Comments on: ATB: Georgetown Lights Up The Heartland

By: rtmsf

rtmsf — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:46:21 +0000

In reply to garik16.

Look, I know about the Pomeroy ratings. No bad teams, just a bunch of mediocre ones. And frankly, fair or not, NCAA Tournament success is not only how individual programs but entire conferences are evaluated in this sport. Nobody hangs banners for finishing in the top 30 of the Pomeroy ratings. They put up banners for going to the Sweet Sixteen. I guarantee if you read the ACC Media Guide, you’ll find page after page talking about the history and tradition of the conference (i.e., NCAA Tournament success), and not one time will you see a mention of a Pomeroy/Sagarin computer ranking of the league. It’s simply not how leagues like the ACC measure themselves. To go there almost proves my point in how far this league has fallen — the old ACC wouldn’t have had to point to computer numbers — they could point to a quarter of the Sweet Sixteen, and smugly walk away.

And this is in STARK contrast to how it was in the 80s and the 90s when the ACC not only talked the talk, but walked it. ACC fans were largely insufferable not only b/c they were obnoxious about the league, but also b/c they were right. I’ve noted here before that the league getting four teams into the Sweet Sixteen was a relatively common occurrence in those days; it’s an absurd proposition now, even though the ACC has expanded to 12 teams.

And Matt, I used Tuesday’s results to hammer the point home that the ACC has fallen way off, but I thought I was clear that even if the ACC had gone 11-0 in this challenge, I still don’t think it’s a very strong league. And it’s not — even you admit it is probably the 5th best league in America. Again, the league didn’t build it’s sterling hoops reputation on having a bunch of bubble teams — it built its rep on having really good teams every year that did damage in the postseason. I will back off this stance if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there’s any way possible that the league gets more than two teams into the Sweet Sixteen this year — Duke is the obvious one and I’ll allow for a flukish team that ends up playing a Cinderella in the second round. That’s it.

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:31:21 +0000

I’m going to agree with garik in that the “common” barometers for conference success work against the ACC. Over the last five years, the ACC has not been as good as it was in the previous 15, but if you compare it to the work of the rest of the basketball world and not the shadows of ACCs past, it’s still very good. It seems that most people consider two factors above all others when comparing conferences. First, how many teams does it have in the top-15-20 who are legit contenders, or as you put it “Sweet 16 worthy.” The second is often how many teams are competing for (and earning) NCAA bids. These factors tend to narrow the focus of “conference strength” to teams 3-7 in an average 12 team league. You’re absolutely right that the ACC’s top level accomplishments have been by Duke and UNC, but only the Big East has sent more than two different teams to the Final Four in the last 5 years. But the fact is that Duke and UNC count just as much as everyone else.

Here’s a fact conveniently omitted. Over the five year window which you talk about, the ACC is the ONLY conference to have sent every single one of its teams to the tournament, which is no small feat. The Big Ten hasn’t even sent every one of its teams to the tournament in its entire history. If that’s not a sign of top to bottom (not top to somewhere in the middle) strength, than I don’t know what is.

The ACC absolutely deserves to be bashed for it’s performance so far this year, but you can’t be so arbitrary in your standards. How are Tuesdays challenge results telling of how bad the league is, but Monday and Wednesday are completely irrelevant?

Make no mistake, the ACC will likely only be the 5th best conference this year, and it is no longer to basketball what the SEC has been to football in recent years, but the characterization of how far they have fallen is overstated.

By: garik16

garik16 — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:20:41 +0000

FWIW, I’d disagree with your evaluation of the ACC “over the last 5 years.” As you could see if you looked at say, the pomeroy rankings over the last few years, the league has in fact been one of the, if not the BEST conference. This is because from top to bottom, there were no BAD teams in the ACC (UNC, one of the worst ACC teams last year, came in 2nd in the NIT, for example).

The league has seen its share of non-Duke non-UNC elite teams fall off, but the teams across the board have been all good and all a challenge….no team could take an ACC game really for granted, especially on the road.

This year, that’s clearly not the case…Wake and Georgia Tech are seriously bad teams. But the last 5 years, the conference has been pretty good overall due to depth.

(No offense to the big east, but having Depaul, Rutgers, et al in the league kind of hurts your status. You can’t pretend they don’t exist.)