After all of the hype of the Big East and all of the talk about the record 11 teams awarded an NCAA bid, only two of the “nation’s best conference” were able to crawl into the sweet sixteen. Here is a break down of the sweet sixteen by conference:
Everyone was talking about the league all season long and its power in numbers, but now the conference has just two teams left standing following Notre Dame’s loss to Florida State. It could have been one if not for the fact that Marquette played Syracuse – and one of those Big East teams automatically advanced.
And for all of the chatter about what a down year it was for the ACC, the ACC puts the most teams of any conference in the Sweet 16. This makes the decision to leave Virginia Tech out of the tournament look even worse. And with NCSU and GT replacing their bottom of the barrel coaches, the ACC is only going to get better. So in a horribly down year for the ACC, they place 3 teams in the Sweet 16 when the Big East can only muster 2 in the most ballyhooed year I can ever remember. As the linked article says:
“For all the criticism that the ACC took this season, no one has more teams left standing. Duke, North Carolina and Florida State all moved on..”
