Particularly in the Northeast, where the NBE has all of a sudden given kids from the DMV to New England another option to the OBE teams that left.

When the ACC raided the OBE, it was thought that the schools known for their FB or MBB would take that success with them.

However, that oddly hasn't happened in either sport.

One factor that doesn't get discussed enough is the reimagined NBE, which has siphoned off talent in strongholds like New York, when it was believed (by Swofford) that he'd be killing off his competition (particularly in what he believed at the time was the ACC's signature sport).

The Old Big East was (at one time) the unquestioned best conference in college basketball. It's hard to fault Swofford for thinking he'd gobble up that status. Nevertheless, the ACC is currently the 6th best conference. The Big 12 is by and large the best college basketball conference now (and likely to remain with the expansion).

Can the ACC reverse this decade long trend - especially now that Duke and UNC no longer have their great coaches? I kinda think the ACC will hover around that 5-6 area, and the NBE will be a factor in keeping them there (given the overlap in the footprint).

Did the ACC grow too big? I believe the ACC (and similarly CUSA from the G5) has suffered by growing the roster too much. That said, you can't discount the existence of the NBE conference that slid into the void created when the OBE teams defected.

Kenpom ratings since 2014:

No

I would posit that Maryland getting poached was also a big hit in composition. Maryland has a more recent Championship than anyone in the Big 10 (2002) and their recruiting wasn't infringed on as much. There was more synergy between them and the 3 schools in the state of NC.
It seems as much cultural as just having a glut of teams that get canceled out.
The Old Big East schools play like they don't want to be there and that was the case long before "Daddy Ball" at Syracuse. Pitt got beat out by UConn for Hurley, when he was at Rhode Island.

(03-08-2022 07:40 AM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  Particularly in the Northeast, where the NBE has all of a sudden given kids from the DMV to New England another option to the OBE teams that left.

One factor that doesn't get discussed enough is the reimagined NBE, which has siphoned off talent in strongholds like New York, when it was believed (by Swofford) that he'd be killing off his competition (particularly in what he believed at the time was the ACC's signature sport).

Did the NBE all of the sudden move their campuses to the northeast? I'm pretty sure they always recruited there. As does any coach with connections.

(03-08-2022 07:40 AM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  The Old Big East was (at one time) the unquestioned best conference in college basketball. It's hard to fault Swofford for thinking he'd gobble up that status. Nevertheless, the ACC is currently the 6th best conferenceThis season. The Big 12 is by and large the best college basketball conference now (and likely to remain with the expansion).LOL okay

Can the ACC reverse this decade long trend - especially now that Duke and UNC no longer have their great coaches? I kinda think the ACC will hover around that 5-6 area, and the NBE will be a factor in keeping them there (given the overlap in the footprint).

You're right, what a terrible decade with four national titles.

(03-08-2022 07:40 AM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  Did the ACC grow too big? I believe the ACC (and similarly CUSA from the G5) has suffered by growing the roster too much. That said, you can't discount the existence of the NBE conference that slid into the void created when the OBE teams defected.

Aren't you the one parading around calling Aresco a genius for expanding to 14?

You do know that OBE teams left to other conferences as well?

If you actually follow basketball, it's pretty easy to see why the ACC is down this season, but let's revisit this thread after the first round of the tournament. I have to think the ACC is going to provide some extremely strong double digit seeds next week.

I know I don't want to see Wake or Miami in the ACC tourney and luckily it won't be until the final!

(03-08-2022 08:39 AM)esayem Wrote:  Aren't you the one parading around calling Aresco a genius for expanding to 14?

I saw the AAC's expansion as more of a land grab.

4 teams taken in Texas and Florida (3 Texas and 1 Florida). That's a bit of a better plan than having 4 from a state like NC.

The AAC has a daunting task in replacing the 3 bellcows. By taking 4 teams in the two deepest recruiting states (TX & FL), they did their best to find someone that's going to make a run to New Year's Day.

