Elliott Avent on the ACC: 'This league is as good as it's ever been top to bottom'

NC State‘s baseball season came to an end on Monday after suffering their second loss in the College World Series, defeated by Florida in a narrow 5-4 game that featured just 10 hits between both teams.

The Wolfpack were one of four ACC teams to make it to Omaha this year, joined by four SEC squads as well to round out the entire tournament field. And with NC State head coach Elliott Avent being at the helm since 1997 and new teams joining the conference next season, he was asked about the strength of the league overall following Monday’s elimination game loss.

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“I’ve been in this league for a long time,” Avent said. “I think I was in it when it was an eight-team conference — I know it was a nine-team conference, I know that. To see it grow and see all those teams come in, how they’ve gotten better, from Boston College to Pitt, to all these teams that come in, they just keep getting better and better.”

An ACC program is yet to defeat any SEC teams so far in the College World Series, but it’s still been an impressive postseason for the Atlantic Coast with eight teams making it to Regionals and five of those teams hosting. Showing off the depth of the league ahead of a season where SMU, Cal, and Stanford will enter the mix moving forward.

“I don’t try to use exaggerated words like ‘best’ and ‘most’, and everything is in recent memory, but this league is as good as it’s ever been top to bottom, and next year when you add a couple more teams to that, it just keeps getting better and better,” Avent explained. “So I don’t try to compare leagues. I’ve been in a few leagues, they’re all good, and it’s hard to win. Everybody tries to win and it’s hard.”

“But obviously this is one of the top conferences in the country. I think this weekend is certainly, if there were any doubters of that, have shown that, and there’s a lot of talented players in this league, certainly.”

There are currently six prospects from the ACC ranked within the top 20 of MLB.com’s prospect rankings ahead of the 2024 MLB Draft. Three of which can be seen on Tuesday with Cam Smith, James Tibbs, and Vance Honeycutt suiting up in Florida State and North Carolina‘s elimination game in Omaha starting at noon ET.