranked teams in college basketball. It goes on and on.
And all of the coaches voting Roy Williams the most overrated coach in the land. Yes, his coaching has nothing to do with wins, as he so graciously states all the time. But his fellow coaches, including Coach K, the worst of all, will resort to "it" in order to show it had nothing to do with coaching that his team lost in Chapel Hill this year. Just "it." Sure Mike. Just it.
Brent Musburger is the man who compared Tommie Smith and John Carlos to Nazis, and who attended a Big Ten school (Northwestern) while driving illegally. He is the former Big Ten sycophant now relegated to SEC games. And he lorded over the broadcasts of Big Ten and ACC teams, almost single-handedly giving the Big Ten the best in the land designation.
The Big Ten is loaded. We hear this year after year.
An even more common refrain is that the Big Ten and the Big East are much better than the ACC. Even the A-10, to the pundits.
For twenty years, everyone has ganged up on the ACC. Why? Bad blood?
Well, ACC fans, it's time. In every neutral way, the ACC appears to be on the verge of breaking away again.
Not only do two of the top three recruiting classes this coming year come from the ACC (Duke and UNC), but the ACC's nine teams in the NCAA and NIT basketball tournaments will continue to show their stuff.
All winners so far, with the biggest win NC State's, we should remember that each time an ACC team beat an intra-conference foe it was the weakness of the foes and the ACC that provided a reason to demote ACC teams, precisely the opposite effect that all those losses in the Big Ten and Big 12 had on their teams' rankings.
Kansas? Top ten with nine losses. Belmont, which won at North Carolina and lost at Kentucky, both games played on the other teams' home courts, just too little in terms of wins, despite the same number of losses.
UNC, who beat Louisville, Kentucky, Michigan State and Duke, all preseason top four teams, a feat never achieved before? Just up and down. And doing this without all but one of its starters and its two best returning players? No consistency. They will go nowhere.
Perhaps it is the weight of UNC Tar Heels history in college basketball, as shown by Wikipedia, that leads to this bias.
| NCAA Tournament champions | |
|---|---|
| 1957, 1982, 1993, 2005, 2009 | |
| NCAA Tournament runner up | |
| 1946, 1968, 1977, 1981 | |
| NCAA Tournament Final Four | |
| 1946, 1957, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009 | |
| NCAA Tournament Elite Eight | |
| 1941, 1946, 1957, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012 | |
| NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen | |
| 1957, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012 | |
| NCAA Tournament appearances | |
| 1941, 1946, 1957, 1959, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 | |
| Conference tournament champions | |
| 1922, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1935, 1936, 1940, 1945, 1957, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1989, 1991, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2007, 2008 | |
| Conference regular season champions | |
| 1923, 1925, 1935, 1938, 1941, 1944, 1946, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1995, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012 |
Or perhaps it is the whole conference's superiority over so many years.
But now, we have a chance to see just how much the ACC will prove this to be all nonsense. The nonsense with Michigan State losing at home to UNC because they were not at full strength. Or whether UNC can come up with its best at the end. Or just how bad Roy Williams is as a coach. Or whether the Big Ten and Big 12 will reign supreme as the pundits know they should.
In the end, the teams have to play each other. Watch as they fall. And in the end, watch them eat their words.
ACC in another down year?
More nonsense.
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