The issue with the ACC is they took too many teams from snow states and their Florida teams have been laying eggs for a prolonged period.

In hoops Swofford's plan to kill the OBE spurred unintended consequences.

The ACC has been down for multiple reasons. But the league can bounce back quickly. Similarly, the Big East and/or the Big 12 could weaken quickly. The Big East, for example, is starting to show signs of weakness, with only two legit Top 25 teams this year. And just because the Big 12 has been strong the past few years does not mean it will remain the "top" power league.

Too many variables at play.

The demise of the ACC in basketball is way overblown. Virginia won the natty in '19. UNC in '17. Duke in '15. Louisville in '13, albeit in the OBE. Duke in '10. UNC in '09 & '05. Syracuse has had a FF appearance as an ACC member. FSU finished '20 in the top five.

It is a down year, but gracious, the league is doing just fine.

I do agree that overall the OBE members have dipped in performance as ACC members, but the league is not falling apart. Certainly, it remains to be seen how things work out once all the old forces are gone (Williams & Pitino gone already, Coach K on the way out, and Hamilton & Boeheim can't have too many years left).

Football has been bad for the OBE members. But I don't think Miami has suffered because of the ACC, but because of poor coaching & investments.

Separately,, all credit in the world to the current Big East. They've proven their doubters wrong, big time.

I think it's pretty simple that the ACC increasingly lacks an identity, they've consistently chosen poor football and basketball head coaches, and they have more deadweight than most conferences. And I would argue that most of those issues are a result of B1G and SEC conference realignment pressures rather than Big East forces.

The ACC is now in an unenviable position: they're only together because they created one of the worst and longest TV deals that they can't back out of with ESPN, and because they had that awful RSN deal that I think is still partially active that limited viewership. The increasing financial gap with the B1G and SEC (and frankly, even the Big XII) has hurt ACC schools' competitiveness, as has the national perception that the league could basically implode at any moment.

Expanding with middling P5 schools that are horribly run (Boston College, Pitt) has been a huge mistake, and they really need to ditch some schools like Wake.

Outside of Clemson in football and UNC/Duke in basketball, every ACC school seems inferior to the regional competition from the B1G, SEC, and even the Big East.

I don't see a bright future for the ACC, and if I'm Notre Dame, I'm working on backing out of any commitments I've made to the league.

I don’t think the new Big East really impacted the ACC differently. That league was reconstituted, but still a known quantity and long-time in-region competitor to the ACC.

However, the big change that the ACC has faced over the past decade is the presence of the Big Ten in the NYC and DMV markets, which are to basketball recruiting as Texas and Florida are to football recruiting. One of the most underrated effects of the Big Ten adding Maryland and Rutgers has been how the Big Ten has turned into the most consistently deep basketball league in the country since expanding directly into those top basketball recruiting regions. The direct Big Ten competition with their financial resources and TV deals is what is really relatively new for the ACC.

Now, that being said, I’m not going to just sleep on UNC getting back to top 10 form or schools like Syracuse getting back to historical levels. This year is more of an anomaly for the lack of ACC depth. To the extent that there’s a newer risk for the ACC, it would be the SEC leveraging their financial resources to becomes as consistently deep as the Big Ten (more years like the current one in the SEC). The SEC adding Texas and Oklahoma, which both have solid basketball histories and support, could impact the league’s hoops depth even beyond where it is now.

(03-08-2022 07:40 AM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  Particularly in the Northeast, where the NBE has all of a sudden given kids from the DMV to New England another option to the OBE teams that left.

When the ACC raided the OBE, it was thought that the schools known for their FB or MBB would take that success with them.

However, that oddly hasn't happened in either sport.

IMO, the ACC is fundamentally the best or second-best basketball conference. Every conference has down years, and we will still have to wait for this year's tournament to see how 'down' this year has actually been for the ACC - recall that going in to last year's tourney, everyone was saying the PAC was having a dreadful season, and then they had a spectacular tournament to silence the critics.

