ACC Basketball

Pac-10 Basketball is the best in the nation this year. The season was absolutely amazing. There are great coaches and outstanding teams who are set for a deep run in the NCAA tournament. I have heard scoffs and guffaws from my vocal ACC Basketball Myopians. I have been similarly accused but these East Coasters are biased and unrelenting. I am left little choice but to unleash The Hounds of the Yard.

I could go hard to hole with easy targets like Durham dental work, 2nd Cousins and banjos on the front porch but this is a more sophisticated site. Regardless, listen you eight tooth hillbillies, the west is the best! This is the year and the tide is changing. The Pac-10 plays a better brand of basketball, the great players are staying in the west and we always had better cheer leaders. We also have fall sports. ACC Football is a short discussion and the Duke People want to change the subject to Lacrosse.

Yes my ACC loyalists, football is not in your value proposition. I am not sure SAT scores are either, outside of Duke. It is all about basketball on tobacco road, the Academy school kids are ok and graduation rates are what they are. It is about Michael Jordan, Ralph Sampson, and Juan Dixon. The Duke and North Carolina game was on prime time on Saturday night. North Carolina is ranked #1 and the Atlantic Coast Conference is as substantive as it has been since John Wooden retired in 1975.

The ACC has a solid history and his MJ-ness to call all their own. ACC basketball history may be rich but it is all about the last 29 years when the ESPN history continuum blossomed with the ACC Basketball. It was a seminal moment for both organizations. Since the inception of ESPN in 1979, all sports have more visibility but college basketball has possibly benefited the most. While basketball came of age on television, it was the triumph for the east and gradual glacial slip into mediocrity in the west. This is the factual part as best we do at the Yard with our limited research grants.

And it was great tool for recruiting for the ACC. It was not just great talent leaving the west to play in the east. These kids looked at the Midwest and the south on their way to Charlotte. And the talent in the east never looked west and still does not. The ACC won 8 of their 11 NCAA basketball championships since 1982. UNC won their first real championship in 1982. Jim Valvano's NC State's victory in 1983 over heavily favored Houston is still one of the biggest upsets in tournament history and the most beloved.

Quietly, John Wooden won ten NCAA basketball championships before 1976. None of these games were televised live to the nation on prime time. Doug Gottlieb did not analyze his every move seven times a day. His teams never had to win more than five tournament games and never played outside the west until the Final Four.

He did have to win the Pac-8 for 19 consecutive years to qualify for the tournament. His teams never played Belmont or Iowa Southern in the first round. Every game was a quality team and UCLA won 38 consecutive tournament games. It is amazing to think that for over seven years UCLA never lost a game in a “lose and go home” format. Did you see the Minnesota-Indiana game last night. Shitake happens to the best teams at the wrong time. The Wooden coached Bruins beat them all for seven years. JR, God Speed on your recovery!

UCLA’s greatness probably hurt the rest of the Pac-10 for a generation. The 1971-72 USC team had a 24-2 team that included NBA All-stars Gus Williams and Paul Westphal among others. The only games that they lost were to UCLA and were ranked as high as #2. They did not get into the dance that year. Quality athletes left for the east gradually and then monumentally. Dean Smith, Roy Williams and Mike Krezewski recruited in Los Angeles because they could. The kids did not always come but they did not stay in LA and the ACC did very well.

ACC nut, you can not argue the greatness of Wooden and I can not argue the ACC greatness of the last 25 years. But we are not living with Nehru Jackets or cars on cinder blocks either. So, let me break it down the best I can with my two interns, my lap top and the limited objectivity I can muster.

The Pacific Ten has probably six teams in the dance: UCLA, Stanford, USC, WSU, Oregon, and ASU or Washington. In the Pac-10, every team plays every other team both at home and on the road. No team can hide and even woeful Oregon State plays hard every night. The teams play every Thursday and Saturday. Teams travel to Spokane and then need to be in Seattle 48 hours later; The teams fly to Tucson and then bus to Phoenix a day later.

The ACC teams play on Wednesday and Saturday. All of the teams do not play the same schedule. Most of the real games are played within a short commute and their fans travel. Jack Daniels, chaw, and the Family Cruiser, can you spell road trip? Well, maybe not but grab the 12 pack and the bologna. These are rugged, road tested fans who support their teams rabidly and there is maybe a 10% chance that some ACC fans actually are rabid. Another cheap shot but if you ever get bit by a Tar Heel, are you telling me that you are not getting the shots?! I think not.

Last Saturday night, Duke vs. UNC got national attention and it was a great game. Those teams are quality but the bottom half of the ACC is not even going to make the NIT tournament. The Pac-10 is tough every week. The 9th place team in the Pac-10 is Cal. They have beaten Nevada, Southern Miss and USC. Ryan Anderson and Pat Christopher will play in the NBA. That is the 9th place team! They could win a tournament game given the chance.

After Easter Weekend, UCLA, Stanford and USC will still be playing and possibly WSU. The ACC will have Duke and North Carolina slugging it out in Charlotte. One of them will be the first ACC representative in the Final Four in two years. Neither will win.

The Tar Heels are limited offensively. If Tyler Hansbrough can not find his game and Ty Law is shut down, it is double over time and hand wringing. Hansbrough is a nice player but he has as much upside as Cherokee Parks or Eric Montross. He was on the 3/10/08 SI cover, done! I like Roy Williams and he is a good coach. He whines too much. Ty Law would be Conference Honorable mention in the Pac-10.

Duke is a perimeter team whom I detest but not because they are a perimeter team. No it is because they are Duke. UNC knuckleheads, you get that, right? They have few low post options and there will be major Blue Devil basketball tears by March 30. The white kids always seem to be the crybaby’s and Duke has more than some. And I would challenge you to find a mouth smaller than Coach K-eye exam’s? Next time you see him on ESPN, zero in on that pie hole, you will never look away and try to find his lips. That is so very shallow but basketball is not that deep. The three’s will not be falling and the Blue Devils will not be in Texas.

Clemson is the sleeper and they could be the only ACC team still playing after Easter. They played Duke and UNC tough all season and they have nothing to lose. They are not going to be playing in the east so it could be a tough road for the Tigers. I like the Orange Paw.

Kevin Love, Brook Lopez, O.J. Mayo, James Harden, and Ryan Anderson are First Team All Pac-10. Every one of them would be First Team All-ACC except Ryan Anderson. Tyler Hansbrough would eek him out and would also be first team all nose bleed. Jerryd Bayless of U of A would be second team with UCLA’s Darren Collison. UNC’s Ty Law would be the first ACC guard coming off the bench in this reality league.

I think the Big East may be better than either conference. I like Georgetown and Louisville. But the Pac-10 is locked and loaded. ACC fan, while mining the change in the sofa to pay the cable bill, avoid the wet spot and make sure the batteries in the remote are fresh. Then park your butt, you have games in April to watch that your teams will not be playing.