When I said the ACCT hadn't been the same for a long time, I was thinking about the late 70's when it started to lose its mystique for me.

The tournament was a major social event, but ironically it had nothing to do with social events like dinner at nice restaurants. Until 1967, restaurants in North Carolina were dry. Which means good ones were virtually non-existent. So at the tournament, you would eat between sessions at a "restaurant" (usually like a BBQ house where at least half the patrons were wearing baseball caps) filled with tournament goers from all the other teams.

After 1967 you could brown bag, bringing your own liquor into some restaurants. It wasn't until later (around 1978 I think) that you could order a mixed drink with your dinner. That was when cities like Greensboro, Charlotte and Raleigh started to get decent restaurants.

But the biggest change came in 1975, when a great team no longer had to win a three day tournament to get invited to the NCAAT. That took a huge amount of pressure off the top seeds, and changed the tournament atmosphere tremendously. Eventually, other major conferences started staging their own post season tourney. Now they are ubiquitous. But back then, for those three days, the ACC was (almost) unique.

Now, with the event spread over five days, the basketball isn't the only focus, and venues with more non-basketball activities available have the decided advantage.