Selection Sunday Brings Unusual Mix To ACC, UNC, Wake Forest, Others
By David Glenn
When the Atlantic Coast Conference had only seven, eight or nine member schools, which was the case for the first half-century or so of its existence, getting five teams into the NCAA Tournament was a very good number in every way.
Given that the NCAA Tournament’s financial payouts are based directly on how many bids a conference gets and how many victories those teams post in the big bracket, the money has worked out quite nicely, too, as the Big Dance has evolved into a mega-million-dollar event.
Now that the league divides that annual check 15 ways, of course, the math doesn’t work quite as well if there are still “only” five NCAA bids, as is the case this year. Previously, as a 15-team league, the ACC had averaged between seven and eight participants per season.
Congratulations are in order for Duke (#2 seed in the West), UNC (#8 in the East), Miami (#10 in the Midwest), Notre Dame (#11 in the West) and first-time ACC champion Virginia Tech (#11 in the East). In a sport whose ultimate litmus test comes down to participation and success during March Madness, they each get at least one more opportunity to strut their stuff, while 10 other ACC teams either continue their seasons in a lesser tournament or not at all.
Starting in 1980 (see chart), when for the first time there was no NCAA Tournament limit on the number of participants per conference, through 2013, the ACC’s final season with 12 members, the conference averaged approximately five Big Dance participants per year.
More recently, as a 15-team league, ACC officials had seen the larger numbers they hoped the latest round of expansion would bring: a league-record nine bids (60% of the league!) in both 2017 and 2018, seven in 2016, 2019 and 2021.
This year, in the aftermath of one of the weakest regular seasons in modern ACC history, the league will enter the NCAA Tournament with a very low profile compared to its usual standards.
For the first time since the NCAA started seeding the field, in 1979, the ACC has only a single top-four seed. (More than 90% of NCAA champions from 1979-2021 came from top-four seeds.) For the first time as a 15-team conference, the ACC has only five NCAA Tournament bids.
Looking ahead, none of this prevents the ACC from working its usual March Madness magic. (After all, it is the league whose current members have won six of the last 12 NCAA titles.) As things stand, though, this is one of the least impressive seasons in modern ACC history.
Click here for a chart breaking down tournament bids/seeds from 1980 to this season.
UNC Receives Lowest Seed Ever: Hubert Davis’ first season as UNC’s head coach ended up being both one of the Tar Heels’ most serious flirtations ever with the NCAA Tournament “bubble” and one of the lowest seeds the program has received in its 52 all-time trips to the Big Dance.
Carolina’s first 12 NCAA Tournament visits, starting in 1941, came before the event’s organizers began seeding the field. The Heels’ next 40 bids, after that change in 1979, came with the following frequencies: #1 seed (17 times), #2 (9), #3 (4), #4 (2), #6 (3), #8 (5). This year’s #8 ties the lowest seed in program history.
Among the four other lowest-seeded UNC teams, two made the Sweet 16, and one of those advanced to the national semifinals. Legendary UNC coach Dean Smith led the lowest-seeded team of his career, a #8 seed in 1990, to the Sweet 16. Smith’s long-time assistant, Bill Guthridge, led the #8 seed Tar Heels all the way to the Final Four in 2000.
The lowest-seeded team ever to win the NCAA championship was #8 seed Villanova in 1985. The lowest-seeded teams ever to reach the Final Four were #11 seeds: LSU (1986), George Mason (2006), VCU (2011), Loyola-Chicago (2018) and UCLA (2021). In 2016, Syracuse became the first/only #10 seed to reach the national semifinals.
Wake Forest Oddity: Since the NCAA Tournament lifted its one-team-per-conference limit after the 1974 event, then its two-teams-per-conference ceiling after the 1979 bracket, there has never been a season in which the ACC Player of the Year and ACC Coach of the Year both missed the Big Dance … until now.
Since 1980, with the exception of the COVID-cancelled 2020 postseason, only two ACC players of the year didn’t play in the NCAA Tournament during the season in which they received that honor: Virginia Tech’s Erick Green (2013) and now Wake Forest’s Alondes Williams (2022).
The 2013 example came with an asterisk, as Green (the media’s pick, from a last-place team) shared the POY honor with Miami’s Shane Larkin (the coaches’ pick, from a first-place team), whose Hurricanes then won the ACC title, made the Sweet 16 and finished with a top-10 national ranking. Williams, who is poised to become the first player in history to lead the ACC in scoring and assists, beat out UNC center Armando Bacot, my pick for the 2022 honor, 41-31 in the official balloting.
Since 1980, again excepting 2020, only five ACC coaches of the year didn’t participate in the NCAA Tournament during the season in which they received that honor: Georgia Tech’s Bobby Cremins (1983), Virginia Tech’s Seth Greenberg (2005 and 2008), Georgia Tech’s Josh Pastner (2017) and now Wake Forest’s Steve Forbes (2022).
The votes for Cremins (13-15, 4-10 ACC, sixth place in an eight-team ACC) and Pastner (21-16, 8-10 ACC, 11th place in a 15-team ACC) entirely reflected many media voters’ tunnel vision toward outperforming their own extremely low preseason expectations. The teams of Greenberg and Forbes were on the NCAA “bubble” at the time ballots were due (the final Sunday of the regular season), then failed to upgrade their resumes at the ACC Tournament.
Heels Extend Longest ACC Streak: As strange as it might sound, given their nightmarish 2020 season (14-19), the Tar Heels will be making their 11th straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, extending by far the longest streak in the ACC. The 2020 event, again, was cancelled because of COVID-related complications.
ACC champion Virginia Tech is now the only other school with an active streak longer than one. The Hokies are making their fifth straight appearance.
The other three longest streaks among ACC programs ended this year. Virginia (7 straight NCAA Tournaments), Florida State (4) and Syracuse (3) departed the ACC Tournament with 19-13, 17-14 and 16-17 records, respectively.
March Sadness: The 2022 NCAA Tournament bracket extended the four longest March Madness droughts in the ACC.
Boston College, which participated in seven of nine NCAA Tournaments from 2001-09, hasn’t made the Big Dance since. The Eagles’ drought now stands at 13 years, followed by Pittsburgh (6), Wake Forest (5) and NC State (4).
Next Time: How to win your NCAA tournament bracket!
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
The founding editor and long-time owner of the ACC Sports Journal and ACCSports.com, he also has contributed to the Durham Herald-Sun, ESPN Radio, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Raycom Sports, SiriusXM and most recently The Athletic. From 1999-2020, he also hosted the David Glenn Show, which became the largest sports radio program in the history of the Carolinas, syndicated in more than 300 North Carolina cities and towns, plus parts of South Carolina and Virginia.
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