The conference was underrated, obviously. The ACC offers a tough slate every year and for some reason the national pundits don’t believe that anymore?

I try to balance my opinion vs the national landscape as much as possible. But here’s the thing, I haven’t witnessed some drop in skill or ability or talent the last few years vs the previous 20. So there is something going on with the ratings system and the amount of conference games or whatever.

The way Pitt was playing, they could easily still be dancing. Syracuse probably could have won a game or two as well. My main argument is we need to look at the growth of teams in the transfer portal era. November should not be valued the same as March. December is not the same as February. Coaches are building new teams from scratch each season so early season games are more like roulette than poker.

One day I hope to see the ACC go from mediocre to at least respectable by the national basketball pundits.

In the meantime, I’ll just have to accept 4 teams in the Sweet 16…3 in the Elite 8, and another appearance in the Final Four.

(03-30-2024 06:57 AM)GTFletch Wrote:  One day I hope to see the ACC go from mediocre to at least respectable by the national basketball pundits.

In the meantime, I’ll just have to accept 4 teams in the Sweet 16…3 in the Elite 8, and another appearance in the Final Four.

Having a good year in tournie this year for sure.

(03-27-2024 05:06 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-27-2024 04:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-27-2024 01:40 PM)dawgitall Wrote:  

(03-27-2024 10:35 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-27-2024 10:20 AM)dawgitall Wrote:  [/b]

Can you back that up with any facts? The bottom third of the ACC this year was Louisville, Miami, GT, ND and BC. They competed with the rest of the conference well. Louisville hung with NCSU in the 1st round of the ACCT for instance. GT and ND both beat WF late in the season. BC was a 20 win team this year. Miami is rebuilding this year but look at what they did the two seasons prior to that. I call BS on your statement about depth. No school in the ACC goes into their 20 game schedule with a realistic chance of running the table and it is clear that on any given night anyone can win the matchup.

IMO the NET and conference RPI rankings are decent global indicators of top to bottom strength, which to me is a good measure of how good a conference's middle and bottom are, because if those are weak the overall rating is likely to be weak, even if a conference is strong at the top. So is KenPom.

Right now, RPI has the ACC fifth, the NET has the ACC fourth. The nB12 is #1 in both. This suggests to me that the nB12 has a stronger middle and bottom than the ACC. The Big East and ACC have essentially the same ratings, so that is not apparent in their case.

All of those statistical measuring sticks are extremely flawed. They have been discussed enough that I won't bother to do so here. Aren't head to head match ups and NCAAT results a more accurate, real indication? During the regular season the ACC v B12 games were 9-3 in favor of the ACC. The SEC/ACC Challenge was a 7-7 draw. In the NCAAT a lower tier ACC school beat an upper tier B12 team and a middle tier ACC team beat an upper tier B12 team. So the ACC are 2-0 vs the B12 so far in the NCAAT.

I don't think H2H matchups are more accurate, because unless you are playing full round-robin, it could be a case of our good teams playing your bad teams, or vice-versa, which would skew things. Obviously the two NCAA tournament results are different, and that is why I think everyone is praising the ACC for out-performing its metrics. The ACC is showing up when it matters most, which is what good leagues do.

And not just this year. Over the past 10 tournaments, the ACC significantly outperformed all other power conferences, all of which had very similar W-L percentages. The ACC really stood out.

In the last 10 years:

BE: 2 UConn (one as AAC), 2 Nova
ACC: 1 Duke, 1 UVa, 1 UNC
B12: 1 KU, 1 Baylor
2020: no tourney

Regardless of whether one counts the AAC UConn natty for the BE or not, BE has just as good of results as the ACC. It's fun to compare league tourney records, but at the end of the tourney only one school and conference are happy.