ACC Implosion Now Almost Complete

08-09 Basketball Stat of the Day61

Only Ty Lawson’s toe (why won’t the announcers ever mention it?) and Tyler Hansbrough’s will stand in the way of complete conference humilation, after Villanova’s 77-54 curb stomping of Duke tonight. This game was not as close as the final score indicated. It was like the Magic Johnson-era Lakers against a 12-and-under team from the local YMCA.

Nice punk move by Elliott Williams to steal the ball with 2 seconds left, and Nova showing mercy. I’m sure Greivous Vasquez would be proud. Shithead. Uh, yeah.

I think the Big East might have been a hair better than the ACC this year after all. My apologies for my assertions otherwise earlier in the season.

I was thinking about all of the ACC losses, and it’s really even worse than it first seems. Please note the following: – Clemson loses to Michigan. Wolverines bow out the next round. – USC annihilates Boston College. Trojans lose 2 days later. – Wake Forest completely shits the bed against Cleveland State. Arizona dispatches the Vikings with ease in Round 2. – Wisconsin edges an unprepared, energy-free Florida State squad. Yep, the Badgers are quickly sent home by Xavier. – After notching the ACC’s only win as a lower-seeded team, Maryland gets killed by Memphis. The Tigers get run out of the gym by Mizzou in Round 3.

That’s right, not only is the ACC 5-6 in the big dance, but teams knocking ACC squads out of the NCAA tourney have also yet to win a single game afterwards. 0-5, pending Villanova’s date with Pittsburgh on Saturday. That’s some kind of suckage.

About BJD95

1995 NC State graduate, sufferer of Les and MOC during my entire student tenure. An equal-opportunity objective critic and analyst of Wolfpack sports.

08-09 Basketball Stat of the Day

61 Responses to ACC Implosion Now Almost Complete

  1. wufpup76 03/27/2009 at 9:57 AM #

    “Does anyone really think another upper-tier program will hire Gillespie, with his well-documented character and personality issues?”

    ^I would imagine A&M would take him back rather quickly, but whether you consider them upper-tier or not is up for debate I guess.

    Did you mean the “elite” programs – or just power conference schools in general?

  2. choppack1 03/27/2009 at 9:58 AM #

    LRM – Huggins and Eustachy were hired again. If his behavior has been brought on by alchololism, he can always stop drinking.

    I do think Gillespie gets another chance. Obviously, he’s just not a good fit at Kentucky at this point in his life. He did some pretty good things @ A&M pretty quickly. I imagine he was dealing w/ a very different type of athlete there though.

  3. CStanley 03/27/2009 at 10:30 AM #

    I had Carolina pegged as National Champion…not so sure anymore. They’ll likely have to run the Big East guantlet (with the exception of maybe Oklahoma if they survive Syracuse tonight).

  4. 66pack 03/27/2009 at 10:31 AM #

    UK should follow NCSU’S example and give coach at least 5 to 10 years.It is also obvious that the UK fans must be satisfied with the coach since the media is not being critical of the fans.

  5. JasonP 03/27/2009 at 10:42 AM #

    There’s not a team in the league that plays D like Nova did last night. They were extremely physical down low and played in whatever Duke player’s hip pocket on the perimeter.

    No one in the ACC is allowed to play like that against Duke or UNC. The players looked lost, and then started to throw tantrums, which is their MO when punched in the mouth. And Gerald Henderson is no Grant Hill.

    I know State will never do anything remotely proactive, but not going after Mike Anderson is a huge mistake. He’s approaching elite status right now. Missouri has been one of the most fun teams to watch this season.

  6. wolfmans brother. 03/27/2009 at 10:42 AM #

    I’m hearing that Billy G’s contract is not the issue. I honestly don’t know what is. Several of the major media outlets here have already had to retract their announcing of the firing.

  7. ryebread 03/27/2009 at 11:07 AM #

    This wasn’t at all surprising. I had only one ACC team advancing beyond the Sweet 16 in my bracket and that was UNC. I do however have them winning it all because they have the most talent of any team (notice I did not say they were the best or the best coached).