The ACC is the only conference with two uncontested blue-bloods, and then they have two purple bloods in Louisville and Syracuse as well. So fundamentally, they are fine.

That said, competition does take its toll, and no question, the new Big East being stronger in hoops than most expected has challenged the ACC, as has the move of the B1G in to the northeast corridor as well (I think you are correct that losing Maryland hurt the ACC).

But in the main, I think ACC hoops is just fine, enviable really in a technical sense, though there is little cultural synergy between the core ACC teams and the Big East add-ons.

I think the one thing is there are more mouths now in basketball than before that are really good. 2 more just in the top 6 conferences right now and with the moves coming up that number will just grow.

And will be interesting long term to see what the transfer portal etc. does for the ACC.

The ACC is the weakest this year it has been in decades, in fact it's probably weaker than anytime it was called the ACC.

Coaching hires that have not turned out at NC State, Pitt, and GT are part of the ACC's issue.

The fiasco at Louisville and the delay in retiring Boeheim are two other issues.

Finally the decision 20 years ago to pitch ACC basketball as the Duke/UNC show has been a big problem.

Big East schools can pitch basketball as their "end all be all". That's not the case for half of the ACC.

Not all the ACC schools schedule their November in a way that is good for the overall conference. Some are notoriously bad at this. And for those that under schedule, you have school like UNC that have overscheduled in November for the last 6-7 years.

Finally ACC basketball used to be about winning the Championship in the Tournament. It's been 25 years since that was a "must".

I don't have the recruiting stats in front of me, but I do wonder if the ACC is getting as many players from New York and Philadelphia as it once did.

(03-08-2022 10:52 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  I don't have the recruiting stats in front of me, but I do wonder if the ACC is getting as many players from New York and Philadelphia as it once did.

You don't need the stats, the answer is no. However the need for that talent is more an old BE issue than an old ACC problem (Syracuse, BC, Pitt, Louisville, Miami). The old ACC drifted away from recruiting heavily in that area as the Sunbelt grew.

(03-08-2022 08:10 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  No

This^ The ACC f'd things up all by themselves.

It's blatantly obvious most people posting in this thread don't actively follow the ACC.

"I think it's pretty simple that the ACC increasingly lacks an identity, they've consistently chosen poor football and basketball head coaches, and they have more deadweight than most conferences. And I would argue that most of those issues are a result of B1G and SEC conference realignment pressures rather than Big East forces."

An east coast identity (plus Louisville)? The region is more compact than most conferences, there are a few satellites like Miami, but they'd be far from center for any conference. The academic missions line up as well.

Would the conference have less dead weight any given season if maybe say WVU was invited in place of BC, and SU and Pitt were never invited? Sure, but the goal was always to expand up the Atlantic Coast and those schools have the ability to excel in both major sports, especially Syracuse if they would get their act together.

I haven't noticed consistently poor coaching hires in either sport. In fact, Forbes and Young have their programs trending upwards and I can point to even more in football. Although, FSU really needs to get Coach Prime on board after next season.


"However, the big change that the ACC has faced over the past decade is the presence of the Big Ten in the NYC and DMV markets, which are to basketball recruiting as Texas and Florida are to football recruiting. One of the most underrated effects of the Big Ten adding Maryland and Rutgers has been how the Big Ten has turned into the most consistently deep basketball league in the country since expanding directly into those top basketball recruiting regions. The direct Big Ten competition with their financial resources and TV deals is what is really relatively new for the ACC."

I was skeptical about this so I checked a few rosters of top Big Ten teams.

Purdue - 0 from those regions
Illinois - 1 transfer that never plays from NY
MSU - 1 transfer from Northeastern from NY
Michigan - 1 NY guy that's played in 10 games and two guys from the DC area
Ohio St. - 1 guy avgs 5 pmts from Long Island

Honestly, with such a bold statement I expected to see more. What we have is a bunch of bench warmers and Dickinson from Michigan.

