1. theACC.com: You probably already knew this, but the ACC released its All-ACC teams yesterday headlined by Tyler Zeller (unanimous) and Mike Scott (nearly unanimous). Tomorrow the league will announce its individual awards and we’ll release our own conference awards. The biggest snubs were Kendall Marshall (Harrison Barnes edged him out by two points to make the first team) and Bernard James (who somehow lost to Mason Plumlee).
2. Streaking the Lawn: Well, he wasn’t snubbed but Mike Scott definitely wasn’t given his due by one or two voters. He finished two points (probably two second-team selections) from being a unanimous first-team selection. Props to Tim Mulholland for taking the only known offender, Caulton Tudor, to task for the omission. You’re welcome to choose Tyler Zeller as your Player of the Year. I waffled between him and Scott more times than I can count. But you can’t leave Scott off the first team. That’s just ridiculous. It’s almost as ridiculous as this headline: “Great Scott Sinks Terps in OT.”
3. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Tim Tucker sat down with John Swofford for a pretty interesting interview. For those keeping score at home, Swofford called college athletics a “business” twice during the conversation. He also reaffirmed his support for a four-team football playoff and keeping the NCAA tournament at 68 teams amidst discussion of the ACC’s new TV contract renegotiation and the recent NCAA violation issues. All in all, the interview gave a favorable impression of Swofford.
4. Charlotte Observer: Luke DeCock looks at coaches’ “motivating moments.” Every coach has his own style: Mike Krzyzewski berates his team with a fire (and tongue) you’d never expect from his interview demeanor (or maybe it’s Krzyzewski interviews with a mild manner you’d never expect from his on-court persona); Roy Williams keeps things under control most of the time, but he loses his temper with the best of them. As NC State’s CJ Williams pointed out, “All coaches are pretty much the same […] when it comes to yelling.”
5. Fayetteville Observer: Harrison Barnes keeps a list. It’s a list of his goals shaped like an inverted pyramid with “National Championship” sitting at the top. This sort of story is the reason I never doubt that Barnes will have a long, successful professional career. I’m still not sure whether he’s a go-to guy or “just” a 10-year starter in the League, but someone who works this hard to reach his goals will reach many of them.

EXTRA: In semi-ACC-related news, Syracuse is back in the news for all the wrong reasons. Charles Robinson and Pat Forde caught wind that the Orange have been playing team members who failed drug tests. There were at least 10 former players involved, and the NCAA is aware of the problem. I’m not sure what exactly could become of this, but certainly, it’s never good to associate your brand with drugs. Still, many of the infractions are beyond the NCAA’s statute of limitations.

1. The Mikan Drill: Florida State‘s defense last season was excellent, but its offense nearly tipped the scales back the other way with its ineptitude. The Mikan Drill
   takes a look at the Seminoles’ offense with short video clips and diagrams to back up their analysis. Essentially, the ‘Noles did well in the post but very poorly on pick and rolls. Another key in the dysfunctional cog was the team’s inability to take care of the ball. Overall, a very informative piece on one of the most under-the-radar teams in the country coming into the 2011-12 season.
2. Duke Basketball Report: First, let me give a shout-out to the high-quality pieces Duke Basketball Report has been putting out this offseason (unfortunately, it’s because its Blue Devil Tip-Off magazine didn’t raise the funds to get published, leaving lots of great articles looking for a home). Second, here’s a roundtable article looking at Duke basketball legend Bill Brill. Brill was a distinguished sportswriter who covered the Blue Devils for over 35 years. The interviews are with many ACC journalists who tell personal stories from Brill’s respected career. One of the more interesting anecdotes was that Brill unintentionally co-founded bracketology long before it was a staple in college basketball’s coverage — it’s worth a look.
3. Testudo Times: Speaking of roundtables, Testudo Times has a great preview of Maryland‘s basketball season. Topics cover everything from predicted offensive style to conference realignment and everything in-between. The Terrapins are one of the more interesting teams in the ACC this season, as they lost quite a bit of size and production from last year’s squad (in addition to a certain hall of fame coach).
4. Syracuse.com: In a talk with ESPN‘s Andy Katz last week, ACC coaches weighed in on conference realignment. The general consensus was that the conference should expand to 16 teams provided the two new teams fit well. NC State’s Mark Gottfried was the most adamant that the conference will expand, though Mike Krzyzewski has made it clear in the past that he supports going to a 16-team format with divisions. Not surprisingly, commissioner John Swofford evaded the question like the adept politician that he is.
5. Kentucky Sports Radio: Duke legend Christian Laettner laced up his coaching shoes in Kentucky’s Rupp Arena last night for a Jimmy V fundraiser. Unfortunately, a recent number of Kentucky-related scrimmages led to a meager crowd. But the game was good enough to go to overtime, where Laettner’s “Villains” won the game despite pregame chemistry concerns about Duke’s Nolan Smith and North Carolina’s Tyler Hansborough playing for the same team. Laettner embraced the moment, perhaps his only in Rupp Arena, by wiping down the UK hardwood (see video below) and getting ejected late in the second half.

