Duke's struggles also hurting ACC
Caulton Tudor, Staff Writer

When North Carolina's players and coaches left the RBC Center playing court after an easy opening-round win over Mount St. Mary's on Friday, the NCAA Tournament seemed to be breaking the ACC's way.
Of the four teams in the field, none had lost.

Less than 24 hours later, the tournament was breaking the league's back.

First Clemson, then Duke, were punched out with surprising ease by what amounted to a couple of Big East middleweights -- Villanova and West Virginia.

Other than the seedings designations, No. 5 Clemson and No. 12 Villanova in the Midwest Regional -- it hardly ranks as a surprise that the Tigers didn't have the poise to survive the first round.

Although Oliver Purnell has the program inching along, Clemson hadn't been in the NCAA Tournament since 1998. Some degree of stage fright was understandable.

That was not the situation with Duke. The second-seeded Blue Devils' 73-67 second-round West Regional loss to the No. 7 Mountaineers in Washington was every bit as baffling and disturbing as getting outplayed by Belmont in the first round.

It's a rare day when a Mike Krzyzewski team digresses in February and March. Yet, that is exactly what happened to this team and the Devils of 2006-07.

Both Duke teams were young, but that's not an acceptable explanation. Young is what college basketball generally has become. Almost every team with national recruiting clout is young. In itself, youth doesn't explain Duke's first-round ACC Tournament loss to N.C. State and an ensuing first-round NCAA loss to Virginia Commonwealth last season, any more than it explains an ACC semifinal loss to Clemson and the second-round loss to West Virginia.

What happened to the Blue Devils on Saturday wasn't merely a loss. It was more like a collapse. For most of the second half, Duke just could not compete offensively. The effort, as Krzyzewski pointed out in his postgame remarks, was reasonable. But the offensive execution was so bad that the once feared Blue Devils didn't remotely resemble the team that had played so well in early and midseason.

At the end, the Devils didn't so much look young -- or tired -- as they did small, slow, hesitant and totally void of shooting confidence. With the Mountaineers in immediate foul trouble and groping for continuity early in the game, the Duke teams of years past would have won by 20 points Saturday.

But Duke, for now, is simply not what Duke once was. That can no longer be a matter of serious debate. Something is missing. That something is leadership. The talent level has slipped some, sure. But even Christian Laettner himself -- or even Bob Hurley and Shane Battier -- never were so innately talented that they could get by on natural skills alone. They led by intensity -- a fat lip, a bruised elbow or an angry glare at a younger teammate who failed to chase down a loose ball or block out properly for a rebound.

It's not a lack of interest or program pride, of course. DeMarcus Nelson wanted to lead this team, and did for a while. Greg Paulus wants to lead and sophomore Gerald Henderson is a good bet to lead at some point. But the chain of on-the-court program ownership has been broken. There's no genuine roster link to the glory days, and it shows.

The same problem beset North Carolina in the late 1970s, when the Tar Heels lost their first NCAA game three successive years -- 1978, '79 and '80. Dean Smith countered by signing not only better talent, but tougher, smarter players who could lead as one or within a unit -- James Worthy, Sam Perkins and Michael Jordan being all three, and Jim Black and Matt Doherty being the latter two.

The learning curve was longer in those days, when the best players stayed on campus longer. The foundational philosophy hasn't changed, though.

Krzyzewski is plenty bright enough to grasp his dilemma. He knows the best way to get back is by going back. He needs a little more quickness and size, but the most pressing need is for leadership -- a Chris Duhon here and a Nate James there.

How quickly Krzyzewski solves his problem will determine how much national impact the ACC can recover. Expansion has damaged the league's basketball programs far more than anyone could have imagined, but not to the extent that the basic formula for greatness has changed. Until another program proves that it can step up -- Miami is the only NCAA alternative entering today -- the ACC is still a North Carolina/Duke equation. The Tar Heels may still make it work, but Duke has lost its way.


caulton.tudor@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-8946

:band: as the Titanic sinks

"Expansion has damaged the league's basketball programs far more than anyone could have imagined"

We have been saying that here on this board for years. Where has this guy been?
CJ

agree in general, but what specifically did the expansion create to make duke crap out early this year?

