As ACC basketball again confounds March expectations, let’s separate fact from fiction

THE ACC WAS NOT SEEDED AND SELECTED PROPERLY
FALSE The simple fact is the teams that deserved to get in got in, and the ones that did were appropriately seeded, within a line of their best-case scenario.

Now, is the selection process broken? Absolutely, and UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham — next year’s selection committee chairman — has the opportunity to fix it, by eliminating quadrants or, even better, going to a metric-based system that will give us an actual live-updated bubble, literally the best thing that could happen to college basketball in February. The efficiency components of the NET need to be tweaked as well, to remove the incentive to blow out teams in games already decided. (There are ways to do this that take margin of victory almost entirely out of the process and judge teams by their wins, and their wins alone.) But based on the criteria everyone knew going in beforehand, and everything is a known quantity other than the exact formula that goes into the NET, the ACC got a fair shake. And has done the most with it.

THE ACC CONTINUES TO OUTPERFORM EXPECTATIONS IN MARCH
TRUE If there’s an area that demands further study, it’s why ACC teams have performed not only their seed expectations but their predictive ratings in the postseason. The actual reason is hard to pin down. Does a difficult ACC schedule prepare teams better for the rigors of postseason play? Is there something about ACC teams that causes them to be underrated by every single metric that accurately predicts (within reason) every other league? Or is it just a fluke of sample size, the random noise in a small number of games? Any or all of that could be true.


THERE ARE SEGMENTS OF THE NATIONAL MEDIA OUT TO GET THE ACC
FALSE It may seem that way, but it’s not so much that people are out to get the ACC as they’ve been jealous of its success for a long time and take any opportunity they see to bring it down a notch, even if they end up looking foolish in the end.

Things were pretty quiet when the ACC had three No. 1 seeds (and a national title) in 2019, but the simmering resentment that predated even then has come to a full boil now, and once the door is open, the social-media lemmings pile through

Being unimaginative and jealous isn’t necessarily malicious. It just comes off that way.



https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/spt-...062360.htm

As to the question whether the rigors of a difficult conference schedule prepares ACC teams better for postseason play, if that were true then why don't the other power conferences perform better? Their conference schedules are difficult as well.

And within conferences that have now grown too large for a double round robin, the conference schedule difficulty for individual teams varies wildly from year to year. The reality is that conferences don't play games in the tournament. Teams do. Trying to compare conference performance is a fool's errand at best.

It looks to me that Luke went 0 for 3 on his assertions.

1) The ACC was clearly not seeded or selected properly and that all goes back to the committee relying on a crappy indicator like the NET rankings.

2) The ACC only out exceeded there expectations if you're an idiot and haven't been paying attention. Even going back to the RPI, the ACC has out performed every other conference in the NCAA tournament, So why wouldn't they continue to do so.

3) The B12 fan boy representation in the alternative media are clearly out to get the ACC as they want the ACC to fall apart and have ACC teams join the B12. The don't want to see their status diminished. Which could happen if the ACC raids the B12. To say nothing about how ESPN, the ACC's 'business partner' has done nothing but denigrate ACC football and cast them as second class citizens until it finally became a reality.

(03-28-2024 09:47 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  It looks to me that Luke went 0 for 3 on his assertions.

1) The ACC was clearly not seeded or selected properly and that all goes back to the committee relying on a crappy indicator like the NET rankings.

2) The ACC only out exceeded there expectations if you're an idiot and haven't been paying attention. Even going back to the RPI, the ACC has out performed every other conference in the NCAA tournament, So why wouldn't they continue to do so.

3) The B12 fan boy representation in the alternative media are clearly out to get the ACC as they want the ACC to fall apart and have ACC teams join the B12. The don't want to see their status diminished. Which could happen if the ACC raids the B12. To say nothing about how ESPN, the ACC's 'business partner' has done nothing but denigrate ACC football and cast them as second class citizens until it finally became a reality.

I think you have that backwards. ESPN has done nothing to cause ACC football to be considered second class. That has been true in all of the fifty odd years I've followed the sport. When there were six AQ conferences, the ACC and Big East always competed to see which one would bring up the rear. They have since their inception been legitimately in the top tier of football conferences, but never have they been anything except near the bottom of that tier.

(03-28-2024 11:04 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 09:47 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  It looks to me that Luke went 0 for 3 on his assertions.

1) The ACC was clearly not seeded or selected properly and that all goes back to the committee relying on a crappy indicator like the NET rankings.

2) The ACC only out exceeded there expectations if you're an idiot and haven't been paying attention. Even going back to the RPI, the ACC has out performed every other conference in the NCAA tournament, So why wouldn't they continue to do so.

3) The B12 fan boy representation in the alternative media are clearly out to get the ACC as they want the ACC to fall apart and have ACC teams join the B12. The don't want to see their status diminished. Which could happen if the ACC raids the B12. To say nothing about how ESPN, the ACC's 'business partner' has done nothing but denigrate ACC football and cast them as second class citizens until it finally became a reality.

