If you’ve followed Joe Lunardi’s bracketology on ESPN over the 2023-24 college basketball season, you know he wasn’t high on the Atlantic Coast Conference. He consistently had ACC teams on the bubble and at one point it was a two-bid league for Lunardi.
Counting Virginia, which was in the First Four, and NC State, which won the ACC Tournament, to punch their tickets, the conference received five bids. Now, it has 25% of the the Sweet 16.
The conference went 8-1 if you count the First Four game and 8-0 if you only count the opening weekend. That’s pretty damn good, and ACC fans are speaking out.
So is Lunardi, who talked about the ACC in his latest for ESPN:
“Allow me a word — several, actually — on the ACC. Fans of the conference consistently — and correctly — countered my season-long description of its decline by insisting the league would be just fine when it mattered most. And, once again, a conference ranking fifth, fifth, seventh and fifth since the pandemic has been more than fine in the NCAA tournament. An 8-1 record through the first weekend can only be commended. Going forward, it remains to be seen if the conference will make the necessary scheduling adjustments to counter the continued weakening that’s coming in the form of Stanford, Cal and SMU. Further, the league’s four Sweet 16 entries have no connection to the pre-tourney résumés of Pittsburgh or Wake Forest. By that logic, Pitt and Wake should be double-dinged by Virginia. Thankfully, it doesn’t work that way.”
That’s not Lunardi admitting he’s wrong. He probably wasn’t going to do that anyway as he brought up where the league has ranked in college basketball since the pandemic.
But he points out how consistently good the conference has been when it matters the most: the NCAA Tournament.
So while the Mountain West continues to get the attention of experts, it will have their one team in the Sweet 16 as the ACC looks to put four teams in the Elite Eight this weekend.
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