Not so fast my friends... I don't see how expansion caused Maryland, GaTech, and Wake to go through slumping periods. Show me the facts man, the facts! I wouldn't say the Clemson game was easy. They blew it, that is what happens when you get up big too early, they panic and the Cats had the mo. I know I said Nova shouldn't have gotten in, and they were the only school who I said was undeserving that made it past the 1st round.
As far as Duke goes... I liked seeing them lose.

IF there has been damage to the basketball side from expansion I would guess that if would be because some recruits might view the conference as more of a football conference as opposed to a basketball first conference as it was in the past. I think it is probably too early to tell though.

No matter how good Va Tech, Miami and BC have been it is hard to not feel that they dilute the image of ACC Bball.

esayem, I loved seeing Duke lose myself. Imagine that.

It wasn't expansion that did it to the ACC. The ACC was usually a very few very good teams, and a bunch of also rans that would be at the bottom of any conference. The only reason for the perception of the ACC's strength is the strength of the top teams within the conference.

This year, with the exception of UNC, the rest of the ACC would struggle in The BEast. The overall strength of The BEast year in and year out, with BEasts now playing an 18 round robin schedule (play everyone once, and 3 BEasts home and home), puts the schedules of any other conference to shame - unless they schedule strong teams outside of their conference, which many teams do not. That usually shows when the NCAA tourney selections are made.

Removing Va Tech, Miami and BC took the dead weight out of the Big East and placed it squarely on the shoulders of the ACC. Expansion hurt the ACC because the league no longer has its round robin schedule that made it one of the best conferences in the country.
This article is another in a line long series of ACC media reports questioning if the expansion was worth it. I think if anyone answers the question without bias that you would have to conclude that the ACC expansion has been a failure. UNC isn't only playing for them but they are playing for ACC pride. The ACC is yet to win a BCS game since expansion and a national championship would help take that sting away. Unfortunately for the ACC, UNC has Roy Williams leading their last great hope. Over the years, no one in college basketball has done less with more than Roy.
CJ

If expansion hadn't happened, the ACC might not even be a BCS conference. The best teams are former BEast members. So as far as that aspect, the expansion has helped there.

Without expansion, there is no competitive football in the ACC - period.

The fall of the ACC
Tourney woes reflect big problems for league
David Steele

March 24, 2008

Think Duke is off its game in recent years? It's not alone. Its entire conference is not feeling the Madness these days, either.

Feeling mad, yes, because for the second time in three years, the NCAA tournament began with the hallowed Atlantic Coast Conference carrying a chip on its shoulder, beefing about being disrespected, griping that it's under-represented in the 65-team field. And, once again, most of its smaller-than-usual contingent are leaving without getting their dance cards punched.

Faces, yes. Cards, no.

Four went in. Three went out on consecutive days in the first weekend. Two went down to lower-seeded teams from a certain rival mega-conference.

Miami, of all teams, came off looking best, with a solid first-round win and a nail-biter of a loss to Texas yesterday. Miami. One of the football schools. More on that later.

Meanwhile, one of the exiled three, aforementioned Duke, went out with its ears burning.

"Duke's a great team. I think they'd fit in well in the Big East," West Virginia's Joe Alexander said after his team skunked the No. 2 seed Blue Devils in the second round Saturday in Washington. "But they definitely wouldn't dominate the Big East. We had a lot of great teams. I think the top six or seven teams are definitely right on par with Duke in the Big East, and the rest of them are right up there, too."

We pause here to remind the readers that this came from the Big East's fifth-place team and the second-lowest seed of the conference's eight entrants.

Oh, and that in the first round, the Big East team lower than it -- bubble team and No. 12 seed Villanova -- booted No. 5 seed Clemson, the third-place finisher in the ACC regular season and conference tournament finalist.

