ACC tourney quarterfinals are on tap Thursday — but the product is flat

There once was an energy surrounding the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament that made the lineup of four elite-level games unrivaled.

Jay Bilas, the longtime ESPN analyst, hearkens to his playing days at Duke in the mid-1980s, remembering that as one thrilling game neared a climax, players for the next one would be bustling with anticipation in the arena tunnel. From one game to the next, there was no let-up; the electricity was palpable, unrelenting.

“In a way, it is better” than the Final Four appearance he made at Duke in 1986, Bilas told me in 2005, reminiscing about the ACC tournament’s elevated level of competition. “That was considered the gospel — winning the ACC tournament. … If nobody came to the games, it would still be the best thing going because of the teams.”

Fast-forward to 2022. As the quarterfinals tip off today in Brooklyn, scan the bracket. There is a scarcity of elite teams, and by scarcity, we mean one: Duke.

While league-wide success often is cyclical, even the not-so-distant glory days of 2019, when the ACC earned three No. 1 seeds, seem like a bygone relic. The Blue Devils clearly are poised to make a serious run at coach Mike Krzyzewski’s sixth national title. But who else? At best, the league could have four other teams — North Carolina, Miami, Wake Forest and Notre Dame — make the NCAAs and perhaps only three with the Demon Deacons’ damaging loss to Boston College on Wednesday. It’s possible an ACC team lands in the First Four in Dayton. It’s also likely that no conference team other than Duke is seeded better than eighth or ninth.

This is the same conference that produced national titles from three schools — Duke (2015), North Carolina (2017) and Virginia (2019) — over the past seven years and saw nine teams make the tournament as recently as 2018. But it’s hard to ignore that it seems a given the ACC will have fewer than six teams in the field for the first time since the league expanded to 15 in 2013-14.

Other than Duke, No. 25 North Carolina is the only other team ranked in the top 25. The only other team even receiving votes is Wake Forest (four). With Saturday’s victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Tar Heels look like a near NCAA lock at this point. But Miami and Notre Dame need to avoid another blemish on their already middling résumés if they want to avoid an anxious Selection Sunday. It’s too late for Wake Forest, which now finds itself squarely on the at-large cutline after its worst loss of the season against Boston College (NET ranking coming in: 160th). Steve Forbes’ team may need other bubble teams to lose early in their tournaments this weekend to sneak into the field.

The ACC and the bubble

In any event, if you venture to Barclays Center this week, mention the “B” word — bubble — at your own peril.

“It depends who is saying they are on the bubble. Whose bubble is it?” Paul Brazeau, the ACC’s senior associate commissioner for men’s basketball, told On3. “I haven’t heard any bubbles from the selection committee. The bubble? The bubble changes in front of who you’re talking to. … If you approach it like no one is a lock, try to win and let the chips fall where they may.”

The tournament may prove entertaining, it may prove dramatic. But to feel elements of the tournament’s tradition-rich history — predicated on duels between star-studded, highly ranked teams — fans may be better served watching the 10-part documentary “The Tournament” on the ACC Network on a loop. Before UNC’s victory at Duke, it looked like this ACC tournament would be more like a Duke Invitational, a clear path for the Blue Devils. While that’s not quite the case now, Duke remains the lone elite team.

“Duke this year is basically what Gonzaga was for a decade and a half: Sure, you’re good on paper, but look at all the chumps you played the last two and a half months,” NCAA analyst Patrick Stevens, whom the New York Times deemed the “esteemed bracket mad scientist,” told On3. 

To that point, the bottom of the ACC is not easy on the eyes. There’s a reason why the get-in ticket price for opening-round games was all of $3. As Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said in January, “You are who you are because of your non-league stuff. That’s what you’re fighting through.” At the time, Brey entertained the now-false notion that the ACC could be a one-bid league, saying, “We’re a one-bid league? It’s like the America East where we’re going to get one bid. You get what you earn. There’s no question about it.” 

How did the ACC get here? Like many conferences, it arguably is too bloated from football-driven expansion now that it stretches from Massachusetts to Miami. It also would be naive to think that the approaching coaching sunsets for several iconic names isn’t playing a role. Roy Williams retired last year. Krzyzewski’s retirement is mere weeks away. Meantime, Jim Boeheim (77), Leonard Hamilton (73) and Jim Larranaga (72) are likely in their final few professional years. While Krzyzewski’s final ACC tournament is a celebration of his remarkable career, it’s also a sobering reminder of how enormous a loss his departure will be for the league. 

The ACC is down, historically down. And there’s no guarantee it will markedly improve soon.

ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg, a former Virginia Tech coach, attributes the lack of depth in the ACC to a lack of success in recruiting, in NIL deals and with the transfer portal. He said that over the past six years, the SEC has had twice as many top-50 recruits as the ACC, and that both the SEC and Big 12 manage the transfer portal better.

“Basically, the sexiness of the ACC is not as sexy now that there are more schools that are investing at that level to compete for national championships,” Greenberg said on the “Paul Finebaum Show.” “Recruiting has dropped in that league . … Over the last three years: fourth-, fifth- and sixth-best conference in college basketball, according to kenpom.com. This isn’t a one-year thing.”

In the ACC footprint, which now extends far beyond Tobacco Road, that’s the concern. Those peak decades-old ACC tournament days seem like a distant memory, fit for a documentary.