The Big Ten has always been a deep basketball conference. The teams I listed above have ALWAYS been solid. Indiana has been stinking it up for awhile, but Wisconsin has replaced them near the top of the league, and Iowa has always been pretty decent too.

Bottomline: adding Rutgers and Maryland hasn't hurt ACC recruiting.

Skip Prosser's death devastated Wake for years, but Forbes rightly just won ACC coach of the year. Young was a great hire for VaTech. Davis has transformed UNC into a half court team once again that doesn't rely on the break, and if anyone noticed, he just out-coached Coach K in his farewell Durham game.

FSU and Miami have exceeded expectations as programs under their coaches. Nobody ever expects those squads to do anything, think Clemson hoops.

UVA is entitled to have a down year.

NC State is the program that needs to get back to being a consistent tournament team. This program hasn't had consistency and everything is there resource-wise to be successful.

Louisville needs a flashy coach, because that city is ripe for NIL success.

BC is going to have to become an identity team like they were under Skinner. They were successful playing traditional rough 'em up Big East basketball. Same with Pitt. These two need to go back to their roots and that starts with the head coaches. I think BC whiffed on Schmidt from St. Bona and I'm beginning to think Pitt is just never going to get it done under Capel.

Pastner cracks me up at GaTech. I don't really know what else too say about him and their ceiling.

(03-08-2022 09:42 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I don’t think the new Big East really impacted the ACC differently. That league was reconstituted, but still a known quantity and long-time in-region competitor to the ACC.

However, the big change that the ACC has faced over the past decade is the presence of the Big Ten in the NYC and DMV markets, which are to basketball recruiting as Texas and Florida are to football recruiting. One of the most underrated effects of the Big Ten adding Maryland and Rutgers has been how the Big Ten has turned into the most consistently deep basketball league in the country since expanding directly into those top basketball recruiting regions. The direct Big Ten competition with their financial resources and TV deals is what is really relatively new for the ACC.

Now, that being said, I’m not going to just sleep on UNC getting back to top 10 form or schools like Syracuse getting back to historical levels. This year is more of an anomaly for the lack of ACC depth. To the extent that there’s a newer risk for the ACC, it would be the SEC leveraging their financial resources to becomes as consistently deep as the Big Ten (more years like the current one in the SEC). The SEC adding Texas and Oklahoma, which both have solid basketball histories and support, could impact the league’s hoops depth even beyond where it is now.

This.

I hate that DMV players like Victor Oladipo and Luke Garza went to Midwestern schools. Recruiting McDonalds all-Americans has always been national (e.g., Kevin Durant to Texas) but it’s becoming more common for the next level talent to go out of the ACC footprint. UMCP is really in the middle of a great basketball recruiting market.

The fact that the new Big East has an overlapping footprint with the Big Ten may also help make the Midwestern schools more appealing to kids in the entire DC-Philly-NYC corridor.

Also, I think that the expansion to a 20 game conference season has an impact on perceptions. There are fewer out of conference games and some tough losses carry more weight.

Right - to esayem's point, even if the current top Big Ten rosters aren't NYC/DC-heavy, I'm talking about a steady stream of guys like Oladipo and Garza that probably would have gone to the ACC or old Big East previously.

Note that for my Illini, Kofi Cockburn is a superstar (likely first team All-American and possibly Big Ten Player of the Year) and listed as being from Jamaica, but he grew up and spent his first 3 years of high school in NYC. (He then went to Oak Hill Academy in Virginia for his senior year.) It's a similar thing with Andre Curbelo - he's listed as being from Puerto Rico, but he grew up and went to high school on Long Island. That's just my own team where two of our core "international" players actually grew up in the NYC area. It definitely helps that Illinois and other Big Ten schools are now playing games at Rutgers and Maryland in a way that opens up recruiting opportunities (where these Midwestern state schools are no longer "in the middle of nowhere") that are now much more winnable compared to competing against the ACC and old Big East 10 years ago.