The Boston Globe‘s recent article “Expansion Was Power Move by the ACC” stirred a minor uproar on Twitter over the weekend largely for two reasons:

1. Boston College changed the course of conference realignment by vetoing Connecticut as the second addition (which led to Pittsburgh‘s invitation), much like Virginia did with Syracuse in 2003.
2. Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo stated, “TV – ESPN – is the one who told us what to do.”

The first point is huge. If true, Boston College, one of the most recent additions to the ACC that also sports a lukewarm fanbase in both basketball and football, managed to affect which schools received an ACC invitation. This is eerily similar to Virginia’s power play in 2003 when the Cavaliers threatened to pull out of the conference if it wouldn’t add Virginia Tech instead of Syracuse. The only differences: Virginia is a founding member, and (by DeFilippo’s account) the Eagles didn’t threaten to leave the conference. For the record, I still think Pittsburgh is a better fit for the ACC as I worry about Connecticut’s long term relevance once Jim Calhoun retires.

Credit: Wendy Maeda/Boston Globe staff

DeFilippo denied rumors that Duke shouted the loudest during expansion meetings and instead cited recent massive TV deals and an interest in increasing the conference’s “footprint” in the Northeast. This statement subtly implies that Boston College had more of an influence on conference realignment than Duke, which would be surprising to say the least. I do agree that TV contracts are at the center of everything, but the Northeast brings far more basketball fans than football fans (regardless of school). More interesting is the claim that the shift had more to do with football than basketball, as neither Pitt or Syracuse offers much consistency on the gridiron, but both are national basketball powers. All of these factors lead me to question DeFilippo’s recount of the events. That is not to say that he is lying, just exaggerating a little around the edges.

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences and a frequent contributor.

With this weekend’s out-of-the-blue bombshell that Pittsburgh and Syracuse were leaving the Big East behind in order to accept membership in the ACC, the wave of conference realignment that is sweeping the nation has reached critical mass. Even with last year’s moves turning the Pac-10 into the Pac-12, adding a twelfth team to the Big Ten (among other things), and this summer’s talk of Texas A&M bolting for the SEC, there was still a chance that all of this would settle down and we’d be looking at a conference landscape that mostly looked pretty similar. No more. While the Big 12 has been on a death watch for weeks now, all of a sudden the Big East has jumped its place in line and the conference is scrambling to maintain some sense of order while its member institutions look for soft landing spots.  And with A&M to the SEC seemingly an inevitability, and with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State at least (if not Texas and Texas Tech as well) likely headed to the Pac-(fill-in-your-choice-of-numbers-here), the era of superconferences appears to be upon us. So, before things change again, let’s take a quick look around the nation at the conferences as they stand today, how they could change tomorrow and how that will effectively alter the college basketball landscape.

courtesy: The Football God

Big East

Today: TCU joins the conference next season (although apparently TCU and the Mountain West have had a conversation or two in recent days about how good they had things before the Big East got in the way), with Pittsburgh and Syracuse as of now bound to the conference for this year and the next two (with buyout negotiations likely still to be considered), putting the league at 17 basketball teams (nine in football) for 2012-13 and 2013-14, then down to 15 (seven in football) starting in 2014-15.

Tomorrow: Those numbers above are assuming that the ACC doesn’t snap up Connecticut and Rutgers (the two most mentioned names) and West Virginia isn’t able to find safe refuge as the 14^th member of the SEC. In short, football in the Big East is in severe trouble, as are some of the historic rivalries in one of the nation’s premier college basketball conferences. If the ACC picks off a couple more Big East football programs, the conference has to start over more or less from scratch, with Louisville, South Florida and Cincinnati left scrambling for a home. If there is a way for the Big East to stave off football extinction, it is likely at the hands of the death of the Big 12. If Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech take up with the Pacific Coast, maybe the Big East snaps up Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Missouri, and can carry on as a (hopefully) rebranded league.