I think you have that backwards. ESPN has done nothing to cause ACC football to be considered second class. That has been true in all of the fifty odd years I've followed the sport. When there were six AQ conferences, the ACC and Big East always competed to see which one would bring up the rear. They have since their inception been legitimately in the top tier of football conferences, but never have they been anything except near the bottom of that tier.

The ACC keeps on making football expansion moves but is still treated by ESPN as if it were the 90s. ESPN has been destructive to the ACC and obviously plays favoritism to the SEC.

(03-28-2024 11:04 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 09:47 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  It looks to me that Luke went 0 for 3 on his assertions.

1) The ACC was clearly not seeded or selected properly and that all goes back to the committee relying on a crappy indicator like the NET rankings.

2) The ACC only out exceeded there expectations if you're an idiot and haven't been paying attention. Even going back to the RPI, the ACC has out performed every other conference in the NCAA tournament, So why wouldn't they continue to do so.

3) The B12 fan boy representation in the alternative media are clearly out to get the ACC as they want the ACC to fall apart and have ACC teams join the B12. The don't want to see their status diminished. Which could happen if the ACC raids the B12. To say nothing about how ESPN, the ACC's 'business partner' has done nothing but denigrate ACC football and cast them as second class citizens until it finally became a reality.

I think you have that backwards. ESPN has done nothing to cause ACC football to be considered second class. That has been true in all of the fifty odd years I've followed the sport. When there were six AQ conferences, the ACC and Big East always competed to see which one would bring up the rear. They have since their inception been legitimately in the top tier of football conferences, but never have they been anything except near the bottom of that tier.

ACC football and basketball have similar perceptions:
- the top ACC teams are capable of winning a national championship.
- the bottom ACC teams are really, really awful.

Personally, I'm not sure that's true of ACC football any more, but it sure looked that way during basketball season!

Luck DeCock is not a prime ACC mouthpiece. The News and Observer has not had one of them in a long time. Decock doesn't even talk to a majority of the three Research Triangle Schools so what he writes is Pablum. Until Dave Teel betrays someone he's the go to guy. Any monkey with a typewriter can tell you what Bubba said "out loud" at the last meeting of the Raleigh Sports Club.

If you notice, Duke and NC State ptb don't talk to him.

(03-28-2024 11:31 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 11:04 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 09:47 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  It looks to me that Luke went 0 for 3 on his assertions.

1) The ACC was clearly not seeded or selected properly and that all goes back to the committee relying on a crappy indicator like the NET rankings.

2) The ACC only out exceeded there expectations if you're an idiot and haven't been paying attention. Even going back to the RPI, the ACC has out performed every other conference in the NCAA tournament, So why wouldn't they continue to do so.

3) The B12 fan boy representation in the alternative media are clearly out to get the ACC as they want the ACC to fall apart and have ACC teams join the B12. The don't want to see their status diminished. Which could happen if the ACC raids the B12. To say nothing about how ESPN, the ACC's 'business partner' has done nothing but denigrate ACC football and cast them as second class citizens until it finally became a reality.

I think you have that backwards. ESPN has done nothing to cause ACC football to be considered second class. That has been true in all of the fifty odd years I've followed the sport. When there were six AQ conferences, the ACC and Big East always competed to see which one would bring up the rear. They have since their inception been legitimately in the top tier of football conferences, but never have they been anything except near the bottom of that tier.

ACC football and basketball have similar perceptions:
- the top ACC teams are capable of winning a national championship.
- the bottom ACC teams are really, really awful.

Personally, I'm not sure that's true of ACC football any more, but it sure looked that way during basketball season!

The problem with ACC football is not the quality of its bottom. It's that only two teams are capable of winning a national championship. The rest aren't bad. They are just chronically mediocre. So when one or both of the top teams falter there is no one to pick up their slack. And as realignment has gathered steam, the league simply wasn't capable of attracting the whales they need to remedy that problem, and ESPN couldn't help them. Now there are no more whales left, so the ACC's problem is figuring out how can they keep the two whales they have. Good luck with that.

(03-28-2024 02:48 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 11:31 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 11:04 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 09:47 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  It looks to me that Luke went 0 for 3 on his assertions.

1) The ACC was clearly not seeded or selected properly and that all goes back to the committee relying on a crappy indicator like the NET rankings.

2) The ACC only out exceeded there expectations if you're an idiot and haven't been paying attention. Even going back to the RPI, the ACC has out performed every other conference in the NCAA tournament, So why wouldn't they continue to do so.

3) The B12 fan boy representation in the alternative media are clearly out to get the ACC as they want the ACC to fall apart and have ACC teams join the B12. The don't want to see their status diminished. Which could happen if the ACC raids the B12. To say nothing about how ESPN, the ACC's 'business partner' has done nothing but denigrate ACC football and cast them as second class citizens until it finally became a reality.

