It seems like whatever sport you talk about last year, the North Carolina Tar Heels enjoyed plenty of sustained success.
UNC’s lone national championship last season came from the field hockey team, which came back to beat Northwestern in a shootout, for its NCAA-leading 11th national title. Women’s tennis, men’s track and field, fencing and men’s golf also won ACC titles – in addition to field hockey.
North Carolina returned to men’s basketball glory during the 2023-2024 campaign, winning its first ACC Regular Season Title since 2018 and making the NCAA Tournament after a year’s absence. Most recently, the Diamond Heels won the ACC Regular Season Championship and made the College World Series.
UNC made its athletic presence felt in the ACC once again, but it wasn’t the conference’s only school to dominate in athletics last season.
To get an idea of the ACC’s dominance, just take a look at this graphic below:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C9U0XwZzvCq/
ACC is quietly one of the top conferences in women’s basketball, thanks in particular to NC State and Virginia Tech. For people saying the ACC had a “down” year in men’s basketball, five schools – North Carolina, Duke, Clemson, NC State and Virginia all made the NCAA Tournament, all but Virginia won a game and the Wolfpack enjoyed a run to the Final Four.
Every ACC football program but Virginia, Pitt and Wake Forest made a bowl game last year. Florida State was the most successful – despite entering bowl season a perfect 13-0, it didn’t make the College Football Playoff.
With the College Football Playoff being expanded to 12 teams this coming fall, will multiple ACC teams make it?
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