Photo by Todd Melet

Oh, my. The ACC goes 0-for-9 in getting to the Final Four.

I guess ACC basketball was overrated this season, if nine schools placed teams into the NCAA tournament and now the Final Four goes off without any of them for the first time since 2014. Seems O-for-9 is hard to do, but not so much when Virginia — the top-seeded team in the entire Big Dance — made history by being the first No. 1 to lose to a 16-seed. Ditto for Miami, Virginia Tech and N.C. State going out in the first round, as well.

The second-seeded Tar Heels didn’t help by shooting horribly against Texas A&M, which turned out to be a matchup nightmare for them, to get routed in the second round at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte.

Although four ACC teams reached the Sweet Sixteen, Clemson and Syracuse were surprises to get that far, and Florida State was more than a surprise to make the South Regional Final before losing to Michigan. By the time Sunday arrived, Duke was the only ACC team standing, and the hard-luck Blue Devils lost the best game of the entire tourney so far when Grayson Allen’s winner rolled off the rim and Kansas survived in overtime.

The ACC went four straight years without a team in the Final Four, 2011 to 2014. Louisville made it twice in that span and Syracuse once, but both schools were in different conferences back them. That four-year drought, amazingly, was the longest since the 1950s, when only one team per league went dancing.

So the ACC will get some well-deserved grief in the off-season, especially from Big Ten fans who still have Michigan alive after getting only four bids. Had Carolina shot better against the Aggies, who were complete dogs in the Sweet Sixteen, the Heels would have had a great chance to beat Michigan and FSU in LA to make it a third straight year.

The best teams don’t survive a bad game, and even those that play well every time out – like Duke – don’t always make it. The Blue Devils’ defeat underscored how hard it is to advance that far and win it all with a bunch of one-and-dones. I know they did it in 2015, but that was a great team whose path was made easier by their draw and undefeated Kentucky’s loss to Wisconsin, which frittered away a nine-point lead to Duke in the second half of the title game.

Oh, well. As some coaches say, wait ‘till next season.

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