(03-08-2022 11:40 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(03-08-2022 09:42 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I don’t think the new Big East really impacted the ACC differently. That league was reconstituted, but still a known quantity and long-time in-region competitor to the ACC.

However, the big change that the ACC has faced over the past decade is the presence of the Big Ten in the NYC and DMV markets, which are to basketball recruiting as Texas and Florida are to football recruiting. One of the most underrated effects of the Big Ten adding Maryland and Rutgers has been how the Big Ten has turned into the most consistently deep basketball league in the country since expanding directly into those top basketball recruiting regions. The direct Big Ten competition with their financial resources and TV deals is what is really relatively new for the ACC.

Now, that being said, I’m not going to just sleep on UNC getting back to top 10 form or schools like Syracuse getting back to historical levels. This year is more of an anomaly for the lack of ACC depth. To the extent that there’s a newer risk for the ACC, it would be the SEC leveraging their financial resources to becomes as consistently deep as the Big Ten (more years like the current one in the SEC). The SEC adding Texas and Oklahoma, which both have solid basketball histories and support, could impact the league’s hoops depth even beyond where it is now.

This.

I hate that DMV players like Victor Oladipo and Luke Garza went to Midwestern schools. Recruiting McDonalds all-Americans has always been national (e.g., Kevin Durant to Texas) but it’s becoming more common for the next level talent to go out of the ACC footprint. UMCP is really in the middle of a great basketball recruiting market.

The fact that the new Big East has an overlapping footprint with the Big Ten may also help make the Midwestern schools more appealing to kids in the entire DC-Philly-NYC corridor.

Also, I think that the expansion to a 20 game conference season has an impact on perceptions. There are fewer out of conference games and some tough losses carry more weight.

Yeah the 20 game conference season really makes things like the conference challenges and exempt tournaments that much more important than before. I mean this year in the exempt tournaments- UNC, Notre Dame, and Va Tech all go 0-2 in their tournaments. Miami went 1-2. Wake went 1-1. Those hurt a lot more with only 10-11 OOC games.

(03-08-2022 11:56 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Right - to esayem's point, even if the current top Big Ten rosters aren't NYC/DC-heavy, I'm talking about a steady stream of guys like Oladipo and Garza that probably would have gone to the ACC or old Big East previously.

Note that for my Illini, Kofi Cockburn is a superstar (likely first team All-American and possibly Big Ten Player of the Year) and listed as being from Jamaica, but he grew up and spent his first 3 years of high school in NYC. (He then went to Oak Hill Academy in Virginia for his senior year.) It's a similar thing with Andre Curbelo - he's listed as being from Puerto Rico, but he grew up and went to high school on Long Island. That's just my own team where two of our core "international" players actually grew up in the NYC area. It definitely helps that Illinois and other Big Ten schools are now playing games at Rutgers and Maryland in a way that opens up recruiting opportunities (where these Midwestern state schools are no longer "in the middle of nowhere") that are now much more winnable compared to competing against the ACC and old Big East 10 years ago.

I really think it’s a stretch saying that. Especially for basketball. I mean Duke would always play road games vs Temple and St. John’s for recruiting purposes. That’s more of a sure thing than MAYBE having a conference road game at Rutgers and/or Maryland any given season. Maybe Garza likes farm chicks? Maybe Cockburn wanted to be near Chicago? OR maybe they liked the coach and their role on the team?

I’ve never bought into the “adding team in State A means it will open up recruiting.” The only way that works is possibly elevating a team to a better conference for their own recruiting benefit. For example, Rutgers should be getting better NJ football recruits now that they’re in the Big Ten. It ain’t doing a damn thing for Minnesota.