I think you have that backwards. ESPN has done nothing to cause ACC football to be considered second class. That has been true in all of the fifty odd years I've followed the sport. When there were six AQ conferences, the ACC and Big East always competed to see which one would bring up the rear. They have since their inception been legitimately in the top tier of football conferences, but never have they been anything except near the bottom of that tier.

ACC football and basketball have similar perceptions:
- the top ACC teams are capable of winning a national championship.
- the bottom ACC teams are really, really awful.

Personally, I'm not sure that's true of ACC football any more, but it sure looked that way during basketball season!

The problem with ACC football is not the quality of its bottom. It's that only two teams are capable of winning a national championship. The rest aren't bad. They are just chronically mediocre. So when one or both of the top teams falter there is no one to pick up their slack. And as realignment has gathered steam, the league simply wasn't capable of attracting the whales they need to remedy that problem, and ESPN couldn't help them. Now there are no more whales left, so the ACC's problem is figuring out how can they keep the two whales they have. Good luck with that.

Miami and VT need to step it up and I have feeling they are both going to have good seasons, but might be too little too late.

(03-28-2024 02:48 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 11:31 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 11:04 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 09:47 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  It looks to me that Luke went 0 for 3 on his assertions.

1) The ACC was clearly not seeded or selected properly and that all goes back to the committee relying on a crappy indicator like the NET rankings.

2) The ACC only out exceeded there expectations if you're an idiot and haven't been paying attention. Even going back to the RPI, the ACC has out performed every other conference in the NCAA tournament, So why wouldn't they continue to do so.

3) The B12 fan boy representation in the alternative media are clearly out to get the ACC as they want the ACC to fall apart and have ACC teams join the B12. The don't want to see their status diminished. Which could happen if the ACC raids the B12. To say nothing about how ESPN, the ACC's 'business partner' has done nothing but denigrate ACC football and cast them as second class citizens until it finally became a reality.

I think you have that backwards. ESPN has done nothing to cause ACC football to be considered second class. That has been true in all of the fifty odd years I've followed the sport. When there were six AQ conferences, the ACC and Big East always competed to see which one would bring up the rear. They have since their inception been legitimately in the top tier of football conferences, but never have they been anything except near the bottom of that tier.

ACC football and basketball have similar perceptions:
- the top ACC teams are capable of winning a national championship.
- the bottom ACC teams are really, really awful.

Personally, I'm not sure that's true of ACC football any more, but it sure looked that way during basketball season!

The problem with ACC football is not the quality of its bottom. It's that only two teams are capable of winning a national championship. The rest aren't bad. They are just chronically mediocre. So when one or both of the top teams falter there is no one to pick up their slack. And as realignment has gathered steam, the league simply wasn't capable of attracting the whales they need to remedy that problem, and ESPN couldn't help them. Now there are no more whales left, so the ACC's problem is figuring out how can they keep the two whales they have. Good luck with that.

2 and 5/8th whales we have left.

(03-29-2024 03:45 PM)ChrisLords Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 02:48 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 11:31 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 11:04 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-28-2024 09:47 AM)ChrisLords Wrote:  It looks to me that Luke went 0 for 3 on his assertions.

1) The ACC was clearly not seeded or selected properly and that all goes back to the committee relying on a crappy indicator like the NET rankings.

2) The ACC only out exceeded there expectations if you're an idiot and haven't been paying attention. Even going back to the RPI, the ACC has out performed every other conference in the NCAA tournament, So why wouldn't they continue to do so.

3) The B12 fan boy representation in the alternative media are clearly out to get the ACC as they want the ACC to fall apart and have ACC teams join the B12. The don't want to see their status diminished. Which could happen if the ACC raids the B12. To say nothing about how ESPN, the ACC's 'business partner' has done nothing but denigrate ACC football and cast them as second class citizens until it finally became a reality.

I think you have that backwards. ESPN has done nothing to cause ACC football to be considered second class. That has been true in all of the fifty odd years I've followed the sport. When there were six AQ conferences, the ACC and Big East always competed to see which one would bring up the rear. They have since their inception been legitimately in the top tier of football conferences, but never have they been anything except near the bottom of that tier.

ACC football and basketball have similar perceptions:
- the top ACC teams are capable of winning a national championship.
- the bottom ACC teams are really, really awful.

Personally, I'm not sure that's true of ACC football any more, but it sure looked that way during basketball season!

The problem with ACC football is not the quality of its bottom. It's that only two teams are capable of winning a national championship. The rest aren't bad. They are just chronically mediocre. So when one or both of the top teams falter there is no one to pick up their slack. And as realignment has gathered steam, the league simply wasn't capable of attracting the whales they need to remedy that problem, and ESPN couldn't help them. Now there are no more whales left, so the ACC's problem is figuring out how can they keep the two whales they have. Good luck with that.

2 and 5/8th whales we have left.

plus one sleeping whale.