ACC Tourney Redux

Before we get too excited about the upcoming NCAA Tournament, I want to take a quick look back at the ACC Tournament. Despite what many were saying, I don’t think it was really a fantastic tournament. Yes, there were a lot of close games and that made it exciting but close does not always equal great. Great is when two very good teams both play well and have the game go down to the wire. There wasn’t a lot of that last week. It seemed we mostly had good teams playing poorly and beaten by weaker teams playing well. Out of 12 teams, only about two can really be happy with how they played. I guess that’s not that unusual in a tournament, because every team but one ends with a loss, but in this case it wasn’t just the fact that teams lost that was disconcerting. It was how they played.
All that said, I really liked how Carolina played all weekend. They were business-like and efficient. They didn’t blow anyone out with a barrage of three-pointers and fast breaks. They slowly built leads, had occasional short bursts and generally made things hard on their opponents. That’s how you win tournaments. If you rely too much on offensive explosions to win, you usually get upset by the first team that prevents those outbursts. I’m more bullish on the Tar Heel’s tourney chances now than I have been all season.
Likewise, there’s really nothing but praise to give to Sidney Lowe and NC State. They played extremely well and showed that without a doubt, if Engin Atsur had been healthy all year, that was a very good team. Not only would they have made the NCAAs, but they would have been at least a 5 seed. Add Andrew Brackman to the mix, and they are a top-15 team.
One word of caution to the Wolfpackers: dial your enthusiasm back a notch. Many, many coaches exceed expectations in the first year. That’s the easy part. There’s a wide gulf between first-year success and becoming a consistent power. Give Lowe some time and expect some bumps in the road.
Lastly, I’d like to link to four Al Featherston articles about the tournament. As you know, I love these long Featherston article. I have so much faith in his work that I’m linking to these without even having read them all. I’ve read parts, but there’s just so much to catch up with this week that I can’t do it all.
Featherston on Thursday
Featherston on Friday
Featherston on Saturday
Featherston on Sunday


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *