The ACC, with three national titles since 2015, three Final Four spots in the last two postseasons, is the NET’s fourth-rated conference, may only get three (!) teams into the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
At best, we’ll get six – the same as the Mountain West, in the latest bracket projections.
The Mountain West – ranked seventh in the NET conference power rankings.
The pedigree there: San Diego State made the Final Four last year.
That’s it.
Yeah, this all makes sense.
“There was a time when the ACC was, it would get so many teams, it was dominant, and I said there was an ACC bias. And then it feels like it’s kind of shifted, and maybe it hasn’t gotten as many teams in as some of the other conferences,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett told reporters on his weekly ACC teleconference call on Monday.
Bennett’s team (21-9, 12-7 ACC) is one of the three from the ACC on the NCAA Tournament bubble right now.
UVA’s average computer ranking is 47.6, which would translate to, outside looking in.
Wake Forest (18-11, 10-8 ACC) is at 43.0, which settles into the 10/11 seed line area.
Pitt (19-10, 10-8 ACC) is at 48.5, down there with Virginia, in the outside-looking-in area.
For what it’s worth, and it’s probably not a lot, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Virginia and Wake among his Last Four In – and actually, at this writing, the last two in his Last Four In.
Pitt, per Lunardi, is, right now, his sixth team on the outside.
Three ACC schools are solid – North Carolina (23-6, 15-3 ACC), Duke (24-6, 15-4 ACC) and Clemson (20-9, 10-8 ACC).
There’s been a lot of talk and written words on certain conferences (looking at you, Big 12) gaming the computers by actually scheduling weak in the non-conference part of the year, in November and December.
That might seem counterintuitive, but the Big 12 has the lowest-ranked non-conference strength of schedule among the 32 D1 conferences, and is still somehow projected to get as many as nine NCAA Tournament bids.
“I think, you know, again, there is no exact formula, even though we try to quantify everything, but I hope past performances in the NCAA Tournament has helped the quality of the league, and not just falling in love with one metric that determines who should go in,” Bennett said on Monday.
“You look at some of the head-to-head matchups with the Big 10, Big 12, how our league fared, and, you know, it’d be a challenge this year more than other years for the selection committee with all the teams and the quality of it,” Bennett said.
This is, of course, all just fodder for discussion.
There are still 12 days until Selection Sunday, with regular-season and conference-tournament games remaining to be played.
Just win games, right?
“This league is competitive enough where it should be a multiple-bid league, and it’s shown that it’s done well when it’s gotten those teams in, whether it’s a few or a lot,” Bennett said, acting in his role as the sorta, kinda elder statesman of the ACC, now that Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim and Roy Williams are on the other side of the lines now.
“There’s not a huge discrepancy between leagues, and it’s shown, I think, in head-to-head play, and other things,” Bennett said. “And I think I mentioned, Brad Brownell brought the point up about the NET, and there was something on the Scott Van Pelt show, and I hope again, that the committee, OK, that’s out there, now take a look at this, alright, let’s look at how, maybe, people, you know, just let’s look at the whole thing, and let’s respect the ACC, let’s respect all these, let’s not overrespect them, and have a clear view of it, and get the right teams in there who deserve to be in there.”
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Chris Graham
