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It’s time for the ACC to stop blowing its hoops horn.
If Duke goes on to become the first ACC men’s basketball team to finish 20-0, it will be because the Blue Devils are really good AND the rest of the conference is pretty bad by historical comparison.
The ACC Network runs a promotion continuously during game broadcasts that boasts of having the premier basketball league in the country. Did they take that out of mothballs from 20 years ago?
Recently, veteran sportswriter Brett Friedlander could no longer defend the ACC for being better than critics crow. After all, Carolina won the regular season by sweeping Duke in 2024. And N.C. State put on its Cinderella shoes and reached the Final Four for the first time in 40-plus years that began by winning five games at the ACC Tournament.
The No. 2 seed Blue Devils, under second-year coach Jon Scheyer, went out in the quarterfinals to the 10th-seeded Wolfpack. Top-seeded UNC, in its third game, lost to State, which won its first conference championship since 1987. Both blue bloods went out to lower-seeded teams in the NCAA Tourney.
We long for those days, my friend, we thought they’d never end.
The coaches were future hall of famers Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski, flamboyant Lefty Driesell and Norm Sloan, Bobby Cremins, Terry Holland and the two Bill Fosters, plus other colorful characters before them and into the early 21th Century.
From 1988 to 2002, the ACC sent at least one team to the Final Four every year (two in 1990 and 1991) and produced eight national champions. But in recent years, the ACC has lost its gravitas and is now rated below the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East.
Duke and Louisville are the two power programs to this point, and who knows how much the rest of the conference has lifted them up. Some schools have hired former players or assistant coaches like Duke and Carolina and others have gone “outside the family.”
Scheyer had a rocky first two years but has continued to recruit at a high level and will go into the NCAA Tournament as one of the favorites to cut down the nets in San Antonio. Hubert Davis has reached the Final Four and won an ACC regular season title in his first three years but is back in hot water like 2023, when his preseason No. 1 team, embarrassingly, did not make it to the Big Dance. How many will go this season?
Sure, the transfer portal and NIL have changed all college sports. Some schools have been slower to adjust than others. Duke is private and does not go public with anything. Davis and UNC kept recruiting on brand and tradition but just now has begun bidding for the kind of big men who would have helped the Tar Heels from struggling mightily this season.
The 18-team ACC can continue promoting itself in such a laughable way. Except we’re not laughing.
Featured image via Associated Press/Alex Brandon
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
I read this morning that ESPN has decided to exercise its option to broadcast ACC games until, 2036. I am assuming that there is no more money. So how exactly does this benefit the ACC? The ACC will fall further behind the BIG10 and the SEC, which renegotiate their ESPN contracts on 2031.