Basketball: Nevertheless, there could still be a strong basketball conference here, regardless of what happens to Big East football. If Georgetown, Villanova, St. John’s, Marquette, Seton Hall, Providence, DePaul, and Notre Dame want, they could maintain a pretty solid eight-team conference among themselves, (provided ND isn’t somehow pressured into joining the Big Ten), or even snap up a handful of teams from the Atlantic 10 (Xavier, Dayton, St. Joseph’s, etc.) and carry on that way. Still, while hoops fans can console themselves with the prospect of North Carolina, Syracuse, Duke and Pittsburgh matching up with each other on Semifinal Saturday of the ACC Tournament, the sad fact is that the spectacle that is the Big East Tournament at the Garden is about to take a major hit.

ACC

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John Swofford must feel like the prettiest girl in school on this glorious Monday.  Not only did he receive a huge heap of slobbering attention from two of the more attractive gents in his class over the weekend (Mr. Pittsburgh and Mr. Syracuse), but like any good future Junior Leaguer, he’s letting everyone in the hallways know that he has numerous other options.  On Sunday during the announcement of two more Big East schools joining the ACC, Swofford alluded to the fact that a “double-digit” number of universities had already submitted applications to the ACC.  It’s a widely known secret that one of those applications hails from Storrs, Connecticut, but news released today begins to unravel who those other schools might be.  Would you be surprised if one of them doesn’t even have a major football program?  You shouldn’t:

Villanova is Confirmed as Another ACC Applicant (A. Lyons/Getty)

ACC Commissioner John Swofford said during a teleconference Sunday the league received more than 10 applications from schools hoping to join the league. Orlando Sentinel sources confirmed multiple Big East members applied to join the league, including Villanova.

That’s right.  The rats are all fleeing the sinking ship known as the Big East Conference, and even schools with no FBS (I-A) football programs are taking their shots.  VU, coming off a national semifinalist season in 2010,  has an excellent FCS (I-AA) football program, but it would seem a major leap of faith on the part of any BCS-level conference to pull a burgeoning program out of its hat when there are so many others already established.  Still, it clearly shows that schools are scrambling for anything right now, fearful of being relegated to the also-ran conferences that will weigh down the entire school’s reputation and cachet throughout the collegiate sporting landscape.

So who else might have sent its application into 4512 Weybridge Lane in Greensboro over the last 72 hours?  Let’s play speculation theater:

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In a conference realignment move that can only fairly be described as pre-emptive, expeditious, and quite possibly transcendent, the ACC is reportedly on the verge of adding Big East stalwarts Syracuse and Pittsburgh to its existing 12-team configuration. According to published reports, a vote by the league presidents could come as soon as Sunday, and CBSSports.com’s Gary Parrish tweeted earlier today that his source stated that the move is “done.” This is simply a phenomenal turn of events in a realignment summer that has focused almost exclusively on the Big 12 and whether its Texas schools might end up moving west, east, or sticking where they are. The transition will bring two of the top 15 or 20 national college basketball programs into the league while simultaneously forcing the blindsided Big East to scramble for its very existence.

Welcome to the ACC

We wrote last year that the ACC might best situate itself among conference masters of the universe by again connecting with its basketball roots. The league was built on the shoulders of bloody Tobacco Road battles among Frank McGuire at North Carolina, Everett Case at NC State, Vic Bubas at Duke, and Bones McKinney at Wake Forest when the schools were all located within a stone’s throw of each other (Wake has since moved 80 miles west). Roundball was the essence of the ACC long before football television dollars started driving otherwise rational folks to do crazy things.

If you talk to longtime ACC fans, those who were around for the 8-team configuration through most of its history, there’s a general sentiment that the league lost its soul when it expanded for football, first in 1991 with Florida State, later with Miami (FL) and Virginia Tech in 2004, and Boston College in 2005. And although nobody can quite put their finger on it as to why or how, there’s a corresponding feeling that somehow, someway, the expansion also hurt the quality of basketball played in the league. During the 1980s and 1990s, there was no question among basketball faithful nationwide that the ACC consistently played the highest quality basketball of any league in America. Not only were programs like Duke and North Carolina dominant (as they are now), but there was a verifiable depth of quality programs to support the notion.