Yikes.

Of course, Alexander spoke prematurely -- almost as soon as his mouth closed, Big East teams started falling. Four bit the dust within the next 24 hours, including Georgetown.

The Hoyas' collapse probably wiped out a good two-thirds of America's brackets. Then again, that does prove his point about Duke and the Big East.

That's a separate issue from the ACC's artificially high impression of itself, though. It's still a painful fact that the ACC has the same number of teams alive as the Southern Conference (welcome, Davidson).

The ACC wasn't as good as advertised. It's not as good as it used to be, even just a few years ago.

Lately, it has been the Colonial Athletic Association with a better television deal. (Oooh, that's cold -- until you remember which league has reached the Final Four most recently.) Just shouting, "We're the ACC!" every March doesn't cut it anymore.

Or, as one West Virginia fan across from the scorer's table sang in the final minutes of the Duke game: "O-ver-ra-ted!"

Figuring out what went wrong would help -- and though it's hard to draw a straight line from one to another, one can say this much: Before it made its money/power grab in 2005 and raided the Big East for its football heavyweights, it was the conference we've always known. Since then, the numbers don't lie.

Before the expanded league went into action in 2005-06, the ACC had won three of the previous five national titles and had earned three other Final Four berths in that span.

Same old dominance, different era. In the last pre-expansion season, six teams got in the field, three made the Sweet 16 and North Carolina won it all.

In the next two seasons? No Final Four teams. Just three reaching the Sweet 16.

Throughout this season, the ACC was ranked the best in the country, and its coaches used that to proclaim that their own mediocre records should be graded on some kind of curve.

If you had listened to them -- and Seth "Certifiably Insane" Greenberg, we're talking to you -- and chosen not to believe your eyes, you wouldn't have noticed that the ACC was top-heavy this season with nothing close to the depth of the Big East, Pacific-10 or even the Big 12.

The selection committee believed its own eyes, although it still had a blind spot for Duke, grandfathering it into a No. 2 seed. But not for Greenberg's Virginia Tech team, the only serious bubble team once Maryland jumped off.

As for the ones who made it? Scoreboard.

So now, who can deny today that the ACC -- in the number of invitations and in the "progress" it made through this field -- got just what it deserved?

david.steele@baltsun.com

Listen to David Steele on Wednesdays at 9 a.m. on WNST (1570 AM).



Copyright 2008, The Baltimore Sun

My $.02...

Expansion hasn't hurt D00k basketball inasmuch as RatFace's recruiting has hurt D00k basketball. He's simply not recruiting the same caliber of athlete as before.

CardinalJim Wrote:Removing Va Tech, Miami and BC took the dead weight out of the Big East and placed it squarely on the shoulders of the ACC.

Miami, VT and BC weren't dead weight. Particularly when legitimate examples of such still exist in the Big East (DePaul, Seton Hall, Providence, St. Johns).

MongoSlade Wrote:My $.02...

Expansion hasn't hurt D00k basketball inasmuch as RatFace's recruiting has hurt D00k basketball. He's simply not recruiting the same caliber of athlete as before.

Ratface may still have more MickyD's All Americans on his roster than anyone else in America.

cuseroc Wrote:

MongoSlade Wrote:My $.02...

Expansion hasn't hurt D00k basketball inasmuch as RatFace's recruiting has hurt D00k basketball. He's simply not recruiting the same caliber of athlete as before.

Ratface may still have more MickyD's All Americans on his roster than anyone else in America.

Urghh.. what does it mean to be a McD? It seems if they are an UNC or Dook recruit they are automatically McDs. As we all know, those labels meant crap just like ratings on football recruits. Duke has no inside play and they were exposed by WVU.

SF Husky Wrote:

cuseroc Wrote:

MongoSlade Wrote:My $.02...

Expansion hasn't hurt D00k basketball inasmuch as RatFace's recruiting has hurt D00k basketball. He's simply not recruiting the same caliber of athlete as before.

