The ACC had a great regular season. It regularly had five teams ranked and finished with six in the final polls. The league really was competitive from top to bottom, as demonstrated by having six of nine teams make the NCAA tournament and two more make the NIT. Only Clemson missed out on the postseason, and even Clemson managed victories against NC State, UNC and Florida State.
With all that quality depth though, there wasn’t a single great team, like in recent years. There’s no one team you can point to and say that they should be in the Final Four, not even Duke.
So, that worries me. I’m concerned that as great as the league was this year, it will underachieve in the NCAA tournament. Logic says that it won’t, but all of the teams are just flawed enough to leave that chance.
But, I’m not going to dwell on that today. Instead, I’m going to marvel on past successes. The ACC has been absolutely tremendous in the NCAA tournament. Yes, the ACC gets all the hype and the extra media attention, but it has consistently earned it.
So, here (courtesy of Charlie Board’s incredible ACC stats archive) are some aspects of that domination:
Since 1990 (just assume that caveat for all of the following stats), the ACC has won as many titles as any other two major conferences combined. The ACC won five (three for Duke and one each for UNC and Maryland). The SEC won three and the Big East and Pac 10 each won two.
The ACC has fewer teams than each of the other major conferences, and that is reflected in the total number of bids. Only the Pac 10 has had fewer (61) than the ACC (68). The Big 10 has had the most bids (80). By the second round though, those numbers quickly change. Only the Big 10 has more second round appearances (58) than the ACC (54). By the Sweet Sixteen, it’s no contest. The ACC has 37 appearances in the past 14 years, seven more than the next closest, the Big East.
The ACC has more Final Four appearances, 15, than the number of years we’re considering, 14. That means it’s statistically more likely that an ACC team will make the Final Four than win the ACC tournament. The next closest conference is the Big 10 with 10 Final Four appearances. The ACC’s 15 matches the combined efforts of the Pac 10, Big East and Big 8/12.
Some have criticized these sorts of statistics about the ACC, saying that it’s really just Duke and UNC doing all the work, as if it’s fair to discount two of the nine schools. Looking at the actual numbers however, you’ll see that only the Big 10 has had more different schools reach the Final Four. The same fact holds for the Elite Eight, where seven of the nine ACC schools have appeared since 1990.
If you remove the efforts of the top two teams from each conference, taking out Duke and UNC from the ACC, the ACC still has the highest NCAA tournament winning percentage, at 59.2%.
The numbers don’t lie. The ACC has simply been the best conference when the games matter the most. Hopefully this year will continue that trend. In fact, it could be a banner year, as (despite my fears) each of the six ACC participants has the talent to make it San Antonio. It should be fun.