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Gerry Floyd is a longtime ACC fan and guest poster who feels strongly that the conference needs to get back to its roots in the next wave of expansion mania.

With the seemingly constant banter about the Big 10’s imminent conference expansion, Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford has said that he will not be `the aggressor’ during a summer in which potential moves will forever change the landscape of college athletics.  This is a big mistake.  Swofford needs to step up and take expansion by the horns.  With the potential of conference realignment looming from coast to coast, it only makes sense for the ACC to be proactive with these changes.  But instead of letting football dollars guide the decision-making, Swofford has a golden opportunity to come at the inevitable from a different perspective and instead alter the college basketball landscape for the better.

Commissioner Swofford Should Be Proactive Here

It is understandable that the driving force behind every conference expansion is football, and rightfully so.  College football brings in huge amounts of revenue that are not only used for athletic purposes but also for academic research opportunities at those universities.  This is very important for every ACC member institution and it makes sense that they should try to harness as much revenue as they can so their institutions can flourish.  But instead of focusing on expanding (or not expanding) for college football why not take a different approach to the usual football expansion?  To do this, the ACC must step back and take a look at the ACC’s overall product.  The conference’s primary business advantage over every other conference in America is its rich basketball tradition that includes a high level of competitiveness, passionate basketball fanbases and a strong presence in the national media regarding the sport.  Ask anyone in California or Michigan the first thing they think of when hearing “ACC,” and the immediate response will be “basketball.”   Therefore, instead of scouring for leftover football revenue in an oversaturated football market, the ACC should stay true to its roots and take a stranglehold on the college basketball market.

Every conference wants to be considered foremost a ‘football conference’ because of the amount of money that the sport brings in, and the expansion of the ACC in 2003 to include Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami (FL) was a brilliant maneuver that brought the ACC a football conference championship and all the revenue that goes with it.  But the truth is the ACC is in its best year the fourth or fifth strongest BCS football conference in America and expansion isn’t likely to change that fact (the Big Ten, SEC and Big 12/Pac-10 hybrids would likely get stronger).  Since 2003, the league has only won one of its BCS bowls (Virginia Tech over Cincinnati in 2008), and the last four BCS bowls with the lowest television ratings all featured an ACC team.   On the other hand, in the seven years since expansion the ACC has had three national basketball championships and six Final Four appearances.  Business as usual on the hardwood.

The ACC has long represented the essence of college basketball; it is the conference filled with thoroughbred athletes and teams that every other league still measures itself by annually.  But since the latest football expansion the league has lost some of that advantage.  The ACC Tournament was once the “hottest ticket” in the country, but now the tournament is just another ticket before the NCAA Tournament begins a week later.  This could be due to Duke’s tournament dominance over the past decade, or (more likely) the front office in Greensboro turning its back on the one sport that makes the ACC marketable.  The goal of the ACC should not be to pressure football into a basketball-rich conference but to expand on its quality attributes in college basketball.  Any expansion should be done to enhance the ACC’s overall television market, seeking to improve its college basketball image and competitiveness without losing any revenue or market share in college football. Excellent basketball gears are necessary to have a series of successful basketball games which helps to maintain a good basketball image.

See, There’s a Divison Right There

Please understand that the next proposal is not suggesting that the ACC should expand before the Big 10, but the league should be open to expansion ideas and proactive in considering conference realignments.  By sitting back and waiting, the ACC as we know it runs the risk of either become irrelevant or extinct.  Assuming the Big Ten doesn’t, the ACC should therefore extend invitations to West Virginia, Syracuse, Connecticut and Pittsburgh (Louisville would also be another viable candidate).  By adding these four teams the ACC will finally gain much of the New England television market that Boston College was unsuccessful in delivering.  With a sixteen-team league that stretches up and down the entire eastern seaboard (and the tens of millions of people living in that footprint), an opportunity would arise for the ACC to pursue a television network much like the Big Ten Network.  Most importantly from a brand perspective, this type of expansion would provide growth in the level of basketball competition while suffering little to no decline in football competition.

After expansion the sixteen institutions should be separated into two divisions (North & South) and four subdivisions (for example:  North Atlantic, North Coastal, South Atlantic, and South Coastal):

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