Ratface may still have more MickyD's All Americans on his roster than anyone else in America.

Urghh.. what does it mean to be a McD? It seems if they are an UNC or Dook recruit they are automatically McDs. As we all know, those labels meant crap just like ratings on football recruits. Duke has no inside play and they were exposed by WVU.

I don't know if Duke's lack of inside play can be traced simply to poor recruiting. Lance Thomas was a great, great talent coming out of high school. I saw him quite often since he played with 2 Marquette recruits (Burke and Cubby) He had range out to the three point line. He could board with the best of them. That guy has disappeared. He no longer has the confidence or skill he displayed in high school. Why? Is it the system or the coaching or what? Frankly, if I was him, I would transfer to a school that lets him develop his skills, something that is not happening at Duke.

Consistently great teams throughout the 80's or 90's that are off the map this year: Virginia, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Wake Forest, even NC State (hate to admit)

You guys all have good points. If this was the 9 school ACC of yor we would have prob saw FSU and Maryland get in. It benefits schools to play the elite more than once.

I was against expansion, like that matters. Anyway, I wouldn't say it failed just because we lose our most prestigious bowl game each year (next year baby). They wanted a champ game, they got it. I wouldn't say it failed, I would say it has f****d with integrity of the hoops conference.

Miami, even though they have decent teams here and there, should be in CUSA for hoops. I like VaTech. I would like BC not to be in the league, even though I kind of like them. F$U should be the the $EC, even though a FSU-GaTech in-conf rivalry I have grown to like.

cuseroc Wrote:

MongoSlade Wrote:My $.02...

Expansion hasn't hurt D00k basketball inasmuch as RatFace's recruiting has hurt D00k basketball. He's simply not recruiting the same caliber of athlete as before.

Ratface may still have more MickyD's All Americans on his roster than anyone else in America.

Are they MickyD's because they deserve it?

Or are they MickyD's because Duke is recruiting them?

I think the later in several cases.

Interesting thread with statistics proving why the ACC has been sucking in the NCAAs the last few years. The Big East is up near the top for exceeding expectations.

SF Husky Wrote:

cuseroc Wrote:

MongoSlade Wrote:My $.02...

Expansion hasn't hurt D00k basketball inasmuch as RatFace's recruiting has hurt D00k basketball. He's simply not recruiting the same caliber of athlete as before.

Ratface may still have more MickyD's All Americans on his roster than anyone else in America.

Urghh.. what does it mean to be a McD? It seems if they are an UNC or Dook recruit they are automatically McDs. As we all know, those labels meant crap just like ratings on football recruits. Duke has no inside play and they were exposed by WVU.

Whether or not you agree with the qualoty of the player, they are still Micky D's All americans. The point I was making is that Dukes recruiting has hardly suffered if they are still getting Micky D's All Americans. Those players are highly sought after players. It doesnt matter if they become busts in college. As high school players, they were heavily recruited out of high school by just about everyone, whether you agree with it or not, Dukes recruiting has not suffered at all because of these Micky D All Americans.

bitcruncher Wrote:

cuseroc Wrote:

MongoSlade Wrote:My $.02...

Expansion hasn't hurt D00k basketball inasmuch as RatFace's recruiting has hurt D00k basketball. He's simply not recruiting the same caliber of athlete as before.

Ratface may still have more MickyD's All Americans on his roster than anyone else in America.

Are they MickyD's because they deserve it?

Or are they MickyD's because Duke is recruiting them?

I think the later in several cases.

Good point. Syracuse has 3 of them on the roster now, Donte Green and Johny Flynn, and Eric Devendorf who is hurt. A fourth was Paul Harris, but he was rejected because he had some problems with drug dealing when he was in high school. Judging by the way these guys have played thus far in their careers, I would say they are Micky D's All Americans because they deserve it. I think the kids are selected based on skill level as well as character and some other criteria, I'm sure.