    For reference, I’m 4 out of 4 so far on the Elite 8 though I have some interesting picks (‘Cuse knocking off Oklahoma tonight for one). My final four was UNC, Pitt, Mizzou and Michigan St. Others on the blog can verify that my picks were actually those. 😉

    I posted this on State Fans a few days back, but I think it rings true in this discussion. It was on a thread of why the ACC has fallen off.

    1) Poor officiating: It’s drastically different in ACC league games versus NCAA tournament games. Duke and UNC stop getting the calls in the tournament and it suddenly becomes much tougher to win. The ACC is better when our top 2-3 teams are legit final four contenders. Duke has not been the last 2-3 seasons (though they look it based on their profile entering the tournament) but have been propped up to look like one.

    2) Decline of Maryland: Like them or not, they were a great third team for the conference to hang its hat on. We need Gary to get it back on track. I think he’ll need some staff changes (outside of Booth) to really make that happen.

    3) Youth: Early departures have hurt the ACC. While it didn’t happen last year, I think we’re seeing the collective impact of players leaving early. If you check out Pomeroy’s site and look at effective age, you’ll see that the ACC’s oldest team was Miami (shudder when you think how bad they’ll be without McClinton). There were 3 Big East teams this season that were older. Our next oldest team was UNC, but there were 51 teams older in Division 1. Think about the youth next year at Miami, FSU, Clemson, NC State, UNC and BC and I don’t see this getting better soon.

    4) Lack of top flight talent. Yes, we get quite a bit, but if you look at the McDonald’s All American game, you’ll see that a large percentage are going elsewhere. When have nots become haves in college basketball (e.g. Memphis, Washington, Oklahoma, Texas, etc.) it’s typically due to recruiting. When haves become have nots (e.g. NC State), then you can also point to recruiting.

    5) Lack of in season player development (coaching): The ACC has good talent. That’s why we rack up in the non-conference before the season starts. We can consistently beat the Big 10 in the ACC/Big 10 challenge and then lose to them in the tournament. Part of that is due to issue #1, but part of it is due to the fact that the players in the league (and thus the teams) really aren’t improving as the season goes. Watch teams like UCONN and you will see improvement. We have a league full of teams that are about as good at the end of the season as they are in the beginning.

    6) Which leads us to the biggest reason — coaching: Outside of K and Gary, there are no great in game coaches. Roy’s a system coach, albeit a very good one. Then there is a severe decline. Skinner, Greenburg and Purnell occupy the next tier and I’m sorry but they’d have been almost DFL in the ACC’s hey day (80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s). Haith, Dino, Latieto (fired) and Lowe had all NEVER been head coaches when they were hired. They’re all learning on the job — which isn’t good for the league. Then you have Hewitt and Hamilton — two guys that win just enough not to get fired. That’s not exactly a league full of coaches to fear. Compare that with 5 years ago and you will see that almost every one of these schools has a coach with less experience than they did then.

    7) Big East hype by ESPN. As a conference, we used to get a lot of our good players from the Northeast. Now due to the hype that the Big East is getting (and has earned this season in the NCAA tournament), we’re not getting them. Until we start winning more on the court, expect this to worsen.

    Most of this gets fixed though if the coaching improves. Sadly, it will be another 3-4 years before that happens. For the sake of the league, I hope that UVA gets Tubby and marks an upward trend in coaching.

  8. MrPlywood 03/27/2009 at 7:58 PM #

    Wow – some serious blow-outs in the first two games tonight. What happened to Syracuse?

  9. TheCOWDOG 03/27/2009 at 8:07 PM #

    “What happened to Syracuse?”

    Someone attacked a zone.

    Helps to have the player of the year on a mission too.

  10. Wulfpack 03/27/2009 at 8:14 PM #

    Ryebread, great synopsis and I’m right with you on the coaching front. Just a minor correction — Leitao was the head coach at Depaul and Dino was at Army I believe.

    I disagree on the officiating part. The theory still does not explain why the teams outside of Duke and UNC don’t fare better outside of the conference. And the officiating is much worse in other leagues.

1 2 3

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Glenwood Agency » March 27 Downtown Raleigh News and Events - 04/08/2009

    39vZo0 Im thankful for the article.Really thank you! Cool